The Second Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP-2) is an environmental modeling research activity of the Global Land-Atmosphere System Study (GLASS) of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX). It focuses on the same core 10-year period as International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (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, and conduct sensitivity studies of specific parameterizations and forcings, which should aid future model and data set development. Baseline integrations and sensitivity studies from over a dozen participating models have been submitted. GSWP-2 is now transitioning from the modeling to the analysis phase. This presentation will give an overview of the project status at the time of the AMS Annual Meeting, present a perspective on the role of GSWP-2 and its products within GEWEX and the earth system science community in general, and present a synthesis of some of the more interesting results that are not covered in other presentations in the GSWP-2 session.