1. Joint CEOS/CGMS Working Group on Climate CNES, Paris, 7-9 March WCRP update M. Rixen,
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,
Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide you with a brief overview of a new initiative of the World Climate Research Programme: the WCRP Polar Challenge

2. (WCRP Strategic Framework 2005-2015).
Mission & Objectives
World Climate Research Programme supports climate-related decision making and adaptation planning by coordinating research required to improve
climate predictions and
understanding of human influence on climate
“for use in an increasing range of practical applications of direct relevance, benefit and value to society”
(WCRP Strategic Framework ).

3. The big picture UNFCCC: 1.5 deg scenarios, IG3IS
IPCC: current state of the art, mainly WGI but also increasingly some WGII and WGIII
GFCS: research, modeling and prediction

4. Week Century Decade Season
Models
Observations
Reanalyses
Week
Century
Decade
Season
WCRP combines, uniquely, observations and modeling. WCRP conducts the important periodic community activity CMIP.

5. Week
Century
Decade
Season

6. Troposphere -Stratosphere CORDEX
CliC
Cryosphere-
Climate
CLIVAR
Ocean-
Atmosphere
GEWEX
Land-
SPARC
Troposphere -Stratosphere
CORDEX
Regional
Downscaling
Joint Scientific Committee
Joint Planning Staff
Modeling Advisory Council
Data Advisory Council
Working Groups on: Coupled Modeling (WGCM), Numerical Experiment (WGNE), Regional Climate (WGRC), Seasonal to Interannual Prediction (WGSIP)
Regional Sea-Level Change and Coastal Impacts
Melting Ice and Global Consequences
Changes in Water Availability
Cloud Circulation and Climate Sensitivity
Understanding and Predicting Weather and Climate Extremes
WCRP engages the international climate research community in a number of Grand Science Challenges through community organized workshops, conferences and strategic planning meetings:
WCRP’s six Grand Challenges as a mechanism to certify and focus WCRP’s attention on urgent and actionable issues
Water Availability, Regional Sea Level Rise, Snow and Ice, Clouds and Circulation, Climate Extremes and Regional Climate
visioning, definition and implementation, with several already submitting large-scale multinational proposals to external funding sources
the role of the Grand Challenges: to help identify areas for significant progress and especially to recognise and prioritise cross-cutting limitations - in fundamental modelling skill, for example
all the challenges fit a paradigm of global processes with regional and local impact and recognised additional positive impact as the WCRP Grand Challenges propagate into the organising structures of climate conferences and workshops and into the planning processes of funding agencies.
The broad aim of the WCRP is to coordinate and enhance these national efforts, in order to constitute a comprehensive international research programme implemented through concerted actions of participating institutions. The principal functions of the WCRP are then: 
To initiate specific regional or global experiments for the study of particular phenomena or processes;
To identify research priorities for recommendation to national scientific institutes and funding agencies;
To propose and facilitate the implementation of relevant international research activities as required;
To arrange for the rapid and effective dissemination of information on current results and new developments in climate research;
To facilitate translation and interpretation of scientifically complex information into useful information and knowledge for practical applications in sustainable development and climate services;
To support training and development of next generation of climate experts, especially for developing regions of the world.

7. WCRP vision for a data infrastructure Earth System Grid Federation
Observations+ε
Simulations+ε
Reanalyses+ε

8. What’s next?

9. Uncertainties “The elephant in the room” (A. Ratier)
Risk management and decision making
Propagation along the value chain
Need for traceability and ref observations
Capturing uncertainties
Error covariances
Capturing new skill (reanalyses, sub-seasonal to decadal forecasts
How good is good enough? Model development and assessment

10. Clouds and observations of Water, Heating & Circulation:
Atmospheric cloud radiative effects (CERES-like, for sfc radiation budget and vertical profiles of radiative cooling)
Highly-vertically resolved water vapor in LT (sharp gradients bw/ PBL and free troposphere)
Better estimates of cloud water path (separation of clouds and precipitation)
Vertical structure of latent heating, including surface evaporation (esp. below clouds for feedback studies)
Large-scale vertical velocity / convergence (esp. for mean circulation, tropics, MJO, prospects w/ ADM-Aeolus)
Support for a more continuous culture of complementary field experiments
(see details in S. Bony, GCOS conference 2016)

11. Limb sounders
Vertical profiles of many atmospheric constituents from UT to MS with global coverage
Stratospheric composition and circulation
Problem: gap expected in ozone and other trace species and aerosol measurements after current satellites fail

12. Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System (IG3IS)
3-4 October 2013
Satellites
“Carbon
Weather”
China
SE Asia
TCCON
Current Network
Any emissions reduction policies require accurate and precise measurements of atmospheric GHG concentrations and their changes over a wide-range of time and spatial scales.
With recent advances in greenhouse gas observations and models, WMO and its partners are developing a plan for an Integrated Global GHG Information System (IG3IS) able to detect reductions. The plan was presented at a WMO co-sponsored scientific side event during COP21.
IG3IS is envisioned as an independent, observationally based information system for determining trends and distributions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the ways in which they are consistent or not with efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is being done already on a global scale through existing networks, but currently provides insufficient information at the spatial scale of nations and regions. The IG3IS effort is aimed at supporting the planning and management of Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) mitigation efforts by nations.
IG3IS is not designed to check compliance with regulations, but rather to provide information on policy- and management-relevant scales and ensure that the information provided is consistent with a global network of high quality observations and models.
Earth Networks
Tefé
Brazil

13. WCRP Data Advisory Council
7-8 April, NCEI, Asheville, USA
Data set assessments
obs4MIPs and ESGF
Fluxes
Reanalysis, conference
WCRP strategic plan
Possible WCRP-GCOS Data Prize