Online CLIVAR SSG meeting held in December 2022

The CLIVAR Scientific Steering Group (SSG) organized an online meeting on 5th December 2022 to discuss the membership proposals, 2023 CLIVAR budgets, new CLIVAR Research Focus proposals, as well as the current status of the International CLIVAR Project Office (ICPO). The CLIVAR SSG members, one representative from WCRP Secretariat and four ICPO staff attended the meeting.

The membership for CLIVAR SSG, GSOP, OMDP, SORP, ARP, IORP and PRP were discussed and approved during the SSG online meeting. Letters for the new, renewed and rotating-off members will be prepared by ICPO shortly. Due to late submission of the proposals, the membership for NORP, CDP and MP will be discussed via emails after this meeting.

The spending in 2022 as well as the new funding requests for 2023 were presented by Dr. Jose Santos, Executive Director of ICPO. All the activities planned for 2022 were implemented except for the panel meetings of ARP, GSOP and MP. The upcoming IORP-19 and PRP/TBI RF joint workshop to be organized in February 2023 will use the carry-over funds from 2022. The funds for the new activities in 2023, including Panel/RF meetings and workshops, CLIVAR-ICTP Summer School and SSG-29 were approved by SSG during the meeting.

There were five proposals for CLIVAR Research Focus received during the open call. With the consideration topics, workplan and deliverables, as well as the spread of scientific disciplines, geographic and gender balance of the proposed membership, one proposal with the highest scored given by SSG members was approved a new CLIVAR Research Foci, starting from January 2023. The letters with the comments and suggestions on each proposal will be prepared by ICPO and sent to the proposers shortly after the meeting. The next round open call for RF proposes will be made during the 2nd half of 2024.

Finally, there was a discussion on the current status and future plan for ICPO. After careful consideration, the current host, First Institute of Oceanography of Ministry of Natural Resources in China, made a hard decision to end the support to ICPO by the 31st March 2023. A new host is being explored. More detailed information can be expected in the upcoming months.

CLIVAR SSG will have another online session in early 2023 and will meet in-person in Kigali, Rwanda, alongside the WCRP Open Science Meeting in October 2023.