Chapter 6 Australian Participation in GCOS/GOOS/GTOS

International Status of GCOS, GOOS and GTOS > GCOS

The objective of the Global Climate Observing System is to ensure the acquisition of data to meet the needs for:

• climate change monitoring, climate change detection and response monitoring, especially in terrestrial ecosystems;
• application of climate information to national economic development; and
• research towards improved understanding, modelling and prediction of the climate system.

International development of GCOS is guided by a Steering Committee which has the responsibility of formulating the concept and design of the overall system, as well as an effective strategy for its development and implementation. The Steering Committee consists of up to 16 scientific and technical experts, selected on the basis of their personal expertise, appointed jointly by the executive heads of the sponsoring organisations (WMO, IOC, UNEP, ICSU). The committee includes atmospheric, oceanic, hydrological, cryospheric and biosphere scientists and engineers from relevant national organisations, including space agencies. It has set up three science panels to assist in the planning and implementation of GCOS (see Figure 6.2) and enlists the participation and assistance of the members of the scientific community, operational agencies, and national and international organisations. The Chairs of the panels are also ex officio members of the Steering Committee.

Figure 6.2 The organisational structure of GCOS, highlighting the overseeing role of the Steering Committee and the science panels set up to assist in the planning and implementation of GCOS. Note that the AOPC is co-sponsored by GCOS and WCRP, OOPC is a joint body of GCOS, GOOS and WCRP, and TOPC is co-sponsored by GCOS and GTOS.

A secretariat, which reports to the Steering Committee, was established at WMO Headquarters in Geneva to assist in formulating the concept and the implementation of GCOS. The GCOS Secretariat has published a series of plans, devised by the working panels, for specific program elements of GCOS. A full list of publications, and the content of most, is available through the GCOS Website (www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/gcoshome.html).

Australia is represented on the Atmospheric Observations Panel for Climate (AOPC) by Dr Mike Manton (Chief, Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre) who is Chair of the AOPC and as such is an ex-officio member of the GCOS Steering Committee.

Building strongly on existing observations systems, implementation of GCOS has commenced. For monitoring long-term variability of the land-surface climate, the GCOS Atmospheric Observation Panel has established the GCOS Surface Network, (GSN) of almost 1000 (981 as at March 2003) stations world-wide. These stations are approximately uniformly distributed over the terrestrial surface, aiming broadly at an approximate 5°x 5° grid over the globe. The network consists of reliable stations currently in operation on a daily basis, with at least 30 years of record and good prospects for continued operation. The stations are located in 138 WMO Member countries and the responsible agency in each country has been urged to ensure that digital copies of historical climate and metadata for stations designated in their country are available at World Data Centres A and B for Meteorology and that there will be routine monthly electronic distribution of data from the designated GSN stations. Australia participated in the design of the GSN, aiming to coordinate the design of the GSN with the Reference Climate Station (RCS) network already established by the Bureau of Meteorology, which comprises some 100 stations to monitor climate change at the regional level (see Figure 6.3). The Bureau of Meteorology has negotiated with those planning the GSN for the Australian stations of the GSN to be a subset of its RCS network. This necessitated some changes to the RCS network and some changes to the original set of Australian GSN stations, which now numbers sixty-six (as at March 2002).

Figure 6.3 Map of Australia’s Reference Climate Station (RCS) network as at March 2002.

A GCOS Upper Air Network (GUAN) has been defined to provide reliable estimates of the meridional and vertical structure of interannual and longer-term variations of the atmospheric temperature, wind and moisture distributions. The stations have been selected from the upper air station network of the World Weather Watch to constitute a relatively homogenous distribution of stations suitable for detecting the broadscale patterns of climate change throughout the atmosphere. Australia has agreed to support 16 stations of the GUAN, comprising about 10 per cent of the global total including three Antarctic Stations. Fifteen of the 16 Australian GUAN stations are also among those designated as part of Australia’s Reference Climate Station Network.

Support for the UNFCCC

The relationship that has developed between the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), since the Third Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP3) to the UNFCCC in Kyoto (December 1997), offers the potential of not only assisting countries in meeting their commitments as Parties to the Convention but also provides a basis for sustained and systematic improvements in global climate monitoring that will serve both present and future generations.

A statement to COP3 on behalf of the August 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) highlighted the dire state of global observing systems for climate and the fact that, without a major international effort to improve national and international systematic monitoring systems, it would be close to impossible to detect global climate change within 20 years. The statement emphasised that the situation was especially poor in some of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, such as Africa. The Parties to the UNFCCC decided at COP3 to request a report on the adequacy of the global observing systems in meeting their needs for effective decision making.

Following consultation with its many partners and with the assistance of experts from around the world, including a substantial Australian contribution, the GCOS Secretariat finalised its report on The Adequacy of Global Climate Monitoring Systems (GCOS, 1998) in October 1998. The report provided a detailed review of the observational requirements for climate monitoring and research to support the work of the Convention and an analysis of the capability of existing and planned observing networks included in the GCOS, GOOS and GTOS to meet those requirements. The analysis concluded that:

• the observing networks display a range of deficiencies and inadequacies;
• satisfactory global coverage for many of the essential climate variables has not been achieved;
• regional coverage is not adequate in many areas;
• existing observations of selected variables often do not have adequate accuracy or precision to be reliably used as indicators of climate change; and
• key data sets, although collected, are often not effectively exchanged.

The report warned that, unless rectified, these and similar deficiencies would seriously impact the ability of the scientific community to provide essential information to guide assessments of future climate change, and, in particular, to support the work of the Convention. Finally the report presented a number of general and specific recommendations that, if implemented, would enable the observational programmes to provide a more effective foundation for climate studies and assessment in support of specific issues facing the Convention, such as:

• the variability of extreme weather events, including El Niño;
• the causes of climate change, including the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases;
• other human-induced influences on climate;
• the rate of climate change; and
• projection of future climate conditions.

The Parties to the UNFCCC considered the report prepared by GCOS at their Fourth Session (COP4) held November 2-13, 1998 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and adopted a strong resolution (Decision 14/CP.4) to address the deficiencies.

Decision 14/CP.4 called for the Parties to prepare National Plans that covered meteorological, oceanographic, and terrestrial observations for climate within the framework of GCOS, GOOS and GTOS, and to report on these plans in their future communications to the UNFCCC secretariat. It also called upon the International Agencies associated with the Climate Agenda (WMO, UNESCO, IOC, UNEP, WHO, FAO, ICSU) and the GCOS Secretariat to keep the UNFCCC informed on developments and difficulties being encountered. A key element of the Decision was its invitation to the agencies participating in the Climate Agenda to initiate an intergovernmental process for addressing the priorities for improvement of global observing systems for climate and to identify options for the provision of immediate, medium-term and long-term financial support.

The GCOS Secretariat responded to the COP4 Decision on several fronts, particularly through the development of a proposed set of reporting guidelines for Parties to report on their national monitoring plans, in line with their commitments under Article 5 (Research and Systematic Monitoring) of the Convention. In Decisions 4/CP.5 and 5/CP.5, adopted at COP5 in Bonn in November 1999, the reporting guidelines were finalised and now provide the basis for Parties to report in a more structured manner on the status of their systematic monitoring systems.

Decision 5/CP.5 also urged Parties to support capacity building for climate monitoring, restated the need to establish an intergovernmental process and requested GCOS, with the cooperation of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), to initiate a series of regional implementation workshops to assist developing countries in improving their climate monitoring systems. The progress achieved since Kyoto in improving global monitoring systems for climate has been slow but measurable. The continuously deteriorating state of observing systems in the less developed countries continues to be a concern but awareness of the importance of sustained, stable monitoring systems, among both developed and developing countries, is growing.

Australia has made a significant contribution to efforts to respond to the COP Decisions, both within the UNFCCC process itself and through GCOS. Australian scientists played a key role in drafting the guidelines for reporting on national monitoring plans, both through its delegation to the sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the COP, and through secondment of an officer to the GCOS Secretariat.

Following a meeting in Toronto in March 2000, convened by the Chairman of Inter-Agency Committee on the Climate Agenda (IACCA), principally aimed at exploring the issue of how an intergovernmental process might be established and might function, it was agreed that an informal network of National GCOS Coordinators would be a useful starting point for improving communication on the development of national plans and for promoting a common approach to responding to the COP Decisions. Subsequently, the Bureau of Meteorology hosted the first informal meeting of National GCOS Coordinators in Melbourne from 9 to 11 August 2000, with participation by representatives of Finland, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States as well as the GCOS Director. The main focus of the meeting was to consider preparation of a more detailed format for national reports on systematic monitoring systems, to expand on the approved UNFCCC guidelines and provide more comprehensive information, to assist both GCOS and the countries themselves in more fully assessing the status of national climate monitoring systems. A Supplementary Reporting Format (SRF) was developed by the group, building directly on the UNFCCC guidelines. The SRF aimed to give countries greater scope to report on a full range of climate monitoring systems across all relevant regimes and systems, including surface and upper air meteorological systems, atmospheric constituents, terrestrial and oceanographic systems, and in situ and satellite-based systems. The SRF was disseminated more widely to Parties on an informal basis through the Australian intervention to SBSTA13 at The Hague in November 2000 as well as through the GCOS web site. The systematic observational component of the Australian third national communication, which was prepared during 2001, as well as those of several other countries, was based on the SRF.

The informal network of National GCOS Coordinators has expanded since the first meeting and subsequent meetings have been held, including using opportunities such as the UNFCCC Conference of Parties sessions for those national coordinators who also serve on national delegations to the UNFCCC COP and SBSTA. In fact, a practical outcome of the informal network has been to increase the participation of its members on national delegations. Recognising the increasing effectiveness of the network, terms of reference for the network were agreed at the April 2003 meeting of the GCOS Steering Committee in Melbourne.

The series of regional implementation workshops was also initiated in 2001, in response to the COP5 Decision, and Australia was an active participant in the first regional workshop in Apia, Samoa, from 14 to 15 August 2001. The Workshop was organised by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) with the support of the GCOS Secretariat. Australian scientists made substantial contributions to the workshop, including through the presentation of an AusAIDfunded Needs Analysis for Pacific Island National Meteorological Services, which highlighted, among other things, the climate monitoring needs of the region, and a key discussion paper on issues relating to preparing, funding and implementing national monitoring plans. Together with the US and NZ, Australia has continued working with SPREP and the Pacific Island countries in the development first of a Pacific Island GCOS (PI-GCOS) Action Plan and then a PI-GCOS Implementation Plan. The latter was finalized in March 2003, although some elements commenced implementation prior to this. Under the USA-Australia Climate Action Partnership, Australia is also working to enhance climate change prediction in the Pacific in conjunction with experts from Pacific Island nations.

The GCOS Regional Workshop Programme is well underway, with the second through sixth of the planned ten workshops for the ‘Eastern and Southern Africa’, ‘Central American and Caribbean’, ‘East and Southeast Asia’, ‘Western and Central Africa and ‘South American’ regions having been completed. The remaining three workshops are planned between 2003 and 2005. Australia was also a key contributor to the ‘East and Southeast Asia’ workshop.

The 1998 GCOS adequacy report highlighted many deficiencies in global monitoring systems for climate. The evolving UNFCCC-GCOS relationship has served to highlight the plight of systematic observing systems in many countries of the world and raise awareness of the need for action. Australia strongly supported the recommendation of the GCOS Steering Committee to conduct a second adequacy report, building initially on the national monitoring reports submitted through the UNFCCC third national communications process in November 2001 but based substantially on a more comprehensive analysis of the status and gaps in global observing systems. The Second Report on the Adequacy of the Global Observing System for Climate was finalized at the eleventh meeting of the GCOS Steering Committee in April 2003 in Melbourne. The report is available via the GCOS website (www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/gcoshome.html) and was presented for preliminary discussion at the SBSTA 18 in Bonn 4-13 June 2003. The key findings of the Second Adequacy Report included:

• that there have been improvements in the ability of the global observing systems for climate, especially in the use of satellite information and in the provision of some ocean observations;
• that the global terrestrial networks remain to be fully implemented, the ocean networks lack coverage and commitment to sustained operation, and the atmospheric networks are not operating with the required global coverage and quality; and
• that there remain serious deficiencies in the ability of the global observing systems for climate to meet the identified needs of the UNFCCC.

SBSTA18 responded by endorsing the findings of the report and drawing Parties’ attention to the need to act on its recommendations. Parties agreed on a forward process that involves a more substantive discussion of the findings and their implications at COP 9 in December 2003, leading towards the development of a phased 5 to 10 year implementation plan for an integrated global observing system for climate.

One of the key issues that has impacted on the ability of developing countries, in particular, to maintain their commitment to key climate observations is lack of resources for capacity building and sustained station operation. This issue has repeatedly featured in SBSTA discussions and was highlighted in the Second Adequacy Report. In response, Australia has taken the lead in advocating the establishment of a voluntary funding mechanism for GCOS. The GCOS Steering Committee at its April 2003 meeting strongly endorsed the proposal to establish the fund. Further discussions took place in Washington DC in October 2003 involving interested countries. It resulted in agreement on initial Terms of Reference for the GCOS Cooperation Mechanism (GCM). Participation in the GCM will be open to all donors supporting improvements in global observing systems for climate in developing countries.

As well as the direct support to the UNFCCC through its coordinating role, GCOS also contributes to the implementation of the Convention through its underpinning relationship with the World Climate Programme and other international research programmes, and through the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Figure 6.4). The IPCC Working Group I Third Assessment Report highlighted the need to strengthen global climate monitoring systems, in order to reduce some of the uncertainties in the understanding of climate science, especially in relation to understanding the rate of climate change and the relative contributions of natural and anthropogenic influences.

Figure 6.4. A schematic showing the relationship between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), international scientific climate programmes such as the World Climate Programme (WCP), the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Programme (IHDP), and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). A spectrum of international scientific programmes provide the scientific basis for the assessment work of the IPCC, as input to the political negotiation processes under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC, through the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). The Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) complements the SBSTA and supports the COP on matters related to implementation of the Convention. The GCOS underpins the broad monitoring, analysis, applications and research activities of the WCP as well as a range of other international research programmes such as the IHDP and IGBP. GCOS also fulfils an important coordinating role with respect to implementing Article 5 (Research and Systematic Observation) of the UNFCCC. A range of international and intergovernmental specialist agencies provide sponsorship for the various programmes, with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) playing a central role through its co-sponsorship of the IPCC (with the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP), the GCOS (with UNEP, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, IOC, and the International Council for Science, ICSU) and the WCP (with UNEP, ICSU, IOC, UNESCO and the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO).