EC-PHORS-6/Doc.3.1.2(1), p. 2
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATIONEXECUTIVE COUNCIL
PANEL OF EXPERTS ON POLAR AND HIGH MOUNTAIN OBSERVATIONS, RESEARCH AND SERVICES
Sixth session
Reykjavik, Iceland, 8-11 September 2015 / EC-PHORS-6/Doc.3.1.2(1), REV.1
Submitted by: J. Key, Secretariat
Date: 8.9.2015
AGENDA ITEM: 3.1
Global cryosphere watch (GCW)
SUMMARY
This document provides a summary of recent Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) progress and a decision of Cg-17 regarding GCW.
ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED:1. Recent activities of the Global Cryosphere Watch
2. Resolution 43 (Cg-17) - Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)
DECISIONS/ACTIONS REQUIRED:
1. Provide comments on GCW activities.
2. Follow-up decisions of Cg-17 contained in Resolution 43 (Cg-17), especially to mainstream and implement GCW in WMO Programmes as a cross-cutting activity.
REFERENCES:
1. Cg-17/Doc. 4.2.6(2), REV.1,
3. Annex 1: Resolution 43 (Cg-17) - Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)
1. HIGHLIGHTS
· The 17th World Meteorological Congress decided to to mainstream and implement GCW in WMO Programmes as a cross-cutting activity, and requested that a GCW project office be established.
· 36 stations were selected for CryoNet and approved by Cg-17.
· The first South America CryoNet Workshop was held in Santiago, Chile, October 2014.
· One GCW Steering Group (GSG) and two joint CryoNet and Portal Teams meetings were held.
· The GCW framework and surface network structures were revised.
2. WORKSHOPS AND MEETINGS SINCE EC-PORS-4
2.1 World Meteorological Congress (Cg-17), Geneva
The 17th World Meteorological Congress was held in Geneva, Switzerland, 25 May – 12 June 2015. A special panel discussion on WMO’s polar activities was held as a side event on 28 May. The panel discussion included the activities of the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW), the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), and other activities of the WMO Executive Council Panel of Experts on Polar Observations, Research, and Services (EC-PORS). It was very well attended, with over 70 participants from around the world, including the directors of many meteorological service agencies.
Congress decided to mainstream and implement GCW in WMO Programmes as a cross cutting activity and requested that the Secretary-General ensure, to the extent possible within available resources, management of, and provide support to, the implementation of GCW and to establish a GCW Project Office. Congress agreed that the GCW Implementation Plan should be the guiding document for the implementation of the GCW. Congress also agreed that an immediate priority for GCW is to establish CryoNet, which is one of the four WMO Integrated Global Observing System (WIGOS) component observing systems and agreed on 36 CryoNet sites that will be used for the pre-operational testing phase.
Topics for discussion: See Annex 1, Cg-17 Resolution 43 on GCW. The important decisions were: (1) mainstream and implement GCW in WMO Programmes as a cross-cutting activity, and (2) implementation activities will be undertaken during the next financial period as one of the major efforts of the Organization with the goal that GCW should become operational.
2.2 GCW Steering Group and CryoNet and Portal Teams, Copenhagen
GCW held two meetings in Copenhagen, Denmark, 19-23 January 2015. The CryoNet Team and the Portal and Website Team worked on issues of satellite product intercomparisons and inventories, product metadata, portal interoperability with various data centers and information systems, and the CryoNet site application form. The GCW Steering Group met for higher-level discussions of GCW activities, progress, and plans. The meetings were hosted by the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).
Two major outcomes of these meetings were the restructuring of the GCW framework and the redefinition of “sites” and “stations” in the GCW surface network. These changes are detailed below.
2.3 South America CryoNet Workshop, Santiago de Chile
The 1st CryoNet South America Workshop was held 27-29 October 2014 in Santiago, Chile, with the attendance of 65 participants from 16 countries. GCW sponsored the meeting; co-sponsors included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, the University of Magallanes, Chile (UMAG), the Chilean Weather Service (DMC), the Chilean Water Directorate (DGA), the University of Talca, Chile (UTAL), and the company Geoestudios, Chile. It was concluded that systematic long-term monitoring of the cryosphere is critically needed in Latin America, especially in view of the drastic changes in snow and ice masses at a continental scale. In this regard CryoNet Latin America will provide a key contribution to the global CryoNet initiative.
National representatives were nominated for Mexico, Colombia, Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
2.4 Joint CryoNet and Portal Team Meeting, Davos, Switzerland
GCW held a meeting of CryoNet and Portal Teams in Davos, Switzerland, 11-13 June 2014. The meeting was hosted by the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research. The teams worked on issues of satellite product intercomparisons and inventories, product metadata, portal interoperability with various data centers and information systems, and a CryoNet site questionnaire, which is essentially an application to become part of the GCW surface network.
2.5 SnowPEX Snow Product Intercomparison Workshop
The first International Satellite Snow Product Intercomparison and Evaluation Experiment Workshop (SnowPEx) was held in College Park, Maryland, USA, 21-23 July 2014 at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. SnowPEX is an international collaborative effort, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), aiming to intercompare and evaluate satellite-based seasonal snow cover products of hemispheric to global extent in order to assess their accuracy, resolve possible discrepancies and elaborate guidelines for further improvement. The SnowPEX project is an extension of the "Snow Watch" intercomparison project initiated by GCW’s Snow Watch group (now Team) in 2013.
2.6 Upcoming Meetings
The following GCW meetings will take place before EC-PHORS-7:
· GCW CryoNet Team Meeting Fifth Session; Boulder, USA, 7-8 December 2015
· GCW Steering Group meeting Third Session; Boulder, USA, 9-11 December 2015
· 2nd GCW CryoNet Asia Workshop, Salekhard, Russian Federation, 2-5 February 2016
3. GCW FRAMEWORK
The organizational framework presented at EC-PORS-5 has changed somewhat as a result of discussions at the Copenhagen CryoNet and GCW Steering Group (GSG) meetings. The framework has been updated in the Implementation Plan and on the GCW website.
The major change is the task team structure. Working Groups, which were present in a different form in the original GCW framework but later eliminated, have returned. Three Working Groups have been established:
· the Observations Working Group,
· the Integrated Products Working Group, and
· the Information and Services Working Group.
Working Groups establish Teams, as needed, to address the priority tasks defined in the work plans of the Groups. Initially, the Observations Working Group includes the CryoNet Team, the Best Practices Team, and the Solid Precipitation Team. The Integrated Products Working Group includes the Snow Watch Team. The Information and Services Working Group contains the Portal Team, the Terminology Team, and the Website and Outreach Team. All Working Groups and Teams will facilitate interaction between the operational and research communities.
4. STEERING GROUP AND TEAM MEMBERSHIP CHANGES
Changes in the GCW Steering Group (GSG) membership are as follows: Eric Brun and Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten have left the GSG. Charles Fierz (WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Switzerland, and IACS) has been added.
As a result of the new Working Group and Team structure, team memberships have changed somewhat. EC-PHORS-6/Doc.3.1.2(5) gives the current GSG, WG, and Team memberships. It also provides team descriptions and work plans.
Topic for discussion: The procedures for approval of team and GSG members need to be formalized. EC-PORS-5 (Wellington, NZ) decided that EC-PORS (EC-PHORS) will only approve the membership of the GCW Steering Group (GSG); the membership of Teams will be a responsibility of the GSG. It is proposed that the Steering Group discuss memberships, including its own, at its annual meetings unless there is an urgent need to fill a gap. To update the membership of the GSG, a current GSG member should make a proposal to the GSG. To update the membership of the Teams, the chair of the Team should make a proposal to the GSG. In urgent cases the respective chairs of the GCW teams should submit a proposal to the GSG Chair and Vice-Chair for consideration. The Secretariat will follow up.
5. CRYONET
5.1 Network Structure
The GCW surface observation network is comprised of a core component, called CryoNet, and contributing stations that are not part of CryoNet. The GCW network builds on existing cryosphere observing programmes and promotes the addition of standardized cryospheric observations to existing facilities in order to create more robust environmental observatories.
At the Copenhangen CryoNet and Steering Group meetings the definitions and structure of the GCW surface network were revised. The basic component of the GCW network, including its core network CryoNet, is the station. The term “station” was selected in favor of the previously used term “site” in order to be consistent with WMO observing network terminology. CryoNet stations must meet a minimum set of requirements, as given on the GCW website (http://www.globalcryospherewatch.org/cryonet/station_requirements.html).
There are two types of stations based on their length of record and long-term commitment: Primary Stations and Baseline Stations. The term “sites” is still used in CryoNet but its meaning has changed. A site generally encompasses an area greater than a conventional observing station, and has two or more active GCW surface-based stations with varying capabilities that are coordinated as a local cluster. CryoNet has Basic Sites and Integrated Sites. See the Implementation Plan or the website for more information.
Contributing stations are those that provide useful measurements of the cryosphere but whose data records may be shorter or with large gaps, do not completely follow CryoNet measurement practices, or in some other way do not provide the quality and consistency of data required of CryoNet stations.
5.2 CryoNet Site Selection
Congress recognized that an immediate priority for GCW is to establish CryoNet, the core standardized network of GCW surface-based measurement sites. CryoNet is one of the four WIGOS component observing systems. Through extensive collaboration with partners, more than 100 sites have been proposed for CryoNet, of which 36 will be used for the pre-operational testing phase. Most of these sites were proposed as a result of the CryoNet workshops in Asia (Beijing, December 2013) and South America (Santiago de Chile, October 2014).
Congress (Cg-17) requested EC-PHORS and the GCW Steering Group to continue evaluating these and any new sites,in particular in the marine environment in cooperation with JCOMM, and to submit the list of CryoNet sites for approval by EC in 2016.
6. GCW IMPLEMENTATION PLAN (IP)
The GCW Implementation Plan (IP) was updated for Cg-17. It is available on the GCW website.
7. PORTAL AND WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
The GCW website (http://globalcryospherewatch.org) has not changed substantially in a structural sense since EC-PORS-5. It has, however, grown in content. The most significant change is in the CryoNet station/site questionnaire. Work on the questionnaire began at the first CryoNet meeting in Iceland (January 2014) and continued in Davos (June 2014). It was near final in time for the South America CryoNet meeting (October 2014). Station information provided through the questionnaire is used to dynamically generate a web page for each station. (http://globalcryospherewatch.org/cryonet/sites.php; click on any station.)
Other changes to the website content include:
· A new structure for listing and displaying the surface network.
· A Snow Watch inventory of snow datasets.
· Additional products in the Cryosphere Now.
· Updates to the measurement methods page that includes additional resources.
· New assessments in the Cryosphere Now.
The GCW Data Portal, developed and hosted by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (Metno), is now “pre-operational” and available at http://gcw.met.no. The focus has been on extending the number of data centres that GCW harvests as well as improving the metadata that is available. Doing so will allow for higher order functionality such as on-the-fly visualisation and data access through standardised interfaces suitable for process-oriented data. The Portal Team is evaluating software components in the Metno system to increase user interface flexibility and reduce maintenance costs. The Team is exploring the potential for collaboration on software with both the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN) and the National Snow and Ice Data Cener (NSIDC). The plan is for the GCW Data Portal to become a WMO Information System (WIS) Data Collection and Production Center (DCPC).
8. SNOW WATCH ACTIVITES
The first International Satellite Snow Product Intercomparison and Evaluation Experiment Workshop (SnowPEx) was held in the USA in July 2014. B. Goodison gave a presentation on GCW. Members of the GCW Snow Watch Team participated in the meeting. The second SnowPEx workshop will be held 14-16 September 2015 in Boulder, Colorado, USA. J. Key will attend and will give a presentation on the role of product intercomparison studies in GCW.
An outcome of the SnowPEx workshop and the efforts of the GCW Snow Watch Team is an inventory of snow cover datasets. This was a recommendation of the first GCW Snow-Watch meeting in Toronto, January 2013. That workshop highlighted the need for an up-to-date and comprehensive inventory of snow cover datasets in light of the significant increases in sources of snow cover information over the past decade. The inventory is provided in three categories: (1) Satellite-derived snow products and datasets, (2) Analyses, reanalyses and reanalysis-driven snow products and datasets, and (3) In-situ snow products and datasets. A dataset must be freely available online, represent an important source of information, and have supporting English documentation to be included in the inventory. The inventory is meant as a living document with updates and additions incorporated on an ongoing basis. The inventory is availabe at http://www.globalcryospherewatch.org/reference/snow_inventory.php.
9. OTHER ACTIVITIES
Other progress includes:
· The GCW set of handouts has been updated. New handouts include the GCW Website, Snow Watch, and Snow Watch Reporting.
· GEO: GCW provided some input on the GEO Cold Regions Implementation Plan summary.
Annex 1
Resolution 43 (Cg-17) - the Global cryosphere watch (GCW)
THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL CONGRESS,
Noting:
(1) Resolution 60 (Cg-XVI) – Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW),
(2) The Sixteenth Congress decision to develop the Global Cryosphere Watch as an IPY legacy with the goal of achieving an operational GCW,