Since 1991, IPSL has built a data repository and a collective research framework in the greater Paris region (Ile-de-France) to better understand and model the Earth’s climate system, its evolution and to quantify the impacts of human activities on its various components. ESPRI is the result of the integration since 1995 of several initiatives that originated at IPSL and its laboratories: the ClimServ data center for the computing, archiving and distribution of satellite and long-term data at the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ether national data and service center for atmospheric chemistry and the CICLAD computing server at the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University, to which were attached services linked to the storage, analysis and distribution of climate modeling data as the French contribution to the global infrastructure known as the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). For over 30 years, ESPRI’s existence has been legitimized above all by the need of users in the climate and environmental science community to easily access and exploit different datasets for their analyses.
The timeline of ESPRI construction is the following:
First activities on data at IPSL
1997
The first discussions and coordination on collective data management appear to IPSL as a service to laboratories.
Climserv server at LMD, Ecole Polytechnique
1996
Computer resources and databases are pooled for the benefit of LMD research projects, which decide to pool their resources. The ClimServ server was born, laying the foundations for what would become ESPRI.
Ether thematic data center
2000
The national atmospheric chemistry data center, Ether, is created at IPSL as the first step in the national landscape of thematic centers for the management of Earth observation data.
CICLAD cluster at Sorbonne Université
2008
Like ClimServ, the CICLAD computing cluster has been set up at Sorbonne University, combining the proximity of computing resources and shared databases.
PRODIGUER team
2011
The PRODIGUER team is created to manage simulations from IPSL climate models and support IPSL contribution to IPCC intercomparison projects (CMIP).
ESPRI-Obs team
2015
The 3 ClimServ, Ether and SIRTA teams are merged and officially recognized as a Service and Data Centre of the AERIS national atmospheric thematic center.
ESPRI-Mod and ESPRI-Infra
2017
The PRODIGUER team changes its name to ESPRI-Mod, and the infrastructure team becomes ESPRI-Infra, enabling full ESPRI integration.
Coordination of the three teams ESPRI-Infra, Mod, Obs
2019
The effective coordination of the three services begins, in particular with the implementation of cross-functional technical projects.
ESPRI-IA
2020
The ESPRI-IA working group was created to pool GPU resources and provide best practices on Machine/Deep Learning at IPSL.
CNRS Crystal Prize
2021
ESPRI receives the CNRS Collective Crystal Prize.
ESPRI is CoreTrusTeal certified
2024
ESPRI receives the CoreTrusTeal international certification.
