Singapore, 4 March 2025 – The Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), under the National Environment Agency (NEA), has launched a $25 million Weather Science Research Programme (WSRP). The new programme aims to enhance Singapore’s ability to understand and predict our tropical urban weather, including extreme weather arising from climate change. The WSRP, funded under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan, is now open for research proposals from local research institutions.

2          Climate change poses significant challenges for Singapore and the wider Southeast Asian region. Singapore’s Third National Climate Change Study, led by the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) [1] under MSS, projects higher temperatures, more extreme wet and dry periods, and rising mean sea levels by the end of the century. Singapore is located in the deep-tropics where weather prediction is particularly challenging, due to the complexity of dominant local weather processes like thunderstorms and fine-scale interactions with local features such as coasts and the urban landscape. Recent advancements in weather research and technology, such as high-resolution modelling, artificial intelligence and enhanced remote-sensing observational networks, present opportunities to tackle the challenges of tropical local weather prediction.

3            Through the new programme, MSS aims to build weather science capability in the national research ecosystem. CCRS will work with Institutes of Higher Learning and Research Institutes to improve weather prediction for Singapore and the region by incorporating the latest scientific and technological developments in this area.

4          For example, researchers will use artificial intelligence (AI) to combine data from various sources, potentially enhancing predictions of heavy rainfall and strong winds. The programme will also develop advanced weather prediction systems that consider how local weather is affected by ocean and land conditions, which could improve our ability to forecast phenomena like Sumatra squalls. Scientists will also investigate new ways of incorporating weather observations, such as those from polar-orbiting environmental satellites and ground-based radars, for more accurate and timely weather forecasts.

5          A key initiative under the new programme is to create a detailed historical weather re-analysis over recent decades for Southeast Asia – the first of its kind in the region. This comprehensive dataset will offer valuable insights into past weather patterns and provide a valuable dataset to leverage AI for local weather prediction. WSRP projects are expected to be awarded in the second half of 2025.

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[1] CCRS is a research centre under MSS and part of NEA. It was officially launched in March 2013, with the vision to be a world leading centre in tropical climate and weather research focusing on the Southeast Asia region.

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