OOPC Projects

The panel coordinating activities through a panel Work Plan, which identifies context, priorities and next steps in key areas for the 2013-2018 timeframe. The 2015 Update and report from the last meeting can be downloaded here. The work plan is focussed around systems level evaluations, to deliver to the Global Climate Observing System assesment and reporting and the Global Ocean Observing System strategic mapping; and drawing on the GOOS Framework for Ocean Observing (FOO) approach:

Tropical Pacific Observing System, 2020 (TPOS 2020) was the first such systems evaluation to be carried out, precipitated by the challenges in sustaining the TAO/TRITON mooring array, and motivated by the scientific and technological developments since the observing system was designed, 30 years ago (during the TOGA Experiment). This culminated in a workshop based on a whitepaper process: TPOS 2020, in San Diego, California, 27-30th January 2014. More information can be found on the meeting website, here.

The main recommendation from the workshop was the formation of a finite lifetime project to oversee the transition of TPOS to become more robust, integrated and sustainable, and to meet future needs. The TPOS 2020 Project is now up and running. More information can be found on the project website http://www.tpos2020.org.

Members of the panel participate in several working groups assigned particular tasks. These are:

• The Working Group on Air-Sea Fluxes. The main goals of the Joint JSC/SCOR Working Group on Air Sea Fluxes were to review the requirements of different scientific disciplines for surface flux data sets, to catalogue available surface flux data and flux-related data sets, and to review the strengths and weaknesses of each.   more (external link) »
  
• The Surface Flux Analysis Project (SURFA), an initiative of the WCRP Working Group on Numerical Experimentation, is a project to institutionalize the evaluation of near real-time Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) fluxes (and related fields) with high quality reference data.

Projects now complete:

• The Working Group on SST and Sea Ice (joint with GCOS Atmosphere Observations Panel for Climate, AOPC). The Terms of Reference for this group were to record and evaluate the differences among historical and near-real-time SST and SST/SI analyses; identify the sources of differences in the analyses; on the basis of comparison of those differences with the expected climate signals in the SST patterns, recommend actions needed to ensure the quality and consistency of the SST and SST/SI analyses; establish criteria to be satisfied by SST and SST/SI analyses to ensure the quality and consistency required by GCOS; and report annually to AOPC and OOPC on progress and recommendations.