Abstract :
Following the recommendations of the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the European Meteorological Services have proposed to establish a regional component of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) to improve systematic and comprehensive observations in Europe.
The idea of an EURO-GCOS is a follow-up activity to the establishment of an EURO-GOOS and based on requirements given by the research area of EURO-CLIVAR.
All European States are already supporting the international data exchange of meteorological data within WMO and its programmes. A lot of stations belong to the GCOS - surface network (GSN) and the GCOS - upper air network (GUAN). Further considerations about network requirements are related to regional questions and serve as input for climate monitoring but also applications, and impact research.
The system comprises in-situ stations as well as satellite missions done together within EUMETSAT.
The western European Meteorological Services have already agreed to run together a project to establish an European Composite Observing System (EUCOS) and enhancing this system agreeing on dedicated rules for weather and climate watch as a combined effort following the GCOS monitoring principles. The selection criteria of useful stations are strong as a lot of countries in Europe have long historical records and the aim is to keep these stations as a national heritage for future generations.
Monitoring results are available via the European Climate Support Network (ECSN) were dedicated projects have been set up to support the global activities. These monthly results can be viewed on the Inzternet on http://www.gcmp.dwd.de.
Concerning satellite information Europe has recently established a satellite application facility for climate monitoring (CM-SAF) within EUMETSAT which is jointly operated by several European Meteorological Services where the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), the German Meteorological Service has taken the lead of.
This CM-SAF is seen as a major contribution of Europe to the Global Earth Observation System (GEOS).
The presentation will provide information on the process of establishing the network components but also on the different functions of an end-to-end system comprising data centers with data processing and monioring activities describing the usefulness of climate information to understand and protect our environment. Specialised global data centers like the Global Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC) and the Global Collecting Center (GCC) for ship observations are already established within Deutscher Wetterdienst. Besides global aspects regional networks allow specific estimates of the impact of our changing environment.
The EURO-GCOS will contribute to the adequacy of the global observing systems for climate but also allow answering questions of regional interest.
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