What are ECVs?

The ECV journey starts with the high-level governance and definitions provided by GCOS and GOOS, which establish the scientific rationale and policy relevance of Essential Climate Variables. These definitions are then operationalized through technical representations in the NERC Vocabulary Server (NVS), where standardised terms are managed, and further structured by semantic mappings based on the i-adopt framework to ensure interoperability and machine-actionability. Building on this technical foundation, the ECVs can be exposed through ENVRI services, where the ENVRI-Hub provides integrated access. This allows researchers and stakeholders to search, identify, and use ECVs in a consistent and human-readable way, connecting governance-level definitions with practical discovery and application.