Chapter 6 Australian Participation in GCOS/GOOS/GTOS

Australian Participation in GCOS, GOOS and GTOS > Australian GTOS Activities

Australia’s contribution to GTOS is still growing. The Australian Antarctic Division, through the Antarctic Science Program, contributes to the Global Terrestrial Network – Glaciers (GTN-G) by monitoring fluctuations of the glaciers on Heard Island. Most Heard Island glaciers have been undergoing significant recession over the last two decades. A study of the morphology, dynamics and mass balance of the Brown Glacier on the eastern end of Heard Island is planned for the summer of 2003/04. This will provide data required to model the response of Heard Island glaciers to climate variation.

Australia also contributes to the Flux and Energy Exchange Network (FLUXNET, formerly known as the Global Terrestrial Network – Carbon). FLUXNET is aimed at understanding the mechanisms controlling the exchanges of CO2, water vapor and energy across a spectrum of time and space scales. Australia currently has seven FLUXNET sites, managed by a range of universities and CSIRO.

Australia’s hydrological observing systems are operated and maintained by many different State and Territory agencies. The large number of participating agencies means coordinating contributions to the Global Terrestrial Network-Hydrology (GTN-H) has proven to be difficult. The recently completed National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA) included the identification of a subset of the observing stations operated by these agencies for use for national resource assessment. Action is now proposed to put in place a water data management infrastructure that will provide links to the State and Territory agency data bases thus streamlining access to data and enabling NLWRA data and products to be more readily updated. These links and the updating process may provide a starting point for contributing Australian water data to GTN-H.

The Bureau of Meteorology national rainfall and evaporation networks contribute to the national hydrological observing system and are used to complement the streamflow networks run mainly by State and Territory agencies in preparing national assessments of water resources. As part of the national flood warning service, the Bureau collects data in real-time from a network of special purpose rainfall and water level stations through operational systems centred in Bureau Regional Offices. This network includes streamflow data from State and Territory agencies and could form the basis for any future real-time provision of national data sets that might be considered.

Surface water data from 239 Australian streamflow stations are provided to the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). The GRDC has requested that Australia provide data for stations in near real-time as a contribution to GTN-H. The extent to which Australia is able to respond to this request, pending the establishment of the water data management infrastructure mentioned above is under consideration.