GEWEX is a Core Project of WCRP on Global Energy and Water Exchanges

Vol. 27 No. 1, February 2017

GLASS-LoCo Project is Developing
Land-Atmosphere Coupling Metrics and Diagnostics

The map above shows the anomaly in surface-triggered convective initiation (CI) events during the summer of 2015 when a heat wave
occurred. There are 6-12 fewer days with surface-triggered CI in the build-up and during the heat wave. The inset shows a time seriesof CI anomalies to put the 2015 heat wave in perspective. Overall, the strong connection between heat waves and surface-triggered
convection demonstrates that from a Local Land-Atmosphere Coupling (LoCo) viewpoint, metrics such as the “Heated Condensation
Framework” (used here; Tawfik et al., 2015) allow for local-scale processes to be put into the perspective of broader synopticallyforced events, such as heat waves. See article by M. Ek et al. on page 9.

Also Inside• New GEWEX SSG members and Panel leaders (Pages 3–4)
• New initiative in the Pannonian Basin (Page 5 )• First SoilWat workshop addresses integration of soil and subsurface processes in climate models (Page 7)• Second-generation PALS to be more flexible with user-defined benchmarks (Page 10)• INARCH developing a toolbox for downscaling and planning special journal issue (Page 12)• OzEWEX holds first Australian Climate and Water Summer Institute (Page 15)

While there seems to be an ever-growing number of panels
and working groups formed outside of the core projects of
WCRP, it is the Panel activities of these core projects, and of
GEWEX in particular, that are the bedrock of WCRP. This
is where the real volunteer work is done, and where processlevel understanding is advanced.

Commentary
GEWEX at 30
Graeme Stephens
Co-Chair, GEWEX Scientific Steering GroupThe 29th GEWEX Scientific Steering Group (SSG) met during the week of 6-9 February in Sanya, China and was graciously hosted by former SSG member Xin Li of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences. This meeting was remarkable for a few
reasons. First, it signaled the start of the 30th year of GEWEX
and was a reminder to us all that it is time to emphasize themany scientific achievements of GEWEX over the past three
decades and to reflect on its vision and path forward into thenext decade. Secondly, it was proposed that GEWEX achievements be collected in a review article called “GEWEX at 30.”
As part of the process for developing this article, inputs andthoughts from past and present GEWEX Panel co-chairs will
be collected. The depth and breadth of the excellent work
performed by the GEWEX Panels and their various working groups that was presented at the SSG were a remarkable
testament to both the current high value and the future potential of information products and scientific outcomes fromGEWEX and its future activities.

A third highlight of the meeting was the exposure the SSG
received to the range and scale of the important scientificactivities being pursued in China. A major GEWEX initiative centered on the water and energy cycles of the Tibetan
Plateau is emerging from these discussions. Presentations to
the SSG on future plans for new satellite measurements, bothfrom Korea and China, were given. For the latter, development of a water cycle satellite mission was described and plans
for a precipitation measurement mission were discussed. In
addition, carbon dioxide measurement highlights from the
Chinese TanSat satellite, launched in December 2016, were
provided.
The annual GEWEX SSG meeting is an opportunity to takestock, and the 2017 meeting provided a forum to underscorethe current challenges confronting WCRP and also assess
the evolving nature of GEWEX. The GEWEX Panel activities continue to be shaped by the directions of Earth science
research. It is also clear that GEWEX has and will continue
to influence the focus and objectives of remote-sensing Earthscience and modeling activities. A notable outcome of
the China meeting was thedevelopment of plans fora new GEWEX Panel on
atmospheric processes thatwill build on existing andnew process activities, witha clear objective of aligning with activities of theWorld Weather Research
Programme.

Participants at GEWEX SSG-29 Meeting.

Contents

2

Commentary: GEWEX at 30

2

New SSG Members

3

Student and Early Career Scientist Events at
2016 AGU Fall Meeting

3

Changes in Leadership in GDAP, GHP and GLASS

4IN MEMORIAN: Piers Sellers

5

The Pannonian Basin Experiment (PannEx)

5- GLASS Science Panel Meeting- 2nd INARCH Workshop- 3rd National OzEWEX Workshop
GEWEX/WCRP Calendar

7
9
12
14
16

Kevin
E.E.
Trenberth
Kevin
TrenberthMeeting/Workshop Reports
GEWEX
SSG
Chair
GEWEX
SSG
Chair
- 1st GEWEX-SoilWat Initiative Workshop

February 2017

New SSG Members
We welcome the following new members of the GEWEX Scientific Steering Group (SSG), whose terms began in January
2016. For a listing of all the GEWEX SSG members, see:
http://www.gewex.org/about/organization/.
Gianpaolo Balsamo
Dr. Balsamo is a senior scientist
at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF) in Reading, United
Kingdom. He leads the Coupled
Processes Group of the Earth System Modeling section in the Research Department. His scientificinterests are surface-atmosphereinteractions and their influence
on weather and climate.
Michael G. Bosilovich
Dr. Bosilovich is a scientist at the
Global Modeling and Assimilation
Office of NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. His scientific interests include the Earth’s water and energy
cycles, global and regional climate
variations, extreme weather, theplanetary boundary layer, landatmosphere interactions, influenceof data in reanalysis, and Earth system models and the observations
needed to improve them.
Branka Ivančan-Picek
Dr. Ivančan-Picek is head of the
Research and Development Department at the Meteorological andHydrological Service (DHMZ) in
Zagreb, Croatia. She has many
years of experience in research of
mesoscale dynamics and forecasting, as well as in the severe weather
events interpretation and modeling. Her scientific interests are extreme weather and local phenomena, such as bora winds and heavy
precipitation.

Student and Early Career Scientist Events
at 2016 AGU Fall Meeting
Allison Goodwell, Niels Claes and Sheila Saia
AGU H3S Members

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Hydrology Section
Student Subcommittee (H3S) was busy hosting several events
during the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California.
The day before the Fall Meeting, H3S organized the interdisciplinary track of the Student and Early Career Conference.
This provided an opportunity for students and other early
career scientists within the AGU community to make socialand professional connections before the meeting. The Student
Conference featured sessions on the food-water-energy nexus,
data visualization, and modeling. Between these, participants
mingled and networked through an ice-breaker to help them“find [their]research superpower” as well as a gallery walk thatinspired discussion on themes such as mentoring, inclusionand service.
At the AGU meeting, the student-led activities continued
with pop-up talks, Hydrologist Bingo and an open-door H3S
committee meeting. The pop-ups, which are rapid-fire presentations on a range of topics, fell under themes of “Social
Dimensions” and “Water Science.” Throughout the week, Hydrologist Bingo gave students the opportunity to meet andstart conversations with well-known hydrologists. The Hydrology Business Luncheon and the Consortium of Universities
for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI)
mixer provided prime opportunities to network and fill out
bingo cards. During the H3S committee meeting, current
members met with other students and young scientists to discuss the focus and mission of the committee and brainstorm
ideas for future initiatives.
After the AGU meeting, several students embarked on a morning field trip to Palo Alto to participate in a service event witha watershed monitoring group, Grassroots Ecology (http://
www.grassrootsecology.org). Students met with volunteers fromdiverse backgrounds and discussed the links between academic
and community efforts to monitor the environment and effectively conduct and communicate science.
Most members of H3S serve on the committee for a 2-year
term, and this year’s committee includes new and old members of six different nationalities, spread over four continents. Check our twitter feed (@AGU_H3S) for announcements and for activities throughout the year. Questions andsuggestions are welcome! Please contact committee chair Niels
Claes at nclaes@uwyo.edu.

Recently publish a paper related to GEWEX research?
We are interested in showcasing selected research highlights that feature recent and interesting results relevant to
the GEWEX mission. For consideration, please summit your highlight at: http://www.gewex.org/latest-news/researchhighlights/. If your research qualifies, it will be published on the GEWEX website and may be featured in GEWEX News.

February 20173

Changes in Leadership in GDAP

Changes in Leadership in GHP

The new co-chairs for the GEWEX Data and Assessments
Panel (GDAP) are Drs. Rémy Roca and Tristan L’Ecuyer.
Dr. Rémy Roca (pictured in the center of the photo at thebottom of the page) is the Director of Research at the Centre
National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNRS) Laboratoire d’Études en
Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS) in Toulouse, France. His research interests are the physics of tropicalclimate, tropical meteorology, hydrology, the water and energy
cycle, satellite meteorology, remote sensing, mesoscale convective systems and the Megha-Tropiques satellite mission.
Dr. Tristan L’Ecuyer (pictured on the far left of the photoat the bottom of the page) is a Professor in the Atmospheric
Radiation and Climate Research Group at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, USA. His research interests
include the Earth’s energy balance, cloud-aerosol interactions,climate, satellite remote sensing and ground validation.

Joan Cuxart

Dr. Joan Cuxart, Senior Lecturer at
the University of the Balearic Islands
in Palma, Majorca, Spain, joins Dr.
Jason Evans as co-chair of the GEWEXHydroclimatology Panel (GHP). Dr.
Cuxart is an atmospheric physicist who
specializes in boundary-layer meteorology, with a focus on atmosphere-surface
exchanges through numerical modelingand experimental work. Previously heworked as a numerical modeler and researcher at the French and Spanish Meteorological Services.

Dr. Roca replaces Dr. Jörg Schulz(pictured on the far right in the photo
below), the Climate Product Managerof the European Organization for the
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) in Darmstadt,
Germany, who served as GDAP chairfrom 2014–2016 and as vice-chairfrom 2010–2013. Dr. L’Ecuyer replaces Dr. Matthew McCabe, Professor of
Matthew McCabe
Environmental Science and Engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. Dr. McCabe served as vicechair from 2015–2017 and has been a member of GDAP
since 2008.

Dr. Cuxart replaces Dr. Jan Polcher,a researcher at the Laboratoire de
Météorologie Dynamique du Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifiquein Paris, France, who co-chaired GHP
from 2011–2016. Dr. Polcher has participated in GEWEX for nearly 20 years,
Jan Polcher
and we have benefited enormously fromhis technical expertise in land-surface and atmosphere interactions and from his commitment to the project itself. He has
held many roles in GEWEX, including leader of the African
Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis Project (AMMA-EU),chair of the GEWEX Modeling and Prediction Panel (GMPP)
and the Global Land-Atmosphere System Study (GLASS), andmember of the GEWEX Scientific Steering Group. We are
grateful for Dr. Polcher’s support of GEWEX and look forward
to his continued involvement as the co-lead for the new GHP/
GLASS crosscutting project, Human Regulation of the Water
Cycle, and as the co-lead on the WCRP Grand Challenge on
Water for the Food Baskets.

GDAP Leaders, Current and Past

Changes in Leadership in GLASSFrom left to right: Tristan L’Ecuyer, Chris Kummerow (GDAP Chairfrom 2007–2010), Rémy Roca, Bill Rossow (Chair of GRP, the precussor to GDAP, from 2001-2007) and Jörg Schulz at the GDAP Meeting inWashington, D.C., in November 2016.

Dr. Gab Abramowitz joins Dr. Michael
Ek as co-chair of the Global Land/
Atmosphere System Study (GLASS) Panel. Dr. Abramowitz is a Senior Lecturer
at the Climate Change Research Centre
and Australian Research Council’s Centreof Excellence for Climate System Scienceat the University of New South Wales in
Sydney, Australia. His research interest ismodel evaluation in climate science, ecology and hydrology.
Currently, his research focuses on two main areas: model dependence in multi-model ensemble climate prediction and thestandardization of model evaluation in land-surface research.
He replaces Dr. Aaron Boone, a research hydrometeorologist
at the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques in Toulouse, France, who served as GLASS co-chair from 2013–2016.
Dr. Boone has been involved with GLASS for over a decade andcontinues his association with GLASS as the ALMIP2 Projectco-leader and as liaison to the SoilWat Initiative.

4

February 2017

IN MEMORIAM: Piers Sellers
It is with great sadness that wereflect on the recent death of ourfriend and colleague, Piers Sellers,a climate scientist, former astronaut and eternal optimist, whodied on 23 December 2016 at theage of 61. Before Piers went on toachieve fame as an astronaut, he
was a scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
and the leader for a GEWEX project called the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP), where he worked on global climate
problems, particularly those involving interactions between
the biosphere and the atmosphere, and was involved in constructing computer models of the global climate system, satellite data interpretation and conducting large-scale field experiments in the United States, Canada, Africa and Brazil.
Piers successfully guided ISLSCP until 1996, when he joined
the astronaut corps and moved to Houston, Texas. We at
GEWEX were thrilled for Piers as we watched him make threespace flights from 2002 to 2010 and take six space walks during the assembly of the orbiting laboratory. Piers never forgot his connection with GEWEX and at the 6th International
GEWEX Science Conference held in Melbourne, Australia in
August 2009, he gave a keynote speech on land-atmosphereinteractions.
Piers returned to GSFC in 2011 as deputy director of the center’s sciences and exploration directorate and as acting director
of its Earth sciences division, where he oversaw scientists researching climate and weather, including the causes and effects
of climate change. He made a point of using his experiences as
an astronaut to further people’s awareness of climate issues.
In January 2016, Piers wrote in the New York Times, “Whatshould the rest of us do [about climate change]? Two things
come to mind. First, we should brace for change. It is inevitable. It will appear in changes to the climate and to the way
we generate and use energy. Second, we should be prepared toabsorb these with appropriate sang-froid. Some will be difficult
to deal with, like rising seas, but many others could be positive.
New technologies have a way of bettering our lives in ways wecannot anticipate. There is no convincing, demonstrated reason to believe that our evolving future will be worse than ourpresent, assuming careful management of the challenges andrisks. History is replete with examples of us humans gettingout of tight spots. The winners tended to be realistic, pragmaticand flexible; the losers were often in denial of the threat.”
In an interview with the National Geographic, Piers summed
up his life by saying “I won’t be remembered as an Einstein,
and that’s fine—but I tried really hard, and I had fun. The
things I’ve seen, the things that people have allowed me to do,
the experiences I’ve had—I’ve had a very rich, rewarding life.
Most of it has turned out wonderfully.”
February 2017

The Pannonian Basin Experiment(PannEx)
Mónika Lakatos1, Ivan Güttler2, Vladimir Djurdjevic3,
Adina-Eliza Croitoru4, Tamas Weidinger5, Danijel Jug6,
Branka Ivančan-Picek7 and Joan Cuxart8
1
Hungarian Meteorological Service, Budapest, Hungary;2
Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Zagreb, Croatia;
3
Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, Serbia; 4Physical and Technical Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University, ClujNapoca, Romania; 5Department of Meteorology, Institute ofGeography and Earth Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University,
Budapest, Hungary; 6Faculty of Agriculture, University ofOsijek, Osijek, Croatia; 7Meteorological and Hydrological
Service, Zagreb, Croatia; 8Department of Physics, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Mallorca, Spain

The Pannonian Basin is contained within the larger Danube
River Basin and is surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains,the Dinarides and the Eastern Alps, creating an almost closed
topographic structure with a very wide central flatland. Thisconfiguration makes the Basin an excellent natural laboratory
for the study of the water and energy cycles, focusing on thephysical processes of relevance. Administratively, the Pannonian Basin is shared among twelve European countries.
A group of scientists from countries in the Basin have joined
together to form the Pannonian Basin Experiment (PannEx)
to coordinate research on the climate and environment of thisregion and address societal impacts related to these important
issues. The initiative is working towards becoming a Regional
Hydroclimate Project (RHP) under the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel (GHP), and will thus adhere to the principles
of GEWEX, its Grand Challenges and Scientific Questions.
After the first exploratory meeting in Osijek, Croatia in November 2015, a PannEx International Planning Committee(IPC) was formed to define the main themes of the experiment. The IPC was tasked with developing a White Book andthe first version of it was presented to the GHP members attheir annual meeting in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in October
2016. The draft document is available to anyone interested
in PannEx. For a copy, send an email to lakatos.m@met.hu
or ivan.guettler@cirus.dhz.hr. Comments on the evolving plan
are welcome.
Flagship Questions
PannEx has five Flagship Questions (FQs) addressing welldefined societal issues and three crosscutting actions to address
technical and scientific procedures. These will be the foundation
for the science and implementation plans required to launch
PannEx as an RHP. Both plans will be outlined at the next
PannEx workshop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 20-22 March2017 (https://sites.google.com/site/projectpannex/workshops).
FQ1 addresses the adaptation of agronomic activities toweather and climate extremes. Agronomy is a very importanteconomic sector in the Pannonian Basin and there is already5wind and solar energy have room to increase, relying upon
good weather forecasts.
FQ4 addresses water management and droughts and floods.
It explores how changes in water availability may affect theregion, as most of its ground surface is devoted to agriculture.
Climate change scenarios for the future indicate that the frequency of extreme events, such as floods and droughts, may
increase in the Pannonian Basin due to a warmer climate. Thisimplies that actions must be planned to mitigate the effects ofthese extremes, such as developing hydrological models at different temporal and spatial scales, improving the water balance
observational network and using satellite data and climate
model outputs. Short-term warning systems and long-term
drought forecasting are two challenges of great societal impactthat must be tackled. Managing dams and reservoirs and theireffect on the environment is also an important issue.
The Pannonian Basin (outlined in orange) covered by fog and low clouds.

evidence of change in areas related to climate and socio-economic developments. Severe precipitation events and longlasting droughts have been increasingly observed, and somephenological changes in crops and orchards have been recorded. In addition, the welfare of livestock during prolonged
periods of excessively hot weather is an issue. Monitoring ofthese events, together with more appropriate water and soil
management and plow strategies, is needed. Addressing theseissues and developing a better understanding of the relationships between the soil-vegetation system and the rest of the climate system in the Pannonian Basin can be achieved throughcollaboration between scientists and stakeholders at the local
and multinational scales.
FQ2 addresses changes in air quality under different weather andclimate conditions. Air quality has improved in the Pannonian
Basin over the last two decades due to technological advances
in most sources of pollution (vehicles, factories, power plants).
Still, under some meteorological conditions, incidences of poor
air quality could increase in the future. For example, along themain river valleys, pollutants can be trapped in the atmosphericboundary layer during winter anticyclonic conditions and redistributed by mesoscale circulations. We must further explore
the movement of these pollutants, their related chemistry andthe impact on humans and ecosystems through enhanced observations and specialized modeling that overcomes the difficulties of accessing the observational data of multiple countries.
FQ2 also addresses what actions must be taken to monitor thequality of precipitation and surface and ground water.
The subject of FQ3 is sustainable development. Specifically,
how can the Pannonian Basin maintain its current ecosystems
in a future where renewable energies must increase substantially? This FQ requires a coordinated effort between countries
and energy producers, as well as an assessment of the expected
evolution of energy requests. This will foster the preservationof the ecological services, identifying potential threats due toclimate change and mitigation strategies to cope with them.
Hydropower use in the region is relatively mature, whereas
6

FQ5 addresses university-level education for meteorology andhydrology in the region. Most areas of expertise are represented in institutions in the Pannonian Basin, but some countries
show more specialization in a particular discipline or specialty.
Also, collaboration between meteorological services and universities varies largely depending upon the country. We hopethat PannEx can promote transnational and transdisciplinary
cooperation in research, operations and education by meansof establishing summer schools, the exchange of professors andstudents and the coordination of master’s degree courses andPh.D. activities.
Transversal Crosscutting Actions (CCs)Three CCs have been defined for PannEx. CC1 is related todata and knowledge rescue and consolidation, aiming to identify and locate already-existing relevant data and equipment
and list all pertinent previous research, thus setting a precise
starting point for new actions. The goal of CC2 is to improveunderstanding and representation of process modeling, which
affects all FQs. Emphasis will be placed on the analysis of surface water and energy budgets and land-atmosphere interactions, atmospheric chemistry, crop modeling, the study of precipitation systems and hydrological modeling. Observationaland modeling experiments involving transnational working
groups will be conducted in the Pannonian Basin.
CC3 addresses the development and validation of modelingtools, including listing current activities at numerical weather
prediction centers and regional climate modeling centers. Future developments will include the increase of spatial resolution;
the use of new observations in the model suite; the convergenceof models into a seamless prediction system; the coupling withcrop, dynamic vegetation, air chemistry and hydrological models; and optimized post-processing of model outputs.
In summary, the goal of the activities of PannEx, including theinitiative’s interaction with GHP RHPs and other projects of
GEWEX and WCRP, is to enhance Earth system science in the
Pannonian Basin and contribute to the overall goal of the scientific community to improve the understanding of the climate
system, its predictability and its effect on human activities.
February 2017

Meeting/Workshop Reports
1st GEWEX SoilWat Initiative
Planning Workshop:
Advancing Integration of Soil and
Subsurface Processes in Climate Models
28–30 June 2016
Leipzig, Germany
Dani Or
Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Switzerland

The Soil and Critical Zone communities have been exploring
ways to broaden disciplinary participation in addressing global
challenges where soil and subsurface processes (groundwater)play important roles, such as climate change, food security
and land and water resources. GEWEX plays a prominent rolein quantifying land-atmosphere interactions in various modeling platforms and is a natural partner for fostering interactions
between the soil, subsurface and climate communities.
To improve the interactions between GEWEX and the soil andcritical zone communities, the workshop was held with the goalof working towards the integration of soil and subsurface processes in current climate models and other research activities
within GEWEX. Almost 30 scientists participated in the workshop, where discussions revolved around key issues such as: (i)how soil processes (infiltration, evaporation, soil properties) arerepresented in land-surface models; (ii) what role plants play inclimate models; (iii) how to bridge scales between traditionalsoil models and representation relevant to climate modeling;(iv) how to effectively incorporate groundwater in models; and(v) how to best integrate the communities.
Among the many suggestions received during the workshop,
three related initiatives were pushed to the forefront. The firstis an evaluation of pedotransfer functions and functional descriptions for calculation of hydraulic and thermal soil properties in global climate and hydrological models. This is a
joint GEWEX and International Soil Modeling Consortium(ISMC) project to conduct an in-depth survey on how key
soil physical processes (water and heat flow) are represented
in climate and hydrological models. It will focus on the Land
Surface Snow and Soil Moisture Model Intercomparison Project (LS3MIP) models, with an emphasis on revisiting thepedotransfer functions used to convert soil properties into
hydraulic and thermal parameters. Activities are underway touse new and highly resolved global soil maps (e.g., SoilGrids,
http://www.isric.org/content/soilgrids; see figure on next page) torevise key hydrologic transfer function models and to analyze
the impact on predicted hydraulic and thermal properties.
The second inititative is a systematic assessment of the utility of resolved soil maps and sensitivity of climate models to
February 2017

improve the quality and resolution of soil maps (e.g., Dy andFung, 2016). A systematic SoilParameterMIP will be conducted to evaluate the output of several climate models (theirland surface modules) migrating from standard soil maps tothe new global SoilGrids. The task will follow the GEWEXLS3MIP protocol for standardized inputs.
The third initiative involves conducting a survey of how
groundwater is implemented in climate models and strategies
for better incorporation of groundwater in climate models.
The initiative will explore producing a global database for historical and current groundwater levels, with the goal of having
contributing countries and monitoring authorities commit tosubmitting their data and possibly creating a global archive of
historical groundwater data.
Items discussed during the workshop on the role of soil science in climate research are described below.
The Role of Plants in Climate Models
Adaptation of plants and plant communities to the soil andcross-correlations between soils and plants are not currently
included in plant functional types. Modelers are starting toconsider whether biomes are better suited for modeling therole of vegetation than plant functional types. Whatever approach is used, the hydraulics of plants need to be incorporated in climate models.
Scale Issues
One obvious obstacle for land-surface models is their need for
input with a relatively high spatial resolution (less than 1 km).
Generating rainfall at that resolution is currently not feasible.
This problem is particularly relevant in landscapes with vegetation patterns and drainage networks that have scales smaller
than the smallest resolution that climate models can handle,
which must be greater than 10-25 km. A critical hydrologicalscale is the distance between the watershed and the river corridor. Most rivers have many hierarchical tributaries within
their subcatchments, creating a hierarchy of such length scales,with the smallest ones having a strong effect on the generationof river discharge. Some combination of a stochastic treatmentof the atmosphere paired with a deterministic approach to thesoil and vegetation domain seems inevitable.
For land and vegetation models, the deeper subsurface can become important if aquifers create teleconnections between areas of infiltration and upwelling that may be tens or hundredsof kilometers apart. For these areas, hydrogeological features
also need to be included in regional and global models.
The soil science community should be able to identify and address some of the interesting problems that occur at the 25-km
scale. These include: interflow, snow redistribution, soil-plantinteractions (the influence of plants on soil properties and theadaptation of plants to the soil), soil thermal behavior (relevant for energy partitioning) and albedo modification (e.g.,
biological crusts covering arid soils). In addition, the climate
modeling community has a huge demand for continuous soil
moisture data.
7

Modeling
In order to focus the debate in the coming years and the research it will hopefully generate, we need to be specific: (i)What is the purpose of the modeling effort? (ii) What are thespatial and temporal scales of the model(s) we want to workon? (iii) What is the necessary or desirable level of model complexity? (iv) What are the spatial and temporal resolutions weare striving for? (v) What accuracy is needed, and what accuracy can be achieved given the available input data?
With respect to model complexity and accuracy, the parameter uncertainty is such that we cannot expect overly complex
models to be constrained to a degree that makes their predictions reliable.
In general, the soil hydraulic properties will be approximatedusing proxy data. The pedotransfer functions that are used
for the conversion to soil hydraulic properties were mostly
developed for humid climates and do not work in more arid
regions.

An atmospheric model needs a soil and vegetation model thatdelivers the following: (i) accurate values of the absorbed, emitted and reflected radiation; (ii) sensible and latent heat fluxes
in the correct proportion and (iii) correct values for roughness
and drag.
In addition, a soil model needs to incorporate the exchangeof water with the groundwater, in view of the teleconnections
that aquifers can establish and the increasing importance ofgroundwater recharge in areas where groundwater is pumped
for domestic, agricultural and industrial use. Groundwater
data of several countries, including China, are not stored in acentral, global repository.
It is not clear how well current approaches can be modified
to meet these demands. The best strategy appears to be to
improve available models, while at the same time exploringalternative approaches. The use of Richards’ equation at scales
much larger than the Darcian scale for which it was developed was discussed. According to one view, there is no viable
alternative to Richards’ equation, even though it was acknowledged that a formal upscaling of Richards’ equation leads to asimilar equation, but with effective parameters that are hysteretic in nature, and which can only be quantified if the special
variation and cross-covariances of the local parameters were
known and obeyed limiting restrictions. It was noted that using a Darcy-based equation (like Richards’ equation), which
describes flow as driven by a potential gradient, to compute
fluxes in areas of multiple square kilometers is not realistic.
According to another view, these limitations are arguments todepart from the Darcian framework and search for an alternative approach that tackles soil water and possibly heat flows
at the desired scale directly. Models should be transferable toother catchments or regions, depending on the scale, withminimum or no calibration.
From a survey by ISMC regarding the expectation of the modeling consortium, the following are pertinent to the SoilWat
Initiative: (i) a classification to structure the existing populations of soil models is desired; and (ii) model input should bestandardized, including the minimum information required
to achieve adequate predictions.
Societal Aspects
Five shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) were developedby the International Committee on New Integrated Climate
Change Assessment Scenarios (ICONICS, O’Neill et al.,2015) and these are sustainability, middle of the road, regional
rivalry, inequality and fossil fuel development.

An illustrative example of two maps of sand content percentage in the
top soil in The Netherlands based on the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) that is used in many land surface models (top) andthe new SoilGrids (1 km, bottom). These maps are taken from a recent
report from Wageningen (HiHydroSoil: A High Resolution Soil Map
of Hydraulic Properties, April 2016, by Froukje de Boer; http://www.
futurewater.eu/2015/07/soil-hydraulic-properties/). The example illustrates potential differences in using high-resolution soil maps to improve description of soil properties in land surface models.

8

The role of water in these scenarios is not yet well established.
Groundwater recharge and irrigation appear to be particularly
difficult to capture. Our community has the knowledge tocontribute here but has not yet been involved.
Planned Activities• Establish a survey of existing soil models. The ISMC website currently lists over 30 models with descriptions.
February 2017

• Survey the pedotransfer functions that are used in global
climate models.
• Carry out a sensitivity analysis.
• Set up a soil parameter MIP.
• Seek or develop a modeling case study in which several soilmodels are run to model fluxes (of mass and energy) thatare relevant for climate models. This could be developed
into a MIP, or become part of a MIP that is already running. Joining existing MIPs has the strategic advantage of
connecting with the climate science community.
• Establish a global database for historical and current
groundwater levels.
Summary
The workshop was successful in galvanizing interaction between the communities and highlighted the commitment andinterest in finding ways to cooperate for improving soil andsubsurface processes in climate models and informing the soil
communities of climate model capabilities and opportunities.
A perspective paper will be written to clarify the needs, objectives and future directions of the GEWEX SoilWat Initiative.
A second GEWEX-SoilWat planning workshop is planned in2017 to report on progress and discuss items not addressedat this workshop, such as soil and plant processes and humaninteractions.
References
Dy, C.Y., and J.C.H. Fung, 2016. Updated global soil map for the Weather Research and Forecasting Model and soil moisture initialization for
the Noah Land Surface Model. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 121:8777-8800.
doi: 10.1002/2015JD024558. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/
2015JD024558/abstract?campaign=woletoc.
O’Neill, Brian C., et al., 2015. The roads ahead: Narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Global
Environ. Change. In press, doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.01.004.
Resources
Soil maps at various resolutions (90 m to 1 km) on global and continental
scales are available at the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC, http://www.isric.org/).
Five quantitative SSPs were developed by ICONICS (https://www2.
cgd.ucar.edu/research/iconics;
https://www2.cgd.ucar.edu/research/iconics/
background). These SSPs are available at: https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/
dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about. The International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) developed population and urbanization scenarios for eachof the SSPs. For GDP, three alternative interpretations of the SSPs by
the teams from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), IIASA and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research (PIK) have been developed.
ERA-Interim is a global atmospheric reanalysis from 1979 that is continuously updated in real time. It is available from the European Centre
for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF; http://www.ecmwf.int/
en/research/climate-reanalysis/era-interim). The system includes a 4-dimensional variational analysis with a 12-hour analysis window. The
spatial resolution of the data set is approximately 80 km on 60 verticallevels from the surface up to 0.1 hPa.

February 2017

GLASS Science Panel Meeting
3–5 October 2016
Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Michael Ek1, Gab Abramowitz2 and Aaron Boone3
1
NCEP Environmental Modeling Center, College Park, MD,
USA; 2Climate Change Research Centre, University of New
South Wales, Sydney, Australia; 3CNRM, Météo France,
Toulouse, France

The Global Land/Atmosphere System Study (GLASS) Science
Panel Meeting was held at the Université Paris-Saclay Centre/
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with 17 Panelmembers and guests attending. Community activities under
the three GLASS Panel elements were reviewed, including:(i) land model benchmarking to improve understanding andrepresentation of land-surface processes; (ii) understanding ofland-atmosphere interaction and feedbacks; (iii) data model
fusion; and (iv) crosscutting activities.
Local Land-Atmosphere Coupling (LoCo) Project
LoCo, which is led by Joseph Santanello, has reached its 10year anniversary. The LoCo Working Group (WG) has 15
members and many of them are early career scientists. Its focus is on accurately representing the relationship between soil
moisture, precipitation and coupling strength in models (e.g.,
Dirmeyer and Halder, 2016). To have the proper understanding and related model improvements, it is necessary to carefully
examine and quantify the full series of interactions (i.e., links
in the chain) at the process level, including boundary layer
feedbacks. The WG is tackling the development of quantitative process-based metrics and diagnostics of land-atmosphere(L-A) coupling (see figure on the cover) that can be applied
to observations as well as to models across scales, where manystudies and publications from the WG in recent years haveconcentrated on various metrics, models and applications.
Field campaigns have been a point of emphasis, including
the enhanced sonde at the Department of Energy (DOE)
Southern Great Plains (SGP) site (Craig Ferguson, Joseph
Santanello, Pierre Gentine) in summer 2015, improved soil
moisture and co-located L-A measurements from the DOE
Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM; Joseph
Santanello), New York State Mesonet (Craig Ferguson) andthe Land-Atmosphere Feedback Experiment [LAFE; Volker
Wulfmeyer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA)] at SGP in summer 2017. The LoCo WG is suggesting that the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-6(CMIP6), via Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 3, and theLand Surface, Snow and Soil Moisture Model Intercomparison project (LS3MIP) include an increased set of L-A variablesin the standard output of participants. LoCo has the closest
links with the GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study(GABLS) and the GLASS-GABLS Diurnal Coupling Experiment (DICE), due to the inherent importance of the boundary layer and model development in each. In the future, LoCo
9

will continue to follow and broaden the science of LoCo and
WG participation, synthesize what we have now in terms of
metrics and message, and engage and entrain the operationaland model development communities. See the LoCo website(http://www.gewex.org/loco). Paul Dirmeyer also provides a synthesis of the project at http://cola.gmu.edu/dirmeyer/Coupling_
metrics.html and the LoCo coupling metrics toolkit by Ahmed
Tawfik is available at http://www.coupling-metrics.com.
Protocol for Analysis of Land Surface Models (PALS)
Gab Abramowitz reviewed the PALS Project, a web application
designed for automated evaluation and benchmarking of landsurface models (LSMs). PALS hosts experiments that include:(i) data sets required to force or constrain a model for a particular experiment; (ii) model outputs uploaded by users (whorun their models locally), including ancillary files; and (iii) automated analyses of model outputs, compared with evaluation
data products, other models and empirical benchmarks. The
first-generation PALS site had around 250 users from morethan 60 institutions, and was used for the LSM Model Intercomparison Project (MIP) “PLUMBER,” described below. The
second-generation PALS system is in testing and development
and will be more flexible, with user-defined benchmarks. Structured to allow the original PALS analysis suite, it will also integrate other existing packages, such as International Land Model Benchmarking Project (ILAMB, in Python) or the NASA
Land Validation Toolkit (LVT, in Fortran), with use of a relatively simple wrapper. With all source code public on GitHub
and coding structures built for team development, the future
aim for PALS is to get the second-generation system functioning and adopted by the community as its own project.
PALS LSM Benchmarking Evaluation (PLUMBER) Project
Gab Abramowitz also summarized the PLUMBER project,an LSM MIP using the PALS system, designed to highlightthe importance of benchmarking over traditional evaluation;that is, defining performance expectations a priori. In defining benchmarks before model simulations are performed, we
can help answer the question of whether a group of models
is performing well or not, as opposed to simply identifying
which models perform better or worse than others. To achievethis, PLUMBER used two first-generation LSMs and threeempirically based models (testing out-of-sample) as a way to
set performance expectations. Results for sensible and latent
heat flux were compared at 20 flux tower sites across nine International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) vegetation types, using eight different performance metrics. The key
result from the original PLUMBER paper (Best et al., 2015)
was that despite clearly performing better than older LSMs,
current generation LSMs as a whole were not utilizing the information available in their input data about latent and sensible heat fluxes. The second paper by PLUMBER participants(Haughton et al., 2016) investigated whether or not this result
was because of methodological flaws in the original PLUMBER
experiment (i.e., whether lack of energy conservation in flux
tower data, time scale of analysis, diurnal biases, poor LSM
initialization, metric value aggregation or site choices might
have been responsible for the original result). The paper con-10

cluded that the most plausible explanation for the result wasa shared weakness among LSMs, noting that the mean of allparticipating LSMs did not show a radical improvement in
performance (suggesting that LSM error correlation is high).
Follow-on LSM benchmarking studies are continuing.
International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) ProjectDavid Lawrence provided an update on the ILAMB Projectand its goals to develop internationally accepted LSM evaluation experiments; promote the use of these benchmark experiments; support the design and development of open source
benchmarking tools; and strengthen links among experimental, remote sensing and climate modeling communities in thedesign of new model tests and new measurement programs.
ILAMB is mainly led and funded through the U.S. DOE Regional Climate Modeling Program. It is integrated with all theland MIPs in CMIP6 (LUMIP, LS3MIP, C4MIP) and willserve as one of the land analysis packages for CMIP6 and related MIPs. In the future, ILAMB will continue to be augmented with new metrics introduced by international collaborators, and will be utilized in CMIP6 assessments, including
assessments of LS3MIP land-only simulations. Collaboration
with PALS is under discussion.
Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 3 (GSWP3)
Hyungjun Kim outlined the status of GSWP3, a global offline
LSM MIP with meteorological forcing at 0.5 degree developed
specifically for this project. It will also be used for the Land
Surface, Snow and Soil moisture Model Intercomparison Project (LS3MIP) and SoilWat (both described below). The “fasttrack” phase of initial simulations using a preliminary versionof the forcing data is complete, as is analysis with the ILAMB
package. The goal was to test the forcing within a subset of theLSMs in order to identify any issues (which, in turn, could result in changes or updates to the input forcings), a critical stepas the model simulations should have the best possible forcing
data as inputs. Significant effort has been expended on refining
the forcing data (due to be frozen in May 2017). GSWP3 isalso tied in with LS3MIP under its offline component, LMIP
(which is endorsed as part of CMIP6). While GSWP3 simulations will run off the 0.5-degree forcing grid, LS3MIP model
output is intended to match coupled simulations as closely as
possible and so will run on each coupled model’s grid. In orderto remain consistent with CMIP6, a long-term retrospective
GSWP3 experiment (EXP1) starts in 1850, with prescribedland-use and land-cover changes derived from the Land Use
Harmonization (LUH) data set. Results submissions are due
mid-2017, and GSWP3 land reanalysis fields are expected tobe released in late 2017.
Hyungjun Kim and Sonia Seneviratne provided additional
updates on LS3MIP, part of the CMIP6 experiment suite toassess land-surface, snow and soil moisture feedbacks on climate variability and climate change. It focuses primarily on thephysical system with two phases: LMIP (offline) and LFMIP(coupled, with feedbacks), including coordinated SnowMIP
model intercomparisons, while carbon cycle and vegetation
dynamics are covered in more depth by CMIP complements
February 2017

C4MIP and LUMIP respectively (more on LUMIP below). A
detailed description of the protocol was published by van den
Hurk et al. (2016).
New GLASS Projects
New projects include the Land Use Model Intercomparison
Project (LUMIP) led by David Lawrence in collaboration with
the Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study(iLEAPS), where LUMIP is one of the CMIP6 satellite MIPs
and therefore is integrated with all CMIP6 activities (Lawrence
et al., 2016). LUMIP aims to further advance understandingof the impacts of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC)
on climate, and is a follow-up to the previous GLASS projectcalled Land Use and Climate–Identification of robust impacts(LUCID). LUMIP includes a two-phase experimental design
where phase one features idealized coupled and land-onlymodel simulations designed to advance process-level understanding of LULCC impacts on climate, as well as to quantify
model sensitivity to potential land-cover and land-use change.
Phase two LUMIP experiments focus on quantification of thehistoric impact of land use and the potential for future land
management decisions to aid in mitigation of climate change.
Also new is the GEWEX Soils Initiative (SoilWat), presented by Dani Or. The goal of SoilWat is to examine how soil
processes are represented in land-surface models and how tobridge scales between traditional soil models and representation relevant to climate modeling, including the effective
incorporation of groundwater models. Following the first
GEWEX-SoilWat planning workshop from 28-30 June 2016
in Leipzig (see workshop report on page 7), the LSM community is being surveyed about existing treatment of soils, soil
maps, groundwater databases and handling in models.
Other GLASS Projects Reviewed
Additional programs reviewed included the Project for the Intercomparison of Land Data Assimilation Systems (PILDAS),
presented by Sujay Kumar. The PILDAS initiative is being reinvigorated and is expected to help in the development of bestpractices in land data assimilation systems for the optimal exploitation of the information content of remote sensing data.
Aaron Boone summarized the status of the African Monsoon
Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) Land Surface Intercomparison Project-Phase 2 (ALMIP2). The project is nearing
completion, having sought to improve understanding andmodeling of key surface vegetation and hydrological processes
over West Africa (e.g., large rooting depths, near-surface aquifers, soil crusting, lateral transfer processes and strong runoff
variability). A number of ALMIP2 papers were submitted in2016 for the ALMIP2 special collection. Possible future work
for ALMIP2 includes expanding LoCo studies to the AMMA
region. Pere Quintana Seguí provided links with the GEWEXHydroclimatology Panel (GHP) such as land-atmosphere data
sets that will help in process-level studies in the Hydrological
Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX).
The new Land surface Interactions with the Atmosphere overthe Iberian Semi-arid Environment (LIAISE) Project was preFebruary 2017sented by Martin Best. LIAISE could involve GHP, GLASS,
and GABLS, as well as iLEAPS. There is a relevant session to
LIAISE at the European Geophysical Union Meeting in Aprilon the changing Mediterranean environment.
As GLASS liaison, Paul Dirmeyer provided updates on the
joint GEWEX-Climate and Ocean: Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR) Sub-seasonal to Seasonal (S2S)
Project where there is a potential contribution of the land to
predictability on S2S timescales, and on the WCRP-World
Weather Research Programme (WWRP) Monsoon Panel
where land-atmosphere interactions are important withinmonsoons. Joseph Santanello, GLASS representative to the
WCRP Modeling Advisory Council (WMAC), noted the
GLASS contributions in promoting model development andcoordination across WCRP. Similarly, Mike Ek, GLASS representative to the Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE), also brought up the importance of GLASS
activities for data assimilation and process-level improvement
to model physical parameterizations.
Finally, possible future process-level studies on snow
(SnowMIP, as presented by Gerhard Krinner) and permafrost(presented by David Lawrence) could involve GLASS collaborations with iLEAPS, the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC)
Project, and with other GEWEX Panels as partners.
References
Best, M.J., G. Abramowitz, H. Johnson, A.J. Pitman, A. Boone, M. Cuntz,
B. Decharme, P.A. Dirmeyer, J. Dong, M. Ek, V. Haverd, B.J.J. van den
Hurk, G.S. Nearing, B. Pak, C. Peters-Lidard, J.A. Santanello Jr., L. Stevens and N. Vuichard, 2015. The plumbing of land surface models: Benchmarking model performance. J. Hydrometeorol., 16, 1425-1442. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-14-0158.1.
Dirmeyer, P.A., and S. Halder, 2016. Sensitivity of surface fluxes and atmospheric boundary layer properties to initial soil moisture variations in CFSv2.
Weather Forecast., 31, 1973-1983. doi: 10.1175/WAF-D-16-0049.1.
Haughton, N., G. Abramowitz, A.J. Pitman, D. Or, M.J. Best, H.R. Johnson, G. Balsamo, A. Boone, M. Cuntz, B. Decharme, P.A. Dirmeyer, J.
Dong, M. Ek, Z. Guo, V. Haverd, B.J. van den Hurk, G. S. Nearing, B. Pak,
C. Peters-Lidard, J.A. Santanello Jr., L. Stevens and N. Vuichard, 2016. The
plumbing of land surface models: Why are models performing so poorly? J.
Hydrometeorol., 17, 1705-1723. doi: 10.1175/JHM-D-15-0171.1.
Lawrence, D.M., G.C. Hurtt, A. Arneth, V. Brovkin, K.V. Calvin, A.D.
Jones, C.D. Jones, P.J. Lawrence, N. de Noblet-Ducoudre, J. Pongratz, S.I.
Seneviratne and E. Shevliakova, 2016. The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) contribution to CMIP6. Rationale and experimental
design. Geosci. Model Dev., 9. doi: 10.5194/gmd-9-2973-2016.
Tawfik, A.B., P.A. Dirmeyer and J.A. Santanello, 2015. The Heated Condensation Framework. Part I: Description and Southern Great Plains Case
Study. J. Hydrometeorol., 16, 1929-1945. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/
JHM-D-14-0117.1.
van den Hurk, B. et al., 2016. LS3MIP (v1.0) contribution to CMIP6:
the Land Surface, Snow and Soil moisture Model Intercomparison Project–aims, setup and expected outcome. Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 2809–2832, http://
www.geosci-model-dev.net/9/. doi: 10.5194/gmd-9-2809-2016.

11

2nd INARCH Workshop
17–19 October 2016
Grenoble, France
John Pomeroy , Vincent Vionnet and INARCH
Colleagues
1
Centre for Hydrology and Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan, Canada; 2Snow Research Center, CNRM, Météo France/CNRS, Saint Martind’Hères, France
1

2

The International Network for Alpine Research Catchment
Hydrology (INARCH) is a crosscutting project of the GEWEXHydroclimatology Panel (GHP) and its objectives are to better understand alpine cold regions hydrological processes,
improve their prediction, diagnose their sensitivities to globalchange and find consistent measurement strategies. INARCH
is formulated around addressing five core questions: (1) How
do varying mountain measurement standards affect scientificfindings around the world? (2) What control does changing
atmospheric dynamics have on the predictability, uncertainty and sensitivity of alpine catchment energy and water exchanges? (3) What improvements to alpine energy and waterexchange predictability are possible through improved physics, downscaling, data collection and assimilation in models?
(4) Do existing mountain model routines have global validity?
(5) How do transient changes in perennial snowpacks, glaciers, ground frost, soil stability and vegetation impact alpine
water and energy models?
INARCH has a network of well-instrumented mountain research basins that INARCH members maintain. All of theseresearch basins have hydrometeorological, cryospheric andhydrological observations at multiple scales over multiple
years and some have snow, glacier, hydrologicaland atmospheric models run at various scales.
Observations are embedded near the headwaters of larger river basins that supply water forvast downstream populations. The following
figure shows a map of INARCH mountain research basins. Mount Lebanon has been proposed as a new research basin.
INARCH has linkages to GHP crosscutting
projects on precipitation phases and mountainprecipitation, as well as to the Changing Cold
Regions Network (CCRN), a Regional Hydroclimate Project. INARCH is seeking stronger connections with the Global Cryosphere
Watch and the World Meteorological Organization Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (WMO-SPICE) and the Third Pole
Environment (TPE) initiative. INARCH contributes to the UNESCO-International Hydrological Programme (IHP) efforts to gauge
climate change impacts on snow, glaciers andwater resources within the framework of the
IHP-VIII (2014-2021), and has linkages with
12

the International Commission for Snow and Ice Hydrology(IAHS-IUGG). INARCH also contributes to the MountainResearch Initiative led from Bern, Switzerland.
Over the last two years, INARCH has contributed to several conferences and workshops, such as the 2015 American
Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, where INARCH organizers
chaired an oral and poster session on Improved Understanding
and Prediction of Mountain Hydrology through Alpine Research Catchments. INARCH also participated in the WCRPInternational Conference on Regional Climate, CORDEX
2016, with a presentation by Richard Essery (UK) on observations and downscaling for alpine hydrological modelingand through several other INARCH participants, including
Ethan Guttman (USA), Kabir Rasouli (Canada) and Deborah
Verfaillie (France). John Pomeroy gave a general presentation
on INARCH at the 6th Third Pole Environment Workshop
and Joseph Shea, Maxime Litt (Nepal) and Walter Immerzeel(The Netherlands) gave talks or poster presentations.
An INARCH special issue in Journal of Earth System Science
Data is now open for submissions until 30 September 2017
on the topic of “hydrometeorological data from mountain andalpine research catchments.” Contributions from openly available, detailed meteorological and hydrological observationalarchives from long-term research catchments at high temporal, well-instrumented mountain regions around the world arebeing prepared and at least 16 submissions are expected fromthe INARCH Project by the special issue co-editors, John
Pomeroy (Canada) and Danny Marks (USA).
The 2nd INARCH Workshop was held at the Institut desGéosciences de l’Environnement (IGE) in Grenoble, France,and provided an opportunity for scientists to explore anddiscuss specific issues in mountain snow and ice hydrology

Current INARCH mountain research basins.

February 2017

highlighted in the first INARCH workshop held in October
2015. Sixty scientists from the USA, Canada, Chile, China,
France, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Lebanon
and Norway attended the workshop. The Local Organizing
Committee of Vincent Vionnet [Météo France, Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques-Centre d’Etudes de la
Neige (CNRM-CEN)], Isabella Zin (IGE), Jean-EmmanuelSicart (IGE) and Delphine Six (IGE) arranged the workshop
and a field tour to the nearby Mount Blanc area.

Downscaling Discussion
The discussion focused on developing a toolbox or set of
guidelines for downscaling. It was agreed that the productshould be end user specific (e.g., operational forecasts, 1-3month water supply forecasts and climate predictions) andthe role of statistical versus dynamical methods for various
end uses was discussed, including what tools are suitable foreach use case. Reoccurring downscaling topics discussed include the following:

The workshop focused on the following topics: (i) atmospheric downscaling for mountain snow and ice hydrology
modeling; (ii) availability and suitability of observations
from mountain observatories and discussion of the INARCH
special issue; and (iii) sensitivity of the cryospheric and hydrological response of mountain catchments to various representations of a changing climate.

• Statistical downscaling of larger-scale regional climate
models (RCMs) may be unsuitable for driving physically
based snow models where co-occurrence of wind, humidity, temperature and radiation fields with precipitation
events control snow regimes, precipitation phase, blowing
snow and melt.

The workshop fieldtrip visited research sites in the Aiguilledu Midi (3842 m), near Chamonix. Christian Vincent (IGE)
described the scientific activities of the CryObs-Clim Observing System, Thomas Condom (IGE) outlined the experimental rain gauge network and related scientific activities, andFlorence Naaim Bouvet (IRSTEA) presented the Taconnaz
avalanche path and associated protection. The group visited the
Le Tour hydrometric station and learned about snow measurement techniques and hydrological issues in the Alps (Vincent
Vionnet, Samuel Morin and Isabella Zin). At the confluence of
the Arve and Arveyron d’Argentière, they were shown flood defenses, saw the sediment transport station at Pont des Favrands
and heard about water quality issues.
The 2nd INARCH workshop had 42 oral and poster presentations covering high mountain environments from North andSouth America, Africa, Europe and Asia. The topics covered
downscaling meteorological models for mountain snow andice hydrology, modeling the cryospheric and hydrological response of mountain catchments under present and future climate and mountain observatories and links between INARCH
and other research programs. Discussions on downscaling, observatories and future directions are summarized next.

• Atmospheric model failure. INARCH recognizes the needfor carefully applied bias corrections, but promotes the improved physical representation of atmospheric models inmountain environments. INARCH will interact with theatmospheric modeling community to make its members
aware of performance issues in mountain environments.
INARCH will promote the assimilation of mountain observations in atmospheric models and the use of mountaindata sets in assessing model performance through multiobjective analysis.
• Physical models are never perfect. INARCH can quantify the impact of resolution increase on predicted surface
variables (i.e., the diurnal temperature and precipitation
cycle). The project will promote dynamical downscaling of
atmospheric models but will assist in developing empirical, statistical or simpler dynamical downscaling at scalesless than several kilometers.
• Ask questions that Global Climate Model (GCM) andRCM tools can answer. (Just because we want it doesn’tmean we can have it.) What is the appropriate scale for
evaluation of models given our catchment scales?

Participants at the 2nd INARCH Workshop.

February 201713• Specify the questions we ask of GCM and RCM models based on results from our snow and ice models andsites. What is the likelihood of warming and precipitation
change that will cause a certain result?

3rd National OzEWEX Workshop• Ensure that RCMs better incorporate land surface feedbacks in mountain regions and test using observatories.

Simon Walker1, Seth Westra2 and Albert VanDijk1
1
The Australian National University College, Canberra,
Australia; 2The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

Observatories Discussion
It was agreed that INARCH sites are valuable for climatechange documentation and model verification. The discussion
was centered around the following questions.
• How do measurement standards affect scientific findings?
The transition from point to continuous spatial measurements opens up new dimensions.
• How do changing atmospheric dynamics affect mountainsnow and ice hydrology?
• How well do improved model physics represent mountainsnow and ice hydrology and what is the global validity ofsnow and ice hydrology models?
• Do uncertainties overwhelm models?
• What is the role of transient change in vegetation and thestorage of water, snow and ice in enhancing or dampening
climate impacts?
• Are INARCH sites valuable for GCM and RCM intercomparison studies? Data sets need to be published (DOI)
and well documented on the INARCH website.
One outcome from the discussion was that the Project should
compile data for model testing of the sensitivity of snow andice to climate change in various alpine climates. Models driven
by perturbed meteorological observations can be used to do
this via virtual basins and mountains. Comparisons, such as theNorth American Cordillera and Mediterranean, are underway.
Future Directions
The ESSD special issue on INARCH will continue to receive
submissions until September 30th. Other journals will be approached for a special INARCH issue on mountain snow andice hydrology that includes references to downscaling, processes and diagnosis of climate change impacts. Updates to the
INARCH website (http://www.usask.ca/inarch/) will include adownscaling toolbox with a link to methods, as well as metadata for catchments and links to DOI data. A technical document
is planned with UNESCO on “Best Practices in Instrumenting
Mountain Research Catchments,” as is a policy-relevant publication with UNESCO on “Risks to World Water Security
from Changing Mountain Snow and Ice Hydrology.”
The workshop concluded with a formal statement highlighting the upcoming special issue and the development of thedownscaling toolbox for the INARCH website, as well as
attempts by INARCH to calculate the impacts of climatechange on mountain hydrology sensitivity, transient vegetation cover and hydrological and cryospheric storage.
14

14–15 December 2016
Canberra, Australia

The 3rd National Australian Water and Energy Exchange Research Initiative (OzEWEX) Workshop was held at the Australian National University in Canberra. Scientists and policy
makers from Australian universities, government and private
sectors attended the workshop. OzEWEX is an Initiatingphase GEWEX Regional Hydroclimate Project.
Prof. Albert van Dijk, OzEWEX Chair, opened the workshop
and introduced the new OzEWEX Co-Chair, Assoc. Prof. Seth
Westra from the University of Adelaide. Prof. van Dijk presented an overview of new OzEWEX initiatives, including a community data catalogue (http://ozewex.org/data-set-catalogue/)and the Australian Climate and Water Summer Institute (http://ozewex.org/first-ozewex-summer-institute/). The OzEWEX submission to the National Research Infrastructure Roadmap was
discussed, including the need to maintain and strengthen national collaboration, data and model infrastructure.
Prof. Andy Pitman of the University of New South Wales
discussed the potential for broader collaboration in Australia
across climate, hydrology and land surface sciences and how
these research fields can do more to attract funding. Dr. Richard
Thornton and Dr. Michael Rumsewicz from the Bushfire andNatural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre then gave a talkon the importance of connecting applied research with policy
decision-making and converting it into action.
The first of two parallel sessions for day one of the workshop
was entitled “Observation networks and enhancing data sharing” and included talks on topics such as a network for observing surface fluxes of water and carbon across Australia andnational computational infrastructure data collections. The
second parallel session focused on “Community modeling anddata assimilation systems,” and included a project proposal by
Dr. Martin DeKauwe (Macquarie University) on how continental-scale vegetation models could be improved through abetter understanding of the behavior of Australian Eucalypts.
Mr. Nadeem Samnakay (Murray-Darling Basin Authority)
talked about the importance of community collaboration inenvironmental decision-making. Dr. Pauline Grierson fromthe University of Western Australian presented the unique hydrology of the Pilbara region in Western Australia and how
modern observations (under 100 years) often do not capture
the full range of variability in the system (e.g., severe extremes
that are seen in the geologic record).
On the second day of the workshop, Prof. Rob Vertessy (University of Melbourne/Australian National University) talked
about the strengths of collaborative science research collectives,
February 2017and the potential for OzEWEX
to help in facilitating scientificcollaboration in Australia. Dr.
Helen Cleugh (Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) discussed
the importance of understanding how different componentsof the Earth system will likely
respond to a changing climate
and what Australia could do toensure it is prepared for this.
The first parallel session of thesecond day was devoted tocollaborative research that adValentin Heimhuber receiving
dresses Australia’s climate andthe MSSANZ student poster
water challenges. The session
prize from MODSIM president
also included two project proDr. David Post.
posals. The first proposal waspresented by Dr. Anthony Kiem of Newcastle University whooutlined the need for the collection and analysis of more paleoclimate data across the Australian continent. Dr. Michael
Leonard of the University of Adelaide proposed a framework
for identifying compound events to assist in planning anddecision-making related to climate change. The second parallel session concerned unified and diversified streamflow prediction and presented the latest methods and techniques formodeling a range of hydrological processes.
Poster sessions sponsored by the Modeling and Simulation
Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ) were held
during lunches. The winner of the 2016 MSSANZ Student
Poster Prize was Valentin Heimhuber (University of New
South Wales) for his poster on the use of satellite data for assessing environmental flows.
All in all, the workshop was a great success and we look forward to a productive year for OzEWEX in 2017. Below is thesummary of the first OzEWEX Summer Institute.
Australian Climate and Water Summer Institute
OzEWEX ran its first Australian Climate and Water
Summer Institute from 5 December 2016 to 20 January 2017. This event provided a fellowship grant toa select number of the best students in Australia, giving them a unique opportunity to work closely withpeers and experts from academia and government
agencies to enhance climate and water informationand its practical applications. The program involved
a two-week “boot camp” followed by four weeks ofproject planning and implementation. During theboot camp, participants visited various government
agencies to attend talks and receive training in themost up-to-date data and tools used in Australianclimate and water science. Following two weeks of
excursions and training, participants then self-organized into small groups to develop projects acrossfour broad themes:
February 2017

• Drought Assessment—spatially measuring water resources and the environmental and agricultural impacts ofdrought• Water Sharing and Environmental Flows—water use and thebenefits of environmental flows across the Murray-Darling
Basin at present and under future scenarios• Flood Risk and Emergency Response—spatial flood risk
mapping and prediction from remote sensing and the national Digital Elevation Model (DEM), routing river flows
at the national scale• Water Cycle Data Integration—new observation networks
and remote sensing, data discovery and data assimilation

Under these themes, students were encouraged to pursue ambitious ideas towards new applications of climate and water
data to better assist decision-making. Through presentations,the students were given full insight into topics ranging fromenvironmental flows to cyclone risk assessment, and from seasonal streamflow forecasting to drought impacts.
Among the many highlights from the first Summer Institute were the opportunities to hear about the latest researchfrom government agencies. For example, Dr. David Weldrake(Murray-Darling Basin Authority) showed how the MDBA
has used Geoscience Australia’s Water Observations fromSpace (WOfS) product alongside river gauge data to estimate
the relationship between river flow and flood plain inundation
across various regions of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Participants were also provided opportunities to apply someof the latest tools and data sets currently used by Australian
government agencies in decision-making for climate and water issues. Finally, the Institute allowed these young scientists
to build connections with senior researchers in the Australianclimate and water research space.
Thanks to the great attitude of the fellows and the generous
assistance of the Summer Institute Consortium of government and research organizations and their staff, the very first
OzEWEX Summer Institute was a resounding success.

The alumni of the 2016/2017 Australian Climate and Water Summer Institute.

15

GEWEX/WCRP Calendar
For the complete Calendar, see: http://www.gewex.org/events/

20–22 March 2017—3rd PannEX Workshop—Cluj, Romania
28–29 March 2017—GEWEX Upper Tropospheric Clouds and Convection Process Evaluation Study Meeting—New York, NY, USA
29–31 March 2017—Joint ESA-Baltic Earth Workshop on Remote
Sensing Applications in the Baltic Sea region—Helsinki, Finland
31 March 2017—GABLS Meeting—Delft, The Netherlands
31 March–7 April 2017—Arctic Science Summit Week 2017— Prague,
Czech Republic
2–6 April 2017—Aerosols, Clouds, Precipitation and Climate (ACPC)
Workshop—Bad Honnef, Germany
3–7 April 2017—38th Session of WCRP Joint Scientific Committee—
Paris, France
18–21 April 2017—Third A-Train Symposium—Pasadena, CA, USA
23–28 April 2017—EGU General Assembly 2017—Vienna, Austria
2–4 May 2017—Climate Prediction Application Science Workshop
2017—Anchorage, AK, USA
15–16 May 2017—GLASS Meeting—Tokyo, Japan
15–19 May 2017—Workshop on Frontiers in Ocean-Atmosphere Exchange: Air Sea Interface and Fluxes of Mass and Energy—Cargèse,
France16–19 May 2017—Hydrology Delivers Earth System Sciences to Society(HESSS4)—Tokyo, Japan
17–19 May 2017—Global Soil Wetness Project-3 (GSWP3)–InterSectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) Workshop—Tokyo, Japan
20–25 May 2017—Joint Japan Geoscience Union–American GeophysicalUnion Meeting—Tokyo, Japan
6–8 June 2017—Clouds, their Properties and their Climate FeedbacksWhat have we learned in the satellite era?—New York, NY, USA
19–23 June 2017—5th WGNE Workshop on Systematic Errors in Weather and Climate Models—Montreal, Canada

10–12 July 2017—TPE-CSTP-HKT Joint Conference—Kunming,
China
10–14 July 2017—International WCRP/IOC Conference on Regional
Sea Level Changes and Coastal Impacts—New York, NY, USA
10–14 July 2017—Workshop on the Future of Cumulus Parameterization—Delft, The Netherlands
18 July 2017—SMAP Weather Focus Session—Moss Landing, CA,USA
19 July 2017—1st International Surface Work Group Meeting—Monterey, CA ,USA
10–24 August 2017—7th International Workshop on Catchment Hydrological Modeling and Data Assimiliation (CAHMDA-VI)—Xi’an
Shanxi, China
28 August September 2017—38th Conference on Radar Meteorology—
Chicago, IL, USA
11–14 September 2017—5th iLEAPS Science Conference—Oxford, UK
18–22 September 2017—COSPAR 2017—Jeju, Republic of Korea
25–28 September 2017—CFMIP Meeting on Clouds, Precipitation,
Circulation, and Climate Sensitivity—Tokyo, Japan
9–13 October 2017—GHP-TPE Workshop—Kathmandu, Nepal
9–13 October 2017—WGNE-32—Exeter, UK
25–26 October 2017—7th GVAP Workshop—Leicester, UK
13–17 November 2017—5th International Conference on Reanalysis(ICR5)—Rome, Italy
13–16 November 2017—IWA World Water Congress and Exhibition—
Buenos Aires, Argentina

GEWEX NEWS
Published by the International GEWEX Project Office

22–23 June 2017—8 GTN-H Coordinating Panel Meeting—Montreal,
CanadaPeter J. van Oevelen, Director
Dawn P. Erlich, Editor
Shannon F. Macken, Assistant Editor

22–23 June 2017—13th GRDC Steering Committee Meeting—Koblenz,
Germany

International GEWEX Project Officec/o USRA
425 3rd Street SW, Suite 940
Washington, DC 20024 USAth

27–29 June 2017—4th International Conference on Energy and Meteorology—Bari, Italy
4–7 July 2017—10th HyMeX International Workshop—Barcelona,
Spain

16

Tel: 1-202-527-1827
E-mail: gewex@gewex.org
Web: http://www.gewex.org

February 2017