The CORDEX (Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) program runs under the mandate of the WCRP Working Group on Regional Climate (WGRC) and complements the WCRP Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) which oversees the CMIP data development. CORDEX seeks to develop regional climate projections for all terrestrial regions through Regional Climate Models (RCMs) and Empirical-Statistical downscaling (ESD).

 CORDEX has generated substantial interest and raised expectations worldwide. To date, this is largely on the basis of downscaling with MultiGCM/MultiRCM pairings. In contrast, ESD methods are recognized as of equivalent skill with different advantages (some of special relevance to adaptation issues) and also different shortcomings compared to using RCMs. However, ESD's potential has not been explored as substantially or as systematically as that of RCMs, creating a gap in overall assessment for the application of downscaling by the impacts and adaptation communities.

 The sequence of three ESD workshops are funded in part by the National Science Foundation in the USA, and seeks to close the gap with RCM products and leverage the benefits of ESD to complement the RCM based work. The workshops bring together scientists active in ESD in order to establish a standard framework of ESD activities that contribute to CORDEX and complement the equivalent RCM product suite, and to build on existing climate activities.