presented by Keven Trenberth
The climate is changing and will continue to do so regardless
of any mitigation actions. Observations and information available
are also changing as technological advances take place. Accordingly,
an overview is given of a much-needed potential /climate information
system/ that embraces a comprehensive observing system to observe
and track changes and the forcings of the system as they occur,
and which develops the ability to relate one to the other and understand
changes and their origins.
Observations need to be taken in ways
that satisfy the climate monitoring principles and ensure long-term
continuity, and which have the ability to discern small but persistent
signals. Some benchmark observations are proposed to anchor space-based
observations and trends, including a much-needed step forward
in the quality of water vapor observations. Satellite observations
must be calibrated and validated, with orbital decay and drift
effects fully dealt with, and adequate overlap to ensure continuity.
The health of the monitoring system must be tracked and resources
identified to fix problems. Fields must be analyzed into global
products and delivered to users while stakeholder needs are
fully considered. Data should be appropriately archived with full
and
open access, along with metadata that fully describe the observing
system status and environment in which it operates. Reanalysis
of the records must be institutionalized along with continual
assessment
of impacts of new observing and analysis systems.
Some products
will be used to validate and improve models, as well as initialize
models and predict future evolution on multiple time scales
using ensembles. Modeling and assimilation aspects are dealt
with in
accompanying papers. Attribution of changes to causes is
essential and it is vital to fully assess past changes and model
performance
and results in making predictions to help appraise reliability
and assess impacts regionally on the environment, human activities,
and sectors of the economy. In particular, we expect to see
a revolution in the way developing countries use and apply climate
information.
Such a system will be invaluable and further provides a framework
for priority setting new observations and related activities.
Without the end-to-end process our investments will not deliver
adequate
return and our understanding will be much less than it would
be otherwise.
Seminar is from 9:30-10:30 am at FL2-1022 on Tuesday, December
7, 2004.
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