WCRP Climate Extremes

 

Research Activties within WCRP

Below are links to access resources for defining, assessing and calculating climate extremes from across the WCRP community.

CCI/CLIVAR/JCOMM ETCCDIClimate Change Indices

The CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) has developed indices for the objective characterisation and measurement of climate variability and change, in particular climate extremes.

Indices and software are available from the ETCCDI Climate Change Indices website.

CLIVAR VAMOS Panel

The CLIVAR Variability of the American Monsoon Systems (VAMOS) panel is responsible for the formation of a detailed scientific plan and conceptual design of an international project to investigate the variability and predictability of the American monsoon system (VAMOS) in the context of global climate variability and predictability.

The VAMOS panel has produced a White Paper on VAMOS and Extremes in response to the WCRP cross-cutting topic on Extremes.

GEWEX/CEOP Extremes Effort

Extremes have always been a concern of GEWEX. At its first meeting in 1995, one of the GEWEX Hydrometeorology Panel's (GHP) overall scientific issues was given as:

What feedback mechanisms affect the water cycle and how do these influence wet and dry periods?

Although some work on extremes has been conducted within the various components of GEWEX, a collective effort has not been established. The strategy of GHP has been to first of all concentrate on addressing water and energy budgets which consider longer-term averages as opposed to variability issues.

In 2005 a formal working group was established as part of the WISE (Worldwide Integrated Study of Extremes) project to "promote extremes-related efforts within GHP and GEWEX". The activity has now (2007) been integrated into CEOP and will utilize the data facilities and data sets provided through CEOP. With the approval of a WCRP Cross-cut on Extremes, GEWEX has decided to rely on the CEOP Extreme Group to provide the bulk of its inputs and interactions to WCRP.

Please refer to the CEOP/GEWEX Extremes website for more information and to access a wide range of resources. This webpage is best viewed with the Firefox web brouser.

Download:

-CEOP Implementation Plan.

-WCRP EXTREMES AT GEWEX SSG 2009 - presentation by Ronald Stewart

US CLIVAR Drought Working Group

Please refer to the the Drought Working Group website for details on activities and documents. The terms of reference of this Working Group are to:

-propose a working definition of drought and related model predictands of drought coordinate evaluations of existing relevant model simulations
-suggest new experiments (coupled and uncoupled) designed to address some of the outstanding uncertainties mentioned above
-coordinate and encourage the analysis of observational data sets to reveal antecedent linkages of multi-year drought
-organize a community workshop to present and discuss the results.

The DRICOMP program included several studies that looked at regional drought, not only in the US, but also in Africa, the Carribean region, South America, and the tropics. The modeling experiment produced global output from several models. These model outputs are now available for anyone to analyze.

Access the DRICOMP data here.

Other regional activities

Canada Drought Research Intitiative (DRI)

The Canada Drought Research Intitiative (DRI) aims are to better understand the physical characteristics of and processes influencing Canadian Prairie droughts, and to contribute to their better prediction, through a focus on the recent severe drought of 1999 - 2004/05.

European Drought Centre (EDC)

The European Drought Centre is a virtual knowledge centre with the aim to coordinate drought related activities in Europe to better mitigate the environmental, social and econimic impact of droughts. The EDC promotes collaboration and capcity building between scientists and the user community and thereby increase prepardness and resilience of society to drought.

Become a member of EDC and to participate in joint efforts between scientists, water managers and policy makers. Although the centre has a European dimension, organisations and individuals from outside Europe are welcome, as the centre seeks and encourages a stronger global cooperation on drought issues.

Water Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones in Latin America and the Caribbean (CAZALAC)

The Water Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones in Latin America and the Caribbean is an organization that coordinates and communicates scientific and technological actions aimed at attaining sustainable water management in arid and semi-arid zones in Latin America and the Caribbean.

last updated Wed, Mar 10, 2010 by Anna Pirani