Chapter 1 Introduction

This Report

This report does not cover all issues related to climate in Australia. In terms of the conceptual pyramid of climate activities shown in Figure 1.12 it does not deal, except indirectly, with matters related to policy development and political action, which go beyond the domain of the World Climate Programme at the international level and for which specific national machinery, linked to Australian participation in the COP to the UNFCCC, has been put in place.

The following chapters of this report deal with activities of an operational, research, services and assessment nature linked to the domain of responsibility of the WCP, the GCOS, the IPCC and, to a lesser extent, the IGBP and the IHDP as shown in Figure 1.10. They have been prepared on the basis of information provided by the bodies shown as responsible for the relevant counterparts of the WCP, GCOS and IPCC in Figure 1.11. Specifically the material for:

• Chapters 2 and 3, describing activities counterpart to the WCDMP and the WCASP, was assembled by the Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre (NCC);
• Chapter 4, dealing with activities counterpart to the WCIRP, was assembled by the Australian Greenhouse Office; and
• Chapter 5, dealing with Australian climate research counterpart to the WCRP (and some closely related IGBP research), was assembled under the auspices of the Academy of Science's newly named National Committee for Earth System Science.

Figure 1.11 The four components of the World Climate Programme (WCP) and the associated IGBP and GCOS (bottom), their respective Australian coordination/implementation bodies (second from bottom), the national sponsoring agencies of the coordination bodies (second row from top) and the formal links to the counterpart international sponsoring agencies of the WCP, IGBP and GCOS (top). The acronyms are elaborated in the associated text and in Appendix 1.

In addition, Chapter 6, dealing with the GCOS, has been prepared under the supervision of the Australian Joint Working Group for GCOS/GOOS and Chapter 7, addressing Australian participation in the IPCC, was prepared on the basis of input from the relevant coordinating bodies and Australian delegations to the IPCC.

The information provided by all these individuals and organisations is greatly appreciated. It is hoped that the report will prove useful to those requiring an overview of the scope of Australia’s national climate program.

Figure 1.12 The Climate Pyramid: a schematic representation of the essential role of climate observations, monitoring, research and prediction in underpinning public policy development, including the scientific and technical assessment of climate variability and change and the identification and implementation of appropriate political response strategies.