EC-PHORS GCW YOPP The WMO Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) is an international mechanism for supporting all key cryospheric in-situ and remote sensing observations. To meet the needs of WMO Members and partners in delivering services to users, the media, public, decision and policy makers, GCW provides authoritative, clear, and useable data, information, and analyses on the past, current and future state of the cryosphere. GCW includes observation, monitoring, assessment, product development, prediction, and research. It provides the framework for reliable, comprehensive, sustained observing of the cryosphere through a coordinated and integrated approach on national to global scales to deliver quality-assured global and regional products and services. GCW organizes analyses and assessments of the cryosphere to support science, decision-making and environmental policy. The WMO Polar and High Mountain Observations, Research and Services (PHORS) activities promote and coordinate relevant programmes that are carried out in the Antarctic, Arctic and high mountain regions by nations and by groups of nations. It interfaces with all WMO programmes, including the World Weather Watch (WWW), and other related programmes throughout the world, meeting global needs and requirements for meteorological observations, research and services in the polar and high mountain regions. Within EC-PHORS sits the Antarctic Task Team (ATT) which maintains webpages which contain information relating to the quality and quantify of meteorological observations coming from the Antarctic staffed stations and automatic weather stations (AWS) see World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) interests in Antarctica Steve Colwell British Antarctic Survey At the 4 yearly WMO congress meeting in Geneva in June 2015 the seven priorities for were decided. One of these was Polar and High Mountain regions where the WMO says it wants to “Improve operational meteorological and hydrological monitoring, prediction and services in polar, and high mountain regions, where the scale of environmental change has significant implications on weather and climate patterns worldwide” Here we will look at the areas of interest that the WMO has in Antarctica The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) is one of the key elements of the Polar Prediction Project. YOPP is scheduled to take place from mid-2017 to mid-2019) The main objectives for YOPP are to: Improve the polar observing system to provide good coverage of high-quality observations in a cost effective manner. Gather additional observations through field programmes aimed at improving understanding of polar key processes. Develop improved representation of polar key processes in uncoupled and coupled models used for prediction, including those which are a particular hindrance to high-quality prediction for the polar regions, such as stable boundary layer representation, surface exchange, and steep orography. Develop improved data assimilation systems that account for challenges in the polar regions such as sparseness of observational data, steep orography, model error and the importance of coupled processes (e.g., atmosphere-sea ice interaction). Explore the predictability of sea ice on time scales from days to a season. Improve understanding of linkages between polar regions and lower latitudes and assess skill of models representing these. Improve verification of polar weather and environmental predictions to obtain quantitative knowledge on model performance, and on the skill of operational forecasting systems for user- relevant parameters; and efficiently monitor progress. Improve understanding of the benefits of using existing prediction information and services in the polar regions, differentiated across the spectrum of user types and benefit areas. Provide training opportunities to generate a sound knowledge base on polar prediction related issues. For Antarctica additional radiosonde launches are planned from some research stations and a database of all high resolution observations is planned. An example of the data available at the GCW website Networks and AMOMFW Antarctica is a very data spare region with most of the 40 overwintering research stations around the coast of Antarctica and about 100 automatic weather stations spread across the continent as shown on the map supplied by University of Wisconsin-Madison Automatic Weather Station Program. The GCW surface observation network is comprised of a core component called CryoNet. There are currently only two CryoNet sites in Antarctica but it is hoped that this number will be going up as several mores sites have been submitted and are going through the approval process. The Antarctic Meteorological Observation, Modeling, and Forecasting Workshops (AMOMFW) meets annually and brings together those with research and operational/logistical interests in Antarctic meteorology and forecasting and related disciplines. Although this is not a WMO group many of the organising committee are active within WMO and the actions of the group help to maintain the Antarctic networks and also contribute to deliver the objectives for Antarctica of EC-PHORS. Many of the stations contribute to the WMO global networks with 42 sites being part of the Global Surface Network (GSN), 12 sites being part of the Global Upper Air Network (GUAN) and 22 sites contributing to the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) 3 of which are Global sites.