Setting the scene: mid-2020s

In December 2015, governments adopted the Paris Agreement with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 °C (relative to the pre-industrial level). In the years that followed, it became clear that global greenhouse-gas emissions were not following that ambition: apart from a brief pandemic-related dip in 2020, emissions continued to rise and are reaching new heights (IEA 2025).

However, the physical response of the climate system does not negotiate: a higher radiative forcing means more warming (IPCC 2021). Since the curve of expected damages rises very steeply with additional warming (Stern 2007), every tenth of a degree still matters. We are speaking about losses in the order of trillions of euros until the end of this century (Mudelsee et al. 2025). These losses come from the tails of the distribution (climate extremes).

ACRE was founded in 2021 against this backdrop. Effective climate measures now combine mitigation with adaptation. Substantial losses and damages are already unavoidable (because of the inertia of the system), especially in tropical regions and parts of the Global South. In this reality, SDG 13 (Climate Action) has now to be understood as both reducing future warming and preparing for impacts that are already locked in.

Therefore, ACRE exists to strengthen society’s capacity to understand and manage the risk of climate extremes. Two central questions guide us:

Answering these requires rigorous, spatially explicit and time-resolved statistical data analysis — from global and continental scales down to countries, regions, cities, villages and neighbourhoods, and along the time axis through analysis of observations and model output data.

Because many of the most affected regions are in low- and middle-income countries, analytical and decision-making capacity needs to grow within those countries, not only in institutions of the Global North. ACRE addresses this by developing and delivering elements of SDG 4 (Quality Education) that enable motivated humans in research, agencies, NGOs and companies to work with climate and environmental data themselves. Through its training and projects, ACRE aims to contribute in a concrete, accessible way to SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

ACRE was founded and is run by Manfred Mudelsee, a physicist, climate researcher and statistician. He studied physics and obtained a doctorate in natural sciences in Germany, focused on marine geology, paleoclimate and data analysis, and later worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the UK, deepening his expertise in quantitative methods for climate and environmental data. His work combines physical reasoning with data-driven and computer-age statistical methods – including Monte Carlo simulations, bootstrap resampling and nonparametric, robust time-series approaches – to analyse trends, variability and extremes. Through ACRE he focuses on education and capacity building: helping researchers, agencies, NGOs and companies – especially in low- and middle-income countries – to develop their own analytical sovereignty when working with climate and environmental data. ACRE collaborates closely with partner institutions and, where appropriate, with Climate Risk Analysis – Manfred’s complementary consulting activity – to bring specialised expertise and long-standing experience to joint projects.