The Second Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP-2) is an environmental modeling research activity of the Global Land-Atmosphere System Study (GLASS) and the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP), both contributing projects of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX). It focuses on the same core 10-year period as ISLSCP Initiative II (1986-1995). The goals of GSWP-2 are to produce state-of-the-art global data sets of land surface fluxes, state variables, and related hydrologic quantities; develop and test large-scale validation, calibration, and assimilation techniques over land; provide a large-scale validation and quality check of the ISLSCP data sets; compare Land Surface Schemes (LSSs), and conduct sensitivity studies of specific parameterizations and forcings, which should aid future model and data set development. Baseline integrations from participating models have been submitted, sensitivity experiments are being conducted, and preliminary analyses have begun. This presentation will give an overview of the project status at the time of the AMS Annual Meeting, and present a synthesis of some of the more interesting findings that are not covered in other presentations in the GSWP-2 topic.