The Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK) at KIT was jointly founded in 1985 by the former Karlsruhe Research Center and the former University of Karlsruhe and was thus a model for the creation of KIT. Today, four independent institutes belong to the IMK family. In addition to the two "founding institutes" IMKTRO and IMKASF, the third institute, Atmospheric Aerosol Research (IMKAAF), was established in 1995 together with the Institute for Environmental Physics at the University of Heidelberg. Emerging from the Fraunhofer Institute for Atmospheric Environmental Research in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with a history of more than 60 years, the IMKIFU has been the fourth institute of the IMK at the KIT - Campus Alpin in Garmisch-Partenkirchen since 2002.

Organizationally, the institutes at KIT are assigned to Department IV "Natural and Built Environment". They contribute significantly to the program topic "Atmosphere under Global Change" of the Helmholtz Association in the research field "Earth and Environment" and participate with their research in the KIT centers "Climate and Environment" and "MathSEE".

The four institutes jointly operate the "Karlsruhe Integrated Atmospheric Observation System" (KIAOS), contribute their expertise and data to the development of the Helmholtz Association's DataHub and work closely together on other coordinated research projects and in relation to teaching at KIT.

University lecturers offer the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs "Meteorology and Climate Physics" at the KIT Faculty of Physics and are active at the KIT Faculty of Civil Engineering, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BGU) in the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs "Geodesy and Geoinformatics" and in the Master's degree program "Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics". There are also links to the universities of Heidelberg, Freiburg, Augsburg and Munich (TUM) via university lecturers at the IMKAAF and IMKIFU institutes.