Global Climate Observing System
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The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) is an international institution co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Council for Science (ICSU). 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 is directed by a Steering Committee which has created three Science Panels:
- the Atmospheric Observation Panel for Climate (AOPC)
- the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC)
- the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC), also co-sponsored by Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS)
The Steering Committee and the Science Panels are assisted by the GCOS Secretariat, located at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
[edit] External links
- GCOS home page.
- GTOS home page.
- Observing System Data on-line - Near-realtime Argo float data, TAO El Nino data, Global Summary of the Day meteorological data, World Ocean Data Base (WODB 2005), Coastal buoy data from NDBC, and more.
