This is the home page for COAPEC (Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Processes and European Climate), a Directed Science Programme of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The Earth's climate varies on a wide range of timescales as a result of natural processes and anthropogenic influences. Interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere play a major role in governing this variability. While there has been substantial recent progress in understanding the role of the tropical Pacific Ocean in these interactions, the role of the Atlantic Ocean is understood much less well.

The goal of COAPEC is to determine the impact on climate, especially European climate, of the coupling between the Atlantic Ocean and the atmosphere, including the influence of ENSO on this coupling.

The NERC have allocated £4.85M to COAPEC over 5 years from both Atmospheric and Marine Sciences. An additional £500K was made available to COAPEC during 2001 to fund new observations in support of COAPEC.

From this page you can to access useful background bibliographic information, lists of tools and datasets applicable to COAPEC science and the scientific results.