Contributions of LBA and GCIP to the World Climate Research Program

.The GEWEX Hydrometeorology Panel (GHP) was established to coordinate the inputs of the five GEWEX Continental Scale Experiments (LBA, GCIP, BALTEX, GAME, MAGS) to the World Climate Research Program. The overall strategic mission of the Panel is "to demonstrate the capability to predict changes in soil moisture and water resources on time scales up to seasonal, annual and interannual as an integral part of the climate prediction system." To this end GHP has developed a long-term strategy and initiated a number of joint projects between the Continental Scale Experiments including LBA and GCIP. The commonalties and differences between these two projects arising from their different geographic and climatic regimes, and their research priorities will be discussed. In addition, the joint contributions of LBA and GCIP to GHP’s objectives and mission will be described with special emphasis on efforts to close regional water and energy budgets, the development of mesoscale models, strategies and data sets for transferability studies, and plans for future contributions to the GEWEX Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period and to CLIVAR/VAMOS