A New GEWEX Regional Hydroclimate Project for the Contiguous United States

The Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Project is establishing a new Regional Hydroclimate Project (RHP) over the Contiguous United States (CONUS). The mission of this ten-year effort is to understand and characterize the water, energy, and carbon cycles in the Anthropocene. This mission is being driven by a need for climate equity and justice and for tools to address water, food, energy, and ecosystems security in a changing future.

A diverse, interdisciplinary group of more than 160 people has come together to develop a summary level plan for the US-RHP. Eight thematic research areas are described in the plan: Human Dimensions, Mountain Hydroclimate, Land-Atmosphere Processes and Coupling, Impactful Extremes, Organized Convection and Precipitating Systems, Advancing Observational Systems, Coastal Processes and Coupling, and a Digital Earth for the US (DEUS). Working groups considered the key gaps and science questions, as well as some initial ideas for research activities for each of these thematic areas. Emergent cross-cutting themes reflect the convergent science nature of the plan, calling out the need for a convergent modeling strategy, a convergent observational strategy, the need to work across scales, and an integrating framework (DEUS) to make our science actionable. This talk will provide an overview of the plan as well as the next steps for the US-RHP.