The WCRP mission is to facilitate analysis and prediction of Earth system variability and change for use in an increasing range of practical applications of direct relevance, benefit and value to society. The two overarching objectives of the WCRP are to determine the predictability of climate; and to determine the effect of human activities on climate.

Recent progress in the understanding of climate system variability and change makes it possible to gauge its predictability, and to use this predictive knowledge in developing adaptation and mitigation strategies. Such strategies assist global communities in responding to the impacts of climate variability and change on major social and economic sectors including food security, energy and transport, environment, health and water resources.

The main foci of WCRP research are:

- observing changes in the components of the Earth system (atmosphere, oceans, land and cryosphere) and in the interfaces between these components;
- improving our knowledge and understanding of global and regional climate variability and change, and of the mechanisms responsible for this change;
- assessing and attributing significant trends in global and regional climates;
- developing and improving numerical models that are capable of simulating and assessing the climate system for a wide range of space and time scales; and
- investigating the sensitivity of the climate system to natural and human-induced forcing and estimating the changes resulting from specific disturbing influences.

The World Climate Research Programme is sponsored by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.