Centre for Climate Research Singapore

The Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) is a research centre and research division of the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), within the National Environment Agency. It was officially launched in March 2013 to build expertise in tropical weather and climate, with particular attention to Singapore and Southeast Asia (NEA, MSS divisions; CCRS, Who We Are). CCRS is therefore a research institution inside Singapore's meteorological authority, not a separate weather-warning agency, climate regulator or coastal-construction body.

Research role

CCRS organises its core research around four connected areas: climate projections, seasonal outlooks, weather prediction, and understanding weather and climate processes. Climate-projection work generates scenarios for national resilience planning; seasonal-outlook work studies variability affecting Singapore and the surrounding region; weather-prediction work improves numerical weather prediction and nowcasting; and process research develops understanding of the tropical systems needed to improve models (CCRS, Research Areas). The centre also supports high-resolution modelling and research computing, including the SINGV numerical weather-prediction system for Singapore and the surrounding region (CCRS, Who We Are).

Research programmes and coordination

CCRS's Climate and Weather Research Programme Office (CWRPO) coordinates national research programmes and collaborative work with institutes of higher learning and research institutes. The office was renamed from the Climate Science Research Programme Office with effect from 10 February 2025, reflecting its expanded weather-and-climate remit. Its programme portfolio includes the completed S$6.5 million National Sea Level Programme launched in 2020, the S$23.5 million Climate Impact Science Research Programme launched in 2022, and the S$25 million Weather Science Research Programme launched in March 2025 (CCRS, CWRPO). These are programme allocations and research frameworks, not automatic grants to every researcher or household.

CAWRAS and climate projections

The Climate and Weather Research Alliance Singapore (CAWRAS) was established on 5 September 2025 by NEA, A*STAR, NTU Singapore and NUS under a collaborative framework led by CCRS. CAWRAS implements WSRP and supports future weather-and-climate research and talent development; its existence does not mean that all research outputs are already operational public forecasts (CCRS, CWRPO). Separately, CCRS led Singapore's Third National Climate Change Study (V3), whose results were launched in January 2024 and are used by public agencies and local institutes for downstream climate-impact studies (MSE, Climate Game Changer).

How to interpret CCRS outputs

CCRS research informs forecasts, climate projections and adaptation planning, but a projection is not a prediction of one fixed future and a research programme is not a physical adaptation project. Questions about a specific forecast should use MSS's operational products and the relevant date and location. Questions about sea-level defences should be routed to the responsible coastal-planning and engineering agencies, while questions about climate scenarios should identify the study version, baseline and emissions pathway rather than treating all CCRS outputs as interchangeable (NEA, MSS divisions).