GCOS - The Global Climate Observing System

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	GCOS

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) is co-sponsored by three UN bodies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and by the non-governmental organisation, the International Council for Science (ICSU). The GCOS Joint Planning Office is based with the WMO Secretariat.

GCOS is intended to be a long-term, user-driven operational system capable of providing the comprehensive observations required for monitoring the climate system, for detecting and attributing climate change, for assessing the impacts of climate variability and change, and for supporting research toward improved understanding, modelling and prediction of the climate system. It addresses the total climate system including physical, chemical and biological properties, and atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic, cryospheric and terrestrial processes. GCOS builds upon, and works in partnership with, other existing and developing observing systems such as the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), and the Global Observing System (GOS) and Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) of the World Meteorological Organization.

UK co-ordination of climate activities

Climate research and observations are devolved activities in the UK, and are sponsored by various government departments in order to meet their individual responsibilities. Wider inter-agency co-ordination on Global Environmental Change Research and Observations is undertaken by the Global Environmental Change Committee (GECC), the successor to the Inter Agency Committee on Global Environment Change (IACGEC), chaired by the Chief Scientist of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and reporting to the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor. GCOS activities in the UK are co-ordinated through the Met Office.

UK contributions to GCOS

Various agencies in the UK contribute to the GCOS networks. These contributions, together with other monitoring programmes, are described in the UK Report on Systematic Observations for Climate for the GCOS, prepared as part of the Third National Communication (3NC) to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

UK Report on Systematic Observations for UNFCCC, October 2001 (pdf format, 1.6 Mb)

Links to specific UK contributions to GCOS

Meteorological and atmospheric observations

GUAN Data Centre

Oceanographic observations

Terrestrial observations

Environmental Change Network

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