Climate Sense

[

] 133

bserving

, P

redicting

and

rojecting

limate

onditions

Programme and related international programmes

which would serve its end-user objectives.

The planning and implementation of GCOS over the 19

years since WCC-2 has been guided by a GCOS Steering

Committee (originally entitled Joint Scientific and

Technical Committee) supported by a small WMO-based

Secretariat. The role of the Steering Committee has been

to advise GCOS sponsors, and those responsible for their

observing systems, on how to ensure those systems most

effectively meet the total global needs for climate and

climate related observations.

The foundation for GCOS from the beginning has

been the GOS of the World Weather Watch, maintained

by the NMSs of the now 188 WMO Member countries,

along with the much more comprehensive networks

operated by NMSs for national weather forecasting and

climate purposes. This has been strongly reinforced

by the completion, in recent years, of one of the most

important components of GOOS, the network of Argo

floats. These provide temperature and salinity profiles

of the upper 1,500 metres of the ocean, the key layer

for coupled atmosphere-ocean modelling on seasonal to

interannual timescales.

During the late 1990s, GCOS implementation shifted

from its initial emphasis on support of climate research

and services to support of the UNFCCC, with a major

‘Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System

for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC’ completed in

2004 and a recent progress report revealing significant

progress over the past five years.

Another important development of the past

decade was the establishment of the Global Earth

Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) as an even

broader system of systems serving nine identified

Societal Benefits Areas (SBAs) with the objectives of

the climate SBA essentially identical with those of

GCOS.

With the establishment of GEOSS, and the

recent shift in emphasis under the UNFCCC to adap-

tation to climate variability and change, the focus

of GCOS is again returning to support for climate

services in aid of the full range of applications at the

national level.

This shift is particularly timely in the context

of World Climate Conference-3, with its focus on

climate information and prediction for decision-

making, and the proposed new Global Framework for

Climate Services. It is clear that any such framework

must include, in addition to effective operational

service provision systems and user applications

(essentially a user oriented world climate services

system), the fundamentally important underpin-

ning role of observations through GCOS and

research through WCRP. Such an observation and

research-based world climate services system, when

implemented, will parallel and complement the role

of the WMO-UNEP IPCC and UNFCCC, in support-

ing the mitigation end of the adaptation-mitigation

spectrum of actions for addressing the challenges of

climate variability and change.

(UNEP, IOC and ICSU) took the initiative to establish GCOS

as a ‘system of systems’ built on their existing global observ-

ing networks. Especially important components were the WMO

Global Observing System (GOS) and Global Atmosphere Watch

(GAW), and the emerging Global Ocean Observing System

(GOOS) and Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS).

The aim was to underpin the increasingly important climate

monitoring and service needs of countries. This was reflected

in the renaming of the WCDP as the World Climate Data and

Monitoring Programme (WCDMP), and the WCAP as the World

Climate Applications and Services Programme (WCASP).

The objectives of GCOS were identified as providing the observa-

tional information needed for:

• Climate system monitoring

• Climate change detection and attribution

• Research to improve understanding, modelling and prediction of

the climate system

• Operational climate prediction on seasonal to interannual times-

cales

• Assessment of the impact of, and vulnerability and adapta-

tion to, natural climate variability and human induced climate

change

• Applications and services for sustainable economic development

• Requirements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate

Change (UNFCCC) and other international conventions and

agreements.

It was not intended that, even as an integrated system of systems,

GCOS should meet these end-user needs itself. Rather, GCOS was

designed to support the various components of the World Climate

A new Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)

LAND

ADAPTATION

MITIGATION

LING

APPLICATION

UNFCCC (POLICY)

GCOS (OBSERVATIONS)

WORLD

CLIMATE

SERVICES

SYSTEM

(WCSS)

IPCC (ASSESSMENT)

WCRP (RESEARCH)

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), providing the observational

foundation for the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and

development of a user focused world climate services system as part of a new

Global Framework for Climate Services, which will complement the climate

change assessment role of the IPCC and the policy role of the UNFCCC