There are three panels in GEWEX: The Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project (CEOP), GEWEX Radiation Panel (GRP), and GEWEX Modeling and Prediction Panel (GMPP).
Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project The Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project (
CEOP) is the largest of the panel projects. There are several regional project areas most of these are now covered by CEOP
Areas For CEOP which survey the hydroclimate for southern African (AMMA), Baltic Sea area (BALTEX), North America (CPPA), Eastern Amazonia (LBA), La Plate Basin (LBB), Asia (MAHASRI), Australia (MDB), and Northern Eurasia (NEEPSI). Since GEWEX is an international cooperation it can utilize information from existing and planned satellites.
Objectives The CEOP project has a number of energy budget and water cycle objectives. First is to produce more consistent research with better error definitions. Second is to better determine how energy flux and water cycles involve in feedback mechanisms. Third is to the predictability of important variables and improved parametric analysis to better model these processes. Fourth, to collaborate with other hydrological science projects to create tools for assessing the water-system consequences of predictions and global climate change.
GEWEX Radiation Panel GEWEX Radiation panel (
GRP) is a collaborative organization with a goal of reviewing theoretical and experimental knowledge of radiative processes within the climate system. Sixty percent of the energy that comes to Earth from the Sun is transformed by the earth. The goals of this collaboration is to determine how energy is transformed as it inevitably is radiated back into space.
Global precipitation climatology project GPCP task was to estimate precipitation using satellites that were global including places where people were not present to take measurements. Secondarily the project was tasked with studying regional precipitation on seasonal to between year time scales. As the study period of the project increased past 25 years a third objective was added analyze long-term variation, such as that caused by
global warming. Also, in a renewed effort for better data and with more observation satellites, the GPCP, hopes to gain insights to rainfall variation on 'weather'-scale, or 4-hour periods to daily time scales.
Global Aerosol Climatology Project Established by Radiation Sciences Program(NASA) and GEWEX in 1998 to analyze satellite and field data to determine the distribution of aerosols, how they are formed, transformed and transported.
GEWEX Cloud Assessment Project The GEWEX cloud assessment was initiated by the GEWEX Radiation Panel (GRP) in 2005 to evaluate the reliability of available, global, long-term cloud data products, with a special emphasis on ISCCP.
GEWEX Modeling and Prediction Panel The GEWEX modelling and prediction panel (
GMPP) is charged with the task of finding better ways to use the data by other projects and other agencies. It oversees GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS), GEWEX Cloud System Study (GCSS), and Global Land/Atmosphere System Study(GLASS). Climate forcing is a process of study which observes the contribution of irregular events, such a volcano eruption, greenhouse warming, solar variation, fluctuations in the Earth's orbit, long-term variation in the oceans circulation. The GMPP exploits these natural perturbations to test models developed that should predict what happens to global energy and water budgets with the perturbations.
GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (
GABLS) is a more recent addition to GEWEX. The study is tasked with understanding the physical properties of the atmospheric boundary layers for better models which include representation of boundary layers.
GEWEX Cloud System Study GEWEX Cloud System Study (
GCSS) task is to individualize modelling for different types of cloud systems. GCSS identifies 5 types of cloud systems:boundary layer, cirrus, extra tropical layer, precipitating convective, and polar. These cloud systems are generally too small to be rationalized in large scale climate modelling, this results in inadequate development of equations resulting in greater statistical uncertainty in results. In order to rationalize these processes, the study observes cloud systems at single fixed positions on earth in order to better estimate their parameters. These four areas are: Azores and Madeira Islands, Barbados, Equatorial Western Pacific, and Atlantic Tropics. The initial data collection is complete, methods developed for land and aircraft-based observations can be compared with satellite observations so that better models of cloud system identification can be made at smaller scales.
Global Land/Atmosphere System Study Global Land/Atmosphere System Study (
GLASS) tries to understand the impact on land surface parameters on the atmosphere. Changes in land as a result of natural and man-made activities results in the ability to alter the local climate and affect wind and cloud formation.
Critique The GEWEX project has been in existence for over 30 years, and while some climate oscillations are short, such as El-Nino, some climate oscillations last for decades, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. Some have proposed extrapolating pre-GEWEX information using new information and measurements taken with pre-GEWEX technology. The MAGS project, located in Northwestern Canada utilized indigenous peoples traditional experiences. In addition, in other parts of the GEWEX study, these oscillations are an aspect of climate forcing, which allow testing of predictions and models. This modelling may be complicated by the fact that the North Atlantic Oscillation in switching state (see graph) as the effects of global warming are becoming more prominent. For example, 2006 and 2007 saw one of the most dramatic declines in Arctic Sea ice, a decline that was largely unpredicted and can shift the late summer albedo in the northern hemisphere. In 2008, sea ice extent decline has backed off from the previous years' trend, and researchers had forecast a strong La Nina event for late 2007 and 2008. However, unexpectedly the surface temperatures in the Eastern Pacific have already begun to rise to El-Nino temperature ranges, indicating the La Nina event may terminate unexpectedly. With this, the loss of Northern Polar sea ice has begun to accelerate back toward the earlier trend. Such rapid and unexpected changes in climate-forcing events eventually suggest that modellers need to include parameters such as ocean temperature thermoclines, energy accumulation in the tropical oceans, sea ice extents in the polar regions, land glacial ice retraction in Greenland, and sheet ice and shelf ice remodelling in Antarctica. When multiple climate-forcing influences are acting simultaneously in which one of the events will eventually take dominance, lack of precedents from the past study of similar confluences of events, as well as knowledge of the uncertainty of sensitive 'switches' in the oceanic/atmospheric switches may affect the ability to provide accurate models and predictions. In addition, sampling points may be spread to monitor leading indicators in one common scenario may be useless during an oscillation where the pool of energy shifts to an unmonitored region so that the magnitude of the shift avoids computation. An example of climate-forcing anomalies might be used to describe the events of 1998 to 2002, a strong El-Nino/La Nina cycle. The onset of the cycle can be influenced by global warming, which facilitated a larger increase of warm water in the tropics, rapidly enough that the thermocline was tolerant. A thermocline is a sharp temperature drop at depth; it varies during the year, with location, and over long periods of time. As the thermocline depth increases El-Nino events are more likely; however, during the peak of the event energy is dissipated and the thermocline decreases depth, possibly to below normal levels so the a strong La-Nina event can results. The world's oceans, particularly the depths of the Atlantic, are believed to be a sink for that is adsorbed at the polar regions, as this builds into the Pacific the upwelling and warming of water can bring -rich waters trapped in the cold pressurized bottom layers to the surface. Local increases of occur which allow more heat-trapping; the La-Nina may be mild or aborted early in the process. However, if the return of the thermocline has enough momentum it could propel a strong La-Nina event that last for a few years. However, rapid cooling in the Arctic can allow for more trapping and offset release of during La-Nina in a specific area. The Pacific Decadal Anomaly (PDA See image) may influence the source, direction or momentum of rise of the cold water component of the thermocline. The extent and duration of the PDA are yet unpredictable, and its modulating effects on El-Nino/La-Nina patterns can only be speculated. These unknowns affect the ability for climate modellers to predict and indicate climate-forcing models need to accurate a wider sampling of data to be predictive. There are also longer-term cycles, the
mini ice-age that preceded the
medieval warm period may have been a transition to an ice age, the last ice-age lasted from ~130,000 years ago until the onset of the Holocene. This ice-age may have been aborted by other factors including global warming. Such a stalling of long-term cycles is believed to be a factor in the Dryas period, a warming interrupted by surface impacts of extraterrestrial origin may have occurred over hundreds of years. But the anthropogenic greenhouse effects and changing insolation patterns may have unpredictable long-term effects. Reductions of glacial ice on land masses can cause isostatic rebounds and may affect earthquakes and volcanism over a wide range. Rising sea levels can also affect patterns, and was seen in Indonesia, simply drilling a gas well in the wrong place may have touched off a mud volcano and there are some signs that this may precede a new caldera formation for a volcano. Over the very long term, the change in temperature of the Earth's crust on geothermal and volcanic processes is unknown. How this plays into climate-forcing events with magnitudes that are unpredictable is unknown. The critiques at GEWEX can only be thrust at current results, which have added much more information about climate modelling that have created critiques, the major thrust of modelling was originally intended to be part of Phase II which will, after 4 years, produce its results. One of the major critiques of GEWEX phase I was land-based measurements, which are now increasing. The other major critique is the inability to capture decadal rainfall events, events that frequently occur over a few hours. Therefore, more measurements documenting shorter time frames may provide essential data for almost continuous data set. Therefore, Phase II is mainly modelling with addition of more data as deemed lacking in Phase I. Many of the critiques above may be compensated for with better data requiring better models including insolation and changes in reflection. The problem with variation in ocean currents, particular with respect to thermocline depths requires more oceanography as part of the project, as with losses of ice and changes of climate on the ice edges. ==References==