Note: When you click on links below you may be leaving the CLIMAR-II website.
Recommendations from CLIMAR-II, Brussels 2003.
D. Climate Monitoring
All observations should be taken following the GCOS Climate Monitoring Principles, remembering that any distinction between "operational" and "climate" observations is artificial.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: This philosophy is being pressed widely on the operational agencies.
Because remotely sensed data are an important part of the climate record, it is recommended that the continuity and overlap of satellite missions should be planned in line with the GCOS Climate Monitoring Principles.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: This philosophy is being pressed widely on the operational agencies, including through a letter from the Chair of the World Climate Research Programme Joint Scientific Committee Prof Peter Lemke to the Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations and the Committee for Earth Observation Satellites. Money is likely to be a constraint.
It is important that we improve dialogue between Numerical Weather Prediction, climate and data-generation communities, through for example the GCOS Panels. Some CLIMAR-II participants should attend the JCOMM Products Workshop (OCEAN OPS04) (Toulouse, 10-15 May 2004) to broaden its scope.
Status: Some progress
Notes: Several CLIMAR-II attendees attended the OCEAN OPS04 Workshop (http://www.meteo.fr/marine/oceanops04/) [6 January 2011 note: URL no longer available]. Other meetings attended included the UK Met Office User Forum for Observations, Met Office, Exeter, May 2004. Considerable debate on the application of Reanalyses to climate is ongoing through the US Climate Change Science Program Synthesis Product on Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere. This was developed further at the Workshop on Understanding Vertical Profiles of Temperature Trends held at the Met Office, Exeter, UK, 13-17 Sept 2004. A JCOMM Ship Observations Team meeting (SOT-III) took place in Brest 7-12 March 2005.
To ensure the extension of adequate climate observations into the future, it is necessary to define target accuracies for fields of each of the basic meteorological variables (SST, MAT, SLP, humidity, wind speed and direction, waves, cloud cover) and for their combination into flux fields (sensible heat, latent heat, longwave radiation, shortwave radiation, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, momentum). The adequacy of the observations collected, as measured against these requirements, should be regularly assessed. The Second Adequacy Report on the GCOS (GCOS, 2003) has already given an overall assessment, but the Statements of Guidance (SOG) on observing requirements for climate need to be completed and regularly updated through the GCOS Panels.
Status: Some progress
Notes: AOPC-X (April 2004) requested that the SOGs on Monitoring Climate Change and Monitoring Climate Variability reviewed at this session be provided to CCl for further review by appropriate CCl Expert Teams (ETs) and individuals, and subsequently be submitted through these ETs to the CBS ET-ODRRGOS. It noted that CCl was in the process of developing additional SOGs for climate applications and agreed that it should review these as appropriate as part of the process of submitting them to the ET-ODRRGOS. The Panel further recommended that formal ownership of these SOGs reside within the CCl structure.
Recommendations for standards in instrument location, mast
design, stability.
Status: Some progress
Notes: Frank Bradley, Chris Fairall, and Shawn Smith are drafting a
handbook outlining the best procedures and practices for marine
meteorological measurement on research vessels. The handbook focuses
on practices that will ensure one's ability to calculate accurate
turbulent air-sea fluxes. A first draft of the handbook should be
completed by the end of 2005 and the content will be reviewed at the
1st Joint GOSUD/SAMOS workshop in May 2006. Developing the handbook is
a priority of the SAMOS initiative and the WCRP Working Group on
Surface Fluxes.
Develop, through JCOMM and its Expert Team on Marine Climatology (ETMC), a list of appropriate climate indices for winds, waves and SLP. Indices are a logical update in technology to marine meteorological summaries under the Marine Climatological Summaries Scheme (MCSS). Development of climate indices should be done in liaison with the WMO/CLIVAR/CCl Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices, and with the GCOS Panels.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: AOPC-X (April 2004) reiterated the value of establishing an open Web site presenting a selected group of climate indices and requested the Chairman (Mike Manton) to liaise with the UK Met Office (Chris Folland) to complete this initiative. ETMC discussed the existing MCSS scheme at its first session (Gdynia, Poland, 7-10 July 2004), but agreed that the development of useful climatic indices might need different aspects of expertise than were available on the ETMC-it encouraged the Task Team on Ocean Product Development to consider this issue.
The Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) should support extra spectral ocean wave measurements at existing sites in the Southern Ocean and tropics.
Status:
Notes:
Investigate the inclusion of wave information in ICOADS summaries.
Status:
Notes:
For further information, or to provide status updates, contact:
