ICTP - the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics

Founded in 1964 by Abdus Salam (Nobel Laureate), the UNESCO‐ICTP operates under the aegis of two United Nations Agencies: UNESCO (United Nations organisation for Education, Science and Culture) and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and has a seat agreement with the Government of Italy, which provides the major part of the Centre's funding.

The main aim of the UNESCO-­‐ICTP is to foster the growth of advanced studies and research in physical and mathematical sciences, especially in developing countries. UNESCO-­‐ICTP acts as an international forum for scientific contacts between scientists from all countries. It provides facilities to conduct original research to its visitors, associates and fellows. The main research fields of interest at UNESCO-­‐ICTP are: Mathematics, Physics of Condensed Matter, Physics of High Energies, Earth System Physics, Physics of the Living State, Digital Communications and Computer Networking. The Earth System Physics section (ESP) was established in 2005 and conducts research on regional climate modelling, anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability, chemistry-­‐climate interactions, biosphere-­‐ atmosphere interactions, climate impacts (hydrology, agriculture and health), seismology, physics of the lithosphere, earthquake prediction. The ESP maintains and develops a state-­‐of-­‐the-­‐art regional climate model (RegCM). This model was developed during the last two decades and has been used for a wide variety of applications, from paleo-­‐climate to possible future climate simulations at the regional scale. The RegCM has been run at horizontal grid intervals of 15-­‐100 km and it has capability of interactive coupling to an aerosol model, an air quality model, a biosphere model, a one dimensional lake model and an ocean model.