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GCOS REGIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR
SOUTH AMERICA
September 2004
Foreword: Implementing the Plan of Action
The social, economic and cultural characteristics and values of the world's peoples are, to a
large extent, related to the environmental conditions which characterize the different geographic
regions of the globe and climate is a vital component of the global environment. Prairies,
forests, deserts, glaciers, lakes, and other features exist because climatic conditions have
established soil moisture and precipitation regimes that facilitate the development of these
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and habitats. Extreme climatic events (i.e. heat waves,
floods, droughts) are, moreover, the most frequent cause of environmental catastrophes for
human society, affecting crops and grasslands, influencing human health through diseases and
injuries, generating psychotic stresses, destroying human infrastructures and killing people.
The adverse impacts of such events have plagued South American countries in recent decades,
often associated with the El Niño phenomenon. Examples include the economic and social
burdens resulting from recent severe floods in cities like Buenos Aires, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro,
Santa Fe and others, the flooding of eight million hectares of fertile lands in Argentina's Pampas
and the cholera epidemic which began in coastal Peru then spread to neighbouring countries
and caused more than 3,000 deaths.
Sustainable development depends on a healthy environment. In broad terms, the availability of
natural goods and services is controlled, inter alia, by the climate system and the hydrological
cycle. Consequently, Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) states that the ultimate objective of the Convention is to achieve the stabilization of
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Furthermore, such a level should be
achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change
and to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to
proceed in a sustainable manner. It is easy to understand that the impacts of climate change on
different communities will vary, as illustrated by recent examples of the particular vulnerability of
less developed countries to climatic events. Global climate change is, therefore, also closely
linked to international security since its impacts, either singly or in combination, can severely
impact human water supplies, agriculture, migration patterns, infrastructure, financial flows,
disease prevalence and economic activity.
Human society is facing a changing climate in South America and globally. In South America, a
series of observed climate impacts such as the retreat of glaciers, floods, mudslides, drying of
wetlands, droughts, loss of species, etc, and their attribution to climate change, calls for
immediate action by governments and by private sector decision makers. With these changes
already underway, it seems evident that the South American community could face a critical
situation in a very short time. This reality reinforces the urgent need for systematic monitoring
of climate and its variations and impacts in South America. The Conference of the Parties
(COP), the supreme body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), has pointed out, however, that high quality data for climate-related purposes is
often not available due to the inadequate geographic coverage, quantity and quality of the data
produced by current global and regional observing systems1. Consequently, the Conference of
the Parties has stressed the need for full implementation of the Global Climate Observing
System (GCOS), including its atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial components.
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Most of these problems occur in developing countries where lack of funds for modern equipment and infrastructure,
training of staff, and high costs of continuing operations poses a major challenge.
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The intent of this Regional GCOS Action Plan for South America is to ensure that GCOS needs
for observational data from South America are met by achieving improvements in climate
system observing networks and data management, archiving, data exchange and access
systems across the continent. Enhanced monitoring of climate parameters, improved data
management and provision of easier access to climatic data will facilitate climate change
detection, climate impact assessments, planning for adaptation to climate and its extremes and
the development and validation of climate models. It will, in addition, support many
socioeconomic and environmental applications in fields such as land-use and operational
planning, engineering design, water resources management, agriculture, forestry and public
health programmes. Implementation of the initiatives in the Regional Action Plan will, therefore,
yield substantial benefits at regional, national and local levels in South America. In
consequence, the Action Plan presents a solid case for investments in improving South
American capabilities to undertake and maintain systematic, long-term, climate observation
programs.
The implementation of this Regional GCOS Action Plan will require long term commitments by
the nations of South America, reinforced by technical and financial assistance from external
donors. It is hoped, however, that the Plan will encourage domestic and external initiatives by
presenting a regionally-based prioritization of needs and by proposing realistic and effective
actions to address these deficiencies. This regional approach encourages, even necessitates,
enhanced coordination and cooperation between individual nations and institutions in South
America. Regional approaches in areas such as education and training, data management,
telecommunications, observing station and network operation and maintenance, and application
of radar and satellite remote sensing may have the potential to yield significant cost savings and
efficiencies.
As a closing note, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002)
adopted the acronym WEHAB (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity) and
stressed that these essential tools of development need to be defended. The climate system is
a vital natural resource, one that is closely interlinked to these development tools and to global
environmental issues such as stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, desertification,
local and regional air pollution, eutrophication and forest and water issues, and it simply must be
protected. The implementation of GCOS will assist in addressing that challenge. The high
priority that South American governments have given to the climate issue in their discussions
with the Parties to the UNFCCC must be also given to their national efforts to up-date and make
fully operational the recommended climate observing facilities and services. In the context of
sustainable development, careful attention must also be paid to climate-related mitigation and
adaptation strategies. The benefits of such strategies need to be assessed against the potential
losses due to the impacts of climate. In consequence, urgent action is also needed to improve
the collection of socio-economic information on the impacts of climate and its variations and
extremes.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword..............................................................................................................................i
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .....................................................................................................1
1.
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................3
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
2.
GENERAL BACKGROUND ....................................................................................6
2.1
2.2
3.
Problem Statement .......................................................................................4
Overall Objective...........................................................................................4
Specific Goals ...............................................................................................4
Underlying Considerations ..........................................................................5
Action Plan Structure ...................................................................................5
Climatic Controls and Influences ................................................................6
Vulnerability to Climate and its Extremes ..................................................8
CURRENT STATUS OF SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION PROGRAMMES ...........9
3.1
The Atmosphere............................................................................................9
3.1.1 The GSN..............................................................................................10
3.1.2 The GUAN ...........................................................................................10
3.1.3 The Global Atmosphere Watch.........................................................11
3.1.4 Other Issues .......................................................................................12
3.1.5 Overall Assessment for the Atmosphere ........................................13
3.2
The Oceans..................................................................................................13
3.2.1 Ocean Observing Networks – Present Status.................................14
3.2.1.1 GLOSS ..................................................................................15
3.2.1.2 Other Oceanographic Programmes ...................................15
3.2.2 Overall Assessment for the Oceans ................................................16
3.3
The Terrestrial System ...............................................................................17
3.3.1 Terrestrial Observation Networks - Present Status........................18
3.3.1.1 Hydrology and Water Resources .......................................18
3.3.1.2 Natural Ecosystems.............................................................19
3.3.1.3 The Carbon Cycle ................................................................19
3.3.2 Overall Assessment for the Terrestrial Component .......................20
3.4
Remote Sensing ..........................................................................................20
3.4.1 Overall Assessment for Remote Sensing........................................21
3.5
Regional Coordination and Organization .................................................21
3.5.1 Overall Assessment ..........................................................................22
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4.
SPECIFIC ACTIONS TO ADDRESS ISSUES AND REQUIREMENTS ................22
4.1
Action Plan Projects ..................................................................................23
4.1.1 The Atmosphere................................................................................23
Project 1. Enhancement of the GUAN Network in Central South
America ............................................................................23
Project 2. Enhancement of the Surface and Upper-air Network
for South America ...........................................................25
Project 3. Consolidation of the Network Measuring Greenhouse
Gases (GHG) in South America .....................................28
Project 4. Assessment and Enhancement of the UV-B Radiation
Measurement Network in South America .....................30
4.1.2 The Oceans........................................................................................34
Project 5. Enhancement of Sustained Surface and Subsurface
Observations in the Western Subtropical South
Atlantic .............................................................................34
4.1.3 Terrestrial Systems...........................................................................37
Project 6. Analysis of the Hydrological Observing Systems
and Networks Existing in South America (precipitation
and levels/volumes) as Regional Contribution to the
Initial Development of the Global Terrestrial Network
for Hydrology (GTN-H) ....................................................37
Project 7. State of the Cryosphere Project.....................................40
4.1.4 Data .....................................................................................................44
Project 8. Improvement of South American Capacities in
Hydrological, Meteorological, and Climate Database
Management ....................................................................45
Project 9. Improvement of the GCOS Daily Database Available
Over South America for Studies of Extreme Events....47
4.1.5 Remote Sensing.................................................................................49
Project 10. South American Atmosphere Remote Sensing: Data
Integration for Validation of Numerical Models and
Climate Studies ...............................................................49
4.1.6 Impacts of Climate .............................................................................54
Project 11. Socio-Economic Project - A Necessary Complementary
New Focus on GCOS Data ...........................................54
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4.2
Action Plan Recommendations .................................................................58
4.3
Action Plan Outputs....................................................................................59
4.4
Anticipated Impacts, Benefits and Beneficiaries .....................................60
5.
RESOURCE MOBILIZATION ................................................................................61
6.
CONCLUDING REMARKS ....................................................................................62
SELECTED REFERENCES
APPENDICES:
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
APPENDIX III
APPENDIX IV
APPENDIX V
GCOS Monitoring Principles
GSN Stations in South America
GUAN Stations in South America
Information on South American Stations Reported by the GAWSIS
Website
List of Acronyms
v
(Intentionally blank)
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Preparing for and adapting to climatic variability (e.g. El Niño/La Niña events), climate change
and extremes of climate are critical to the pursuit of sustainable development, poverty reduction
and protection of human health in South America. At present, however, climate observing
systems in many South American nations are in such a state of disrepair that reliable
assessment, quantification, and prediction of climatic conditions and their impacts has been
compromised. Unless immediate action is taken to address critical deficiencies in South
America's systematic climate observing programmes, the costs in terms of losses in production
and livelihoods adversely affected due to inadequately understood and prepared for climate
variability and climate change are likely to be much higher than the investment required to
remedy these deficiencies today. The overall objective of this Regional GCOS Action Plan is to
contribute to national, regional and global sustainable development, poverty reduction and other
climate-sensitive priorities by taking effective action to ensure that climate observing systems
and related infrastructure in South America are adequate to address the challenges associated
with predicting, planning for, mitigating, and adapting to climate variability, climate change, and
extreme climatic events and their impacts. More specifically, the Action Plan:
− Identifies GCOS and related domestic requirements for systematic observations of the
climate system in South America;
− Assesses the current status of South American observational networks and
programmes and associated data systems against these requirements;
− Proposes specific projects and makes recommendations to rectify identified gaps and
deficiencies in these observational networks and programmes and to enhance their
coordination.
The Action Plan proposes eleven high priority projects, as follows.
Project No. 1
proposes to enhance the South American GUAN network and ensure that
these stations fully meet GCOS standards.
Project No. 2
America.
aims to improve systematic climate observation programmes in South
Project No. 3
targets enhanced observation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other
atmospheric constituents across the region.
Project No. 4
addresses the need for expanded monitoring of UV-B radiation in view of its
implications for public health in South America.
Project No. 5
targets sustained surface and subsurface observations in the western
subtropical South Atlantic.
Project No. 6
assesses South America's hydrological observation systems and networks
against requirements of a Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology (GTN-H).
Project No. 7
aims to establish sustainable cryospheric observation networks and systems
to facilitate water resources assessments and climate studies.
Project No. 8
targets the modernization of South American nations' database management
capacities and systems to enhance user access to climate data.
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Project No. 9
responds to the need for data rescue in South America, aiming to improve the
GCOS daily database for studies on extreme events.
Project No. 10 focuses on the development and application of enhanced South American
remote sensing capabilities.
Project No. 11
examines the socio-economic implications of extreme precipitation events.
It also makes five recommendations directed towards somewhat broader priorities.
recommendations stress the importance of:
These
− Identifying users' needs for climate data and products to assist in planning and
targeting capacity building and infrastructure investments.
− Submitting National Reports on systematic climate observation programmes to the
UNFCCC's Conference of the Parties (COP).
− Providing historical data from GSN and GUAN stations to the World Data Centre (US
NCDC) to underpin studies of climatic variability and change.
− Improving GCOS-related coordination in South America in order to increase efficiency,
reduce costs and ensure that climate data meets users' needs.
− Assigning a high priority to GCOS observational requirements in the climatically
sensitive Antarctic continent and adjacent ocean.
Concluding sections of the Regional GCOS Action Plan identify the need for additional
resources to implement projects and recommendations and to sustain systematic climate
observation programmes. They outline a resource mobilization strategy based on seeking
external donor funding for capacity building and infrastructure improvements and targeting
national governments as the primary sources of funding to sustain observation programmes. It
is stressed that agencies responsible for systematic climate observations must develop much
closer relationships with government decision-makers in their respective countries if they are to
receive increased domestic support. This necessitates linking climate observation programmes
much more visibly to government priorities such as, for example, poverty reduction, disaster
mitigation, and public health.
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1.
INTRODUCTION
The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was established in 1992 as a joint initiative of
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Economic,
Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and International Council for Science (ICSU). Its
objectives are to provide the data necessary for climate system monitoring, climate change
detection and response monitoring, application to the development of national economies, and
research. GCOS addresses the total climate system, including physical, chemical and
biological properties and atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic, cryospheric, and terrestrial
processes. GCOS, however, does not itself make observations or generate data products but
works in partnership with the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) and the Global
Ocean Observing System (GOOS), as well as with the WMO World Weather Watch and Global
Atmosphere Watch programmes. When fully implemented, GCOS will enable nations to
improve climate prediction services, mitigate climate disasters and plan for sustainable
development by providing access to high quality global data sets.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the highest-level
political and diplomatic response by the international community to the need to stabilize
greenhouse gases at levels that will prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system. A key commitment in the Convention is Article 4 1(g) under which all Parties
agree to:
"Promote and cooperate in … systematic observation and development of data archives
related to the climate system."
The Conference of the Parties (COP), the supreme body of the Convention, has sponsored two
reviews2 of the adequacy of the global observing systems for climate in pursuit of this
commitment. These reviews stressed the requirement to provide global observational coverage
for key climate variables and highlighted an urgent need to reverse the degradation of observing
networks, particularly in developing nations. Reacting to these assessments, the COP invited
GCOS to initiate a Regional Workshop Programme to identify and assess deficiencies in the
climate monitoring capabilities of developing regions of the globe and to propose specific
actions to remedy critical shortcomings.3
The sixth GCOS workshop, involving the nations of South America,4 was held in Santiago, Chile
from 14 to 16 October 2003. It was jointly sponsored by GCOS, the Global Environment Facility
(GEF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Workshop participants
assessed climate observing networks and data exchange and management systems in South
America and agreed on critical issues and priorities that should be addressed in a regional
GCOS Action Plan. A follow-up meeting to prepare a draft Action Plan was subsequently held
in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 14-16 April 2004. The draft Plan was then circulated widely for
review. In consequence, the Regional Action Plan presented here represents a broad
consensus on South American GCOS priorities and on actions needed to address them.
2
Report on the Adequacy of the Global Climate Observing Systems, GCOS-48, October 1998. The Second Report
on the Adequacy of the Global Observing Systems for Climate in Support of the UNFCCC, GCOS-82, April 2003.
3
While the primary focus is on the designated GCOS networks, it is recognized that improving regional GCOS
capacities will also enhance nations' capabilities to address domestic requirements.
4
Participating countries included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana,
Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Previous workshops were held in Samoa (April 2000), Kenya
(October 2001), Costa Rica (March 2002), Singapore (September 2002) and Niger (March 2003).
3
The countries of South America are now striving for sustainable development of their resources.
This thrust is generating increasing needs for observational data for all components of the
climate system. These data are needed to assist governments and industries to assess their
vulnerability to climatic variations, climatic extremes and climate change. They are needed as
well to underpin mitigating or adaptive measures such as improved agricultural planning, better
design of buildings and structures, optimization of water supply systems, and conduct of
immunization campaigns. This Action Plan, therefore, not only aims to ensure that systematic
observation programmes achieve and maintain GCOS standards of coverage, reliability and
quality but also contribute substantially to meeting the needs of South American countries for
climate information.
1.1 Problem Statement
Preparing for and adapting to climatic variability (e.g. El Niño/La Niña events), climate change
and extremes of climate are critical considerations in the pursuit of sustainable development,
poverty reduction and protection of human health in South America. At present, however,
climate observing systems in many South American nations are in such a state of disrepair that
reliable assessment, quantification, and prediction of climatic conditions and their impacts has
been compromised.5 This reality has negative implications not only for the nations directly
involved but also on hemispheric and global scales since systematic observations from South
America are vital inputs to regional and global climate assessments, climate modelling and
prediction. Unless immediate action is taken to address critical deficiencies in South America's
systematic climate observation programmes, the costs in terms of losses in production and
livelihoods adversely affected due to inadequately understood and poorly predicted climate
variability and climate change are likely to be much higher than the investment required to
remedy these deficiencies today.
1.2 Overall Objective
The overall objective of this Regional GCOS Action Plan is, therefore, to contribute to national,
regional and global sustainable development, poverty reduction and other climate-sensitive
priorities by taking effective action to ensure that climate observing systems and related
infrastructure in South America are adequate to address the challenges associated with
provision of high quality climatological data, predicting, planning for, mitigating, and adapting to
climate variability, climate change and extreme climatic events.
1.3 Specific Goals
Under the umbrella of the preceding Overall Objective, the Specific Goals of this Regional
GCOS Action Plan are to:
Identify GCOS and related domestic requirements for systematic observations of the
climate system in South America;
Assess the current status of South American observational programmes against these
requirements;
5
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analyses indicate that the continent has insufficiently dense
and reliable observation networks and that other basic information (biological, economic, and social) necessary to
build up complete and coherent regional climate scenarios is missing.
4
Outline strategies and specific projects to rectify identified gaps and deficiencies in
these observational programmes including their associated data management, data
exchange, archiving, and other components; and
Enhance the coordination of systematic climate observation programs and related
scientific activities within and between South American nations and externally in order to
ensure their long-term effectiveness and efficiency.
1.4 Underlying Considerations
A primary focus of this Regional Action Plan is to address the highest priority GCOS needs from
the perspective of South America as a whole. Several compelling reasons exist for adopting
such a regional approach. Firstly, the global nature of climate, ignoring as it does national
borders, necessitates ongoing cooperation among all nations to freely exchange and share
climate data. Secondly, budgetary restrictions or lack of trained personnel make it impossible
for many countries to undertake a full suite of climate-related activities. A regional approach
involving some coordination and sharing is, therefore, desirable to avoid duplication, reduce
costs and ensure that high quality climate data and products are available to domestic users
and the regional and global community. Moreover, potential external donors may be more
inclined to fund elements of a well-thought-out regional plan to improve climate observations,
infrastructure and information services than to fund proposals from individual countries.
Strengthening continent-wide observational capacity will, in addition, significantly assist all
South American countries in meeting their domestic social, economic, and environmental needs
while also contributing to addressing the regional and global challenges presented by climatic
change, climate variability, and climatic extremes.
This Regional GCOS Action Plan must reflect the priority concerns of important stakeholders
and the users of climate data if it is to engage broadly based commitment. Since the National
Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of South American countries are key
stakeholders, it is critically important that deficiencies in the GSN, GUAN and GAW stations
operated by the NMHSs be addressed in the Plan. Equally, however, other types of climate
observations such as data from the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) and the TAO
(Tropical Atmosphere Ocean) and PIRATA (Pilot Research Moored Array in the Tropical
Atlantic) buoy networks are essential elements of GCOS. Consequently, the priority needs of
those responsible for relevant oceanic and terrestrial observing activities are also captured in
the Plan. In addition, the requirements of users of climate data and derived products are
reflected, including those of national Climate Change Coordinators and a wide range of public
and private stakeholders. Consequently, the Action Plan also addresses data management,
quality assurance, data exchange, data rescue, archiving and the facilitation of access to
observational data.
1.5 Action Plan Structure
The structure of this Regional GCOS Action Plan is as follows:
The Plan begins with a condensed review of climate and climate observation programmes in
South America, drawing attention to areas where deficiencies exist or where further
development is needed;
It then proposes projects and makes recommendations aimed at ensuring that these
programmes meet GCOS standards and related requirements;
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It identifies the outputs and anticipated benefits that will result from implementation of the
preceding projects and recommendations; and
It proposes a strategy to mobilize the resources to implement needed improvements to
systematic observation programmes in the region and to sustain these programmes over the
long term.
2.
GENERAL BACKGROUND
The South American landmass comprises a vast, topographically varied region extending from
roughly 120N on the coastline of Colombia, across the Equator to near 560S at Cape Horn on
the southern tip of Chile (Figure 1). The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Caribbean Sea
border South America. With the exception of landlocked Bolivia and Paraguay, all countries in
the region have coastlines on one or more of these water bodies. The Andes mountain chain,
running from Venezuela to Cape Horn is the most prominent topographical feature with many
peaks and higher plateaus reaching altitudes above 3000 meters. Another substantial highland
region lies in southeastern Brazil, though few of these mountains rise above 1500 meters.
Smaller areas of highlands are also present in northern Brazil, Guyana, southern Venezuela,
and northern Colombia (Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Pico Colón and Bolívar). The vast
lowlands of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil extend between these mountainous
regions and are drained by the massive Amazon and its tributaries, by the Parana system and
by a number of smaller rivers.
2.1 Climatic Controls and Influences
The large-scale climatic features of South America are defined by the continent’s predominant
atmospheric circulation patterns and topography. The main circulation features are relatively
low pressure at the equatorial belt (10°N–10°S), quasi-permanent high-pressure cells over the
north and south Atlantic and southeast Pacific Oceans, and a belt of low pressure defining the
westerly flow on the southern portion of the continent. While a substantial variation in climate
occurs over its 7000 km length, the poleward tapering of the landmass results in the greater part
of South America being located in the tropics. In fact, the earth's greatest single expanse of
tropical rain forest is located in the bulging landmass centred near 50S. Although characterized
largely by humid, tropical conditions, important areas (e.g., northeastern Brazil) are subject to
droughts and floods, and others are affected by sub-freezing conditions.
South America is characterized by a monsoon circulation system, which develops over tropical
continental regions during the warm season. A large-scale thermally direct circulation with a
continental rising branch and an oceanic sinking branch, land-atmosphere interactions
associated with elevated terrain and land surface conditions, a surface low pressure and an
upper level anticyclone, intense low-level inflow of moisture to the continent, and associated
seasonal changes in regional precipitation, characterizes the South American Monsoon System.
Further south, the continent comes increasingly under the influence of the mid-latitude
westerlies and of the travelling cyclones and changeable conditions associated with these.
Southeastern South America is one of the regions of the world with the largest frequency of
mesoscale convective systems, which produce heavy rainfall events (some of them with
catastrophic impacts on the regional societies) and explain more than 50% of the seasonal
precipitation amounts.
6
Figure 1. Map of South America.
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Not surprisingly, the climates of South America are strongly affected by the adjacent ocean
regimes. The well-known El Niño/La Niña events exert a major influence on climatic conditions,
particularly on the interannual time-scale. Rainfall over the east-central Amazon and Northeast
Brazil (southeastern South America and central Chile) tends to be below (above) normal during
the El Niño (La Niña) events. Recent studies also indicate that the Atlantic Ocean plays an
important role in modulating the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and thus in
influencing the recurrence of droughts over northeastern Brazil, a region where over 30 million
people all too frequently suffer from their effects. In far-southern latitudes, the climate is
relatively mild due to the moderating influence of the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans on
the relatively narrow continental area. Also, the conditions over the southwestern Atlantic
strongly influence the precipitation changes over southeastern South America on interannual
timescales as well as the frequency of daily extreme precipitation events over that particular
region. Climatic conditions are, however, also strongly influenced by major topographic features
such as the Andes, with cold climate phenomena such as snowfields, glaciers and permafrost
occurring at higher elevations. The Andes have a key role channelling the moisture transport
along the eastern slope of the Andes from the tropical to the extratropical regions of South
America. A regional intensification of this circulation occurs in Bolivia, and it is known as the
South American Low-Level Jet (SALLJ), which also contributes to explain the interannual
variability of precipitation and temperature over tropical and subtropical regions.
Recent observations suggest that the Southern Hemisphere as a whole is warming more rapidly
than the Northern Hemisphere. Studies of South American climatic trends over the past century
reveal significant warming in southern Patagonia east of the Andes, with increases in maximum,
minimum, and daily mean temperatures of more than 1°C. According to some researchers,
however, no warming has been observed north of about 42°S. Chilean analyses indicate that
mean surface temperatures showed no increasing trend before 1900 but that, during the period
1900–90, the temperature in the Southern Hemisphere increased by a total of 0.4°C at a fairly
constant rate. Significant cooling has also been reported in the southern half of Chile in 1991
and 1992, coinciding with the eruptions of the Pinatubo and Hudson volcanoes. A number of
studies have reported the existence of decadal and longer time-scale variability in South
American rainfall, related to ocean surface changes on those timescales in both the Pacific and
the Atlantic Oceans. An analysis of precipitation trends in the southern portion of South
America east of the Andes cordillera indicates that the mean annual precipitation in the humid
Pampas and a large portion of the La Plata Basin has increased by about 35% in the past halfcentury, consistent with positive trends in the SALLJ activity.
2.2 Vulnerability to Climate and its Extremes
Vulnerability to climate and its extremes is generally high throughout the South American
continent. Most national economies are heavily reliant on climate-impacted industries that are
periodically subjected to disruption by climatic anomalies associated with El Niño or more
localized phenomena such as cold fronts advancing inland from the coast of Venezuela.
Climatic conditions also exert a substantial influence on public health, being associated with
outbreaks of malaria, bartonellosis,6 cholera, dengue, and other diseases. Moreover, the
northward extension of the "Antarctic ozone hole" has enabled more ultraviolet radiation to
reach the earth's surface over southern areas of South America and brought increased risks of
diseases such as cataracts and melanomas. Finally, rising sea level associated with a warmer
6
Outbreaks of bartonellosis, an insect-borne, highly-fatal, disease, are closely related to El Niño, occurring one to
three months after the warming of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean.
8
climate poses an increasing threat to people, infrastructure and ecosystems in low-lying coastal
regions of the continent.
The sometimes devastating impacts of climatic variations on South American nations are
probably best exemplified by the effects of strong El Niño conditions. EL Niño events have
shown a tendency to occur more frequently in recent decades, bringing wide ranging impacts on
people, economic activities, and infrastructure. Areas affected range across agriculture, the
supply of potable water, power generation, human health, human settlement, transportation,
and communications infrastructure, with negative economic repercussions including declines in
production, decreased exports, and increased imports. The 1997-1998 El Niño, for example,
resulted in catastrophic losses estimated at US$7 billion in Ecuador and Peru, also adversely
affecting the economies of nations such as Bolivia, where GNP was reduced by 7 percent. At
the same time, these events can also bring some benefits such as, for example, in recharging
aquifers used for water supply and irrigation in arid regions of the continent. Reacting to the
preceding realities, South American nations are adopting a proactive approach directed towards
minimizing the adverse impacts of climate while at the same time seeking to take advantage of
any associated opportunities. This strategy is generating increased requirements for climatic
data, products, and services.
In recent decades, catastrophic floods have been an increasingly frequent phenomenon in the
La Plata Basin extended over southeastern South America. The La Plata Basin drains
approximately one-fifth of the South American continent. It covers an area of around 3.1 million
km2 and it conveys waters from central portions of the continent to the south-western Atlantic
Ocean. The La Plata Basin is the rival of the better-known Amazon River system in terms of its
biological and habitat diversity, and far exceeds that system in its economic importance to
southern and central South America. The La Plata Basin includes thirty-one large dams and
fifty-seven large cities, each with a population in excess of 100,000 persons and including the
capital cities of Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. The total human population of the
Basin is estimated at around 67 million people. The intense human activity, and its associated
rapid urbanization and accompanying deforestation of lands for cultivation, has increased runoff
to the rivers and modified local climatic conditions (e.g. humidity, temperature, and wind
speeds). These processes and their associated hydrological changes seem to increase the
natural variability inherent in the behaviour of the water resources of the Basin. Consequently,
floods are larger and more frequent and flood-drought cycles recur more often. Several
possible causes have been cited for the increasing frequency of floods, such as climate
variability at interannual and decadal scales, changes in land use (expansion of agriculture) and
anthropogenic climate change.
3.
CURRENT STATUS OF SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION PROGRAMMES
The following sections contain an assessment of current atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial
observation programmes in South America and their associated data infrastructure and
coordination requirements.
3.1 The Atmosphere
Several global observational networks have already been identified for the atmospheric
component of GCOS, most notably the GCOS Surface Network (GSN) and the GCOS Upper Air
Network (GUAN). In addition, the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) network is also a
component of the GCOS. The baseline GSN and GUAN networks are comprised of stations
that provide good geographic coverage of the globe and have long histories and historical
databases in National Meteorological and Hydrological Services. They are considered the
9
minimum required for characterizing global climate and represent a stable and, it is hoped,
sustainable underpinning for national networks that operate on finer temporal and spatial scales.
Several WMO Commissions have stressed the vital importance of these global networks in
calibrating and reconciling observations from remote observing systems, including earth
satellites and aircraft-mounted instruments. It is, in consequence, particularly important that
stations in these global networks operate continuously, produce high quality observations
meeting GCOS standards, and deliver these data and associated metadata in a timely fashion
to the designated GCOS data processing and archiving centres.7 It is, moreover, important to
ensure that surface observations from GSN stations form part of the daily (synoptic) information
transmitted to international collection centres, in addition to being captured in the monthly
CLIMAT reports.
3.1.1 The GSN
In January 2003, the GCOS Surface Network comprised 981 stations distributed over the land
areas of the globe. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the Deutscher Wetterdienst
(DWD) have been assigned the responsibility for monitoring the transmission of GSN station
CLIMAT messages on the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) for data availability,
timeliness and quality. The US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) acts as the global
archive for these data and their associated metadata, building a GSN database with Internet
access.
There are 119 GSN stations located in South America and these are listed in Appendix II. GSN
Monitoring Centre statistics show that during the period July 2001 through June 2003, the
Centres received reports from only about 60% of these stations (The underlying causes of this
poor reception rate are unknown). Moreover coding and other errors were sometimes present
in messages that were received. In addition, the World Data Center (the NCDC) reports that, to
date, it has received metadata information for only a minority of all designated GSN stations.
Consequently, action is needed to ensure reliable and timely GTS relay of accurate CLIMAT
messages from all South American GSN stations and metadata for these stations must be
updated regularly and supplied to the global archive.
3.1.2 The GUAN
In January 2003, the Global Upper Air Network (GUAN) consisted of 152 selected upper air
stations, providing reasonably uniform global radiosonde coverage over land areas. The United
Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) Hadley Centre and the US National Climatic Data
Centre (NCDC) have been assigned joint responsibility for GUAN performance monitoring. In
addition, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) performs
operational, near-real-time, quality control of GUAN reports. GUAN data and metadata are
archived at the National Climatic Data Centre in the United States (World Data Center A).
The 17 GUAN stations located in South America are listed in Appendix III. However, as
illustrated in Figure 2, ECMWF monitoring reports indicate that some GUAN stations in South
America are regarded as unreliable and even the best stations occasionally fail to supply timely
and accurate CLIMAT TEMP reports. Consequently, increased efforts must be made to ensure
reliable and timely GTS relay of data and CLIMAT TEMP messages from all GUAN stations in
the region. While some metadata from each of these GUAN sites are available in the World
Data Centre (WDC) archive, it is also important to ensure that metadata provided to the WDC
are regularly updated as changes occur to equipment, procedures, or site locations.
7
The GCOS climate monitoring principles are detailed in Appendix I.
10
Figure 2. Reporting performance of GUAN stations - June 2003.
3.1.3 The Global Atmosphere Watch
Established in 1989, the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) system8 monitors the
changing chemical composition of the atmosphere, including greenhouse gases and other
variables such as aerosols, precipitation chemistry, solar and ultraviolet radiation, and surface
and stratospheric ozone. GAW data are essential to improving our understanding of the
relationship between changing atmospheric composition and changes in climate. They are also
important as ground truth for satellite measurements.
Siting criteria for GAW global
observatories are very demanding with a view to ensuring that measurements taken at these
locations are broadly representative of conditions over a large area.9 As illustrated in Figure 3,
two global GAW observatories have been established, one at Arembepe in Brazil and a second
at Ushuaia in Argentina.
The GAW global network is supplemented by over 300 regional stations focused on regional
concerns such as acid rain, surface ozone, air pollution in rural areas, airborne pollution of the
seas, etc. It is worth noting that a number of regional stations in South America contribute
important observations of ozone, ultra violet radiation, and other parameters as part of this
supplemental effort. Ozone monitoring in the region has been cited as particularly valuable in
view of concerns related to the Antarctic "ozone hole" and the associated ground-level
increases in ultra violet radiation. Measurements of aerosols are also gaining in significance in
8
The system integrates several earlier programmes including the WMO Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network
(BAPMoN) and the WMO Global Ozone Observing System (GO3OS).
9
GAW global observatories should be at or near upper-air stations, in remote areas where no changes in land-use
are expected, uninfluenced by regional pollution sources, rarely exposed to severe natural phenomena (volcanic
activity, forest fires, dust storms, etc.) and have a complete set of surface meteorological observations.
11
Figure 3. The GAW global observing network.
view of their potential impacts on climate. In addition to these global and regional stations,
there are, in South America, several contributing stations that measure mainly ultra violet
radiation.
3.1.4 Other Issues
The Regional Basic Climatological Network (RBCN) and national observational networks in
South America are considerably more extensive than the GSN and GUAN networks. Data from
these denser networks are vital for many domestic applications, to support model downscaling
and re-analysis activities, and to provide long data time series for monitoring and assessment of
climatic behaviour. Consequently, it is very important to sustain these national and regional
networks, ensure the quality of their systematic observation programmes, and facilitate access
to their data. However, some national networks display shortcomings such as obsolescent
equipment (e.g., radiosonde systems), the absence of systematic instrument calibration
programmes, unreliable telecommunications, inadequate data processing, archiving and data
exchange systems, and poor coordination between observation programmes carried out by
different agencies and private sector organizations. Moreover, a significant gap in observational
coverage exists at higher elevations along the Andean Cordillera.10
10
Systematic climate observations from higher elevations are particularly important in relation to the detection and
assessment of climate change and climatic variability and their impacts on glaciers, permafrost, snow cover and
runoff.
12
As a related concern, data records for many stations in South America are stored in perishable
or obsolescent formats (i.e., on paper or on digital storage media that are no longer in common
usage) and these irreplaceable data sets are at increasing risk of being lost. Moreover, a large
quantity of historical meteorological data is believed to exist in museums, libraries, and religious
and other archives that could enhance understanding of climatic variability and extreme events
in the region, in addition to facilitating the detection of climate change and development of
statistical forecast techniques.
3.1.5 Overall Assessment for the Atmosphere
Timely exchange of quality-controlled CLIMAT and CLIMAT TEMP messages is a fundamental
requirement for GSN and GUAN stations, respectively. However, the monitoring statistics cited
earlier indicate that this requirement is not being met at some stations in South America. In
addition, updated metadata for all stations have not been provided to the global archiving centre
(US NCDC). Consequently, the main issues relating to South American GSN and GUAN
stations are to improve the performance of the less reliable stations, ensure timely relay of
CLIMAT and CLIMAT TEMP messages, sustain the long-term operation of all of these stations,
and supply regularly updated metadata to the global archives. Where GAW stations are
concerned, there must be continued emphasis on ensuring the quality, inter-comparability, and
continuity of their complex measurement programmes. In particular, there are ongoing
requirements to validate and update information in the GAW Station Information System
(GAWSIS) and to ensure timely submission of GAW data to the appropriate World Data
Centres.
In the case of regional and national networks, significant challenges include needs for
modernization of observing, telecommunications, data management, data exchange and access
systems, systematic calibration of instruments, and the provision of adequate resources to
sustain the long-term operation of station networks. In addition, requirements for additional
observations from higher elevations must be carefully assessed in light of regional concerns
regarding the impacts of the rapid decay of mountain glaciers on water resources and power
generation in Andean nations.11 The reality of the preceding requirements has been validated
by the South American Low Level Jet Experiment (SALLJEX), a component of the WCRP
CLIVAR "Variability of the American Monsoon System (VAMOS) Program." SALLJEX has
identified needs for enhanced coverage, more reliable operation, and improved quality
assurance of upper air and surface observing programmes, along with provision of easier
access to high quality data archives. Irreplaceable historical records of climate observations
must also be preserved. Consequently, data rescue is an important priority in order to provide
historical time series of observations needed for detection and assessment of climate variability,
climatic extremes, and climatic trends.
3.2 The Oceans
The oceans are a key component of the climate system, modulating climatic behaviour, acting
as a source and a sink for important greenhouse gases12 and playing a major role in the global
hydrological cycle. They are, in addition, of major socio-economic importance to South
America. The continent has a wealth of marine biotic resources that support some of the most
11
Roughly 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers are in Peru. Peruvian glaciers have shrunk in areal extent by
about 20 percent over the past four decades.
12
The oceans are estimated to have absorbed about 30% of CO2 emissions arising from fossil fuel use and tropical
deforestation between 1980 and 1989 slowing the rate of greenhouse warming.
13
important saltwater fisheries in the world13 and an expanding aquaculture industry. Oceanrelated tourism, offshore hydrocarbon production, and marine transportation are also important
economic sectors. The spectre of rising sea levels due to a warming global climate presents a
serious threat to coastal communities, infrastructure and ecosystems. Flooding conditions in
the Pampas in the province of Buenos Aires, for example, would be exacerbated by a higher
sea level that would reduce the effectiveness of the Salado River as the primary drainage
system for this flatland. In addition, low-lying areas such as the Amazon, Orinoco, and Parana
river deltas and the mouths of other rivers such as the Magdalena in Colombia would be
exposed to inundation and estuaries like the Rio de la Plata would suffer increasingly from
saltwater intrusion, creating problems in freshwater supply.
Interannual variations in climate across South America are, as emphasized earlier, dominated
by changes in oceanic conditions, most notably by the El Niño/La Niña phenomenon that can
have massive impacts on fisheries, agriculture and other climate-sensitive activities across the
continent. The importance of regional and sub-regional climatic variability must also be
recognized, however, since these variations can, at times, mask the effects of weaker El Niño
events. This latter reality reinforces the importance of adopting a holistic approach to climatic
behaviour in the region, one that integrates regional climate variability with oceanic variability.
Consequently, investigation of ocean-atmosphere-continental interactions based on systematic
observation of all three components of the climate system represents an ongoing priority.
3.2.1 Ocean Observing Networks – Present Status
The GCOS observational focus is on systematic, long-term, monitoring at global to regional
scales. However, long-duration, systematic observational activities in the world's oceans have,
until recent years, been largely limited to surface parameters used in marine weather and sea
state forecasts and in sea level predictions. Fortunately, this situation is changing, and the
Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS)14 is gradually developing into an ocean analogue of
the World Weather Watch. Under the umbrella of GOOS, an increasing number of systematic
oceanographic observational activities are now underway. These utilize moored buoys, surface
and sub-surface drifting buoys, Argo profiling floats, expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) and
other measurements from vessels participating in the Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) and
Ship of Opportunity Programmes (SOOP) coordinated by the WMO-IOC Joint Technical
Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). All of these in-situ
monitoring programmes are, of course, complemented by increasingly sophisticated satellite
monitoring of oceanic parameters such as ocean colour, sea surface temperature and altimetry,
and sea ice extent and type. Satellite remote sensing now provides a level of detail and
geographic coverage of the world's oceans never previously available. In-situ oceanographic
observations provided from the many systems described earlier, however, continue to be
essential in validating and calibrating satellite observations and in adding the local detail needed
to advance understanding of ocean processes. Some oceanographic buoys and other
observing systems provide meteorological data, also contributing significantly to systematic
monitoring of the atmosphere over the oceans.
13
The average annual catch by Latin American countries during the period 1985–87 was about 13 Mt, or about 17%
of the worldwide catch.
14
The GCOS and GOOS programmes collaborate closely with the climate element of GOOS being the
oceanographic component of GCOS.
14
3.2.1.1 GLOSS
In view of the threat posed by rising sea level and its linkage to global climate change, long-term
observation of sea level is essential in order to detect and monitor trends and to assess their
impacts.15 The Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) is aimed at the establishment
and maintenance of high-quality global and regional sea level monitoring networks and is a key
element of GCOS in addition to providing information that has many practical uses. The main
component16 of GLOSS is the 'Global Core Network' (GCN) of about 290 sea level stations
around the world. Seven of the 32 South American GLOSS Core Network stations are
participating in the pilot project for continuous GPS monitoring at Tide Gauge sites (TIGA),
directed towards separating ocean from vertical crustal movements.
Figure 5 illustrates the status of reporting by stations in the GLOSS Core Network to the
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL), the global archive. Clearly, less that half of
the GLOSS stations in South America had achieved Category 1 reporting status in October
2002, with noteworthy deficiencies in station operations and reporting on the Atlantic coast of
the continent. Furthermore, as of that date, several South American GLOSS stations had
provided no observational data to the global archive.
3.2.1.2 Other Oceanographic Programmes
Where in-situ observations of other oceanographic parameters in the South American region
are concerned, the PIRATA (Pilot Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic) and the TAO/TRITON
(Tropical Atmosphere Ocean/Triangle Trans-Ocean buoy Network) networks of moored buoys
deserve special mention. These moored buoy arrays are the backbone of the Tropical Ocean
observing system, providing information vital for the assessment and prediction of El Niño/La
Niña conditions and other oceanic and atmospheric phenomena and for the calibration of
satellite observations. Their data are relayed on the GTS and are archived by NOAA at its
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). South American nations provide substantial
logistical support to the operations and maintenance of these important ocean buoy networks as
well as to the VOS, SOOP, drifting buoy, and Argo programmes mentioned earlier. There are,
in addition, important regional initiatives such as the Spondylus project off Ecuador, the
Peruvian Naylamp project, and the oceanographic modernization efforts currently underway in
Brazil and Colombia. Attention is also drawn to the GOOS Regional Alliance for the South
Pacific (GRASP, which includes Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile) and the South Atlantic
GOOS Alliance (SAGOOS), whose membership includes Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.
Under the GOOS umbrella, these Alliances provide a framework for collaborative efforts to
further develop oceanographic monitoring networks and services in South American waters and
to study and understand phenomena of concern (such as ENSO).
In the present context, it is important to highlight the IOC’s International Oceanographic Data
and Information Exchange (IODE), established in 1961 to facilitate the exchange of
oceanographic data and information and meet the needs of users for data and information
products. The IODE system forms a worldwide service oriented network consisting of DNAs
(Designated National Agencies), NODCs (National Oceanographic Data Centres), RNODCs
15
Measurements of sea level also enhance the safety of harbour and coastal navigation, provide input to early
warning systems, support coral reef protection, underpin studies of coastal erosion and salt water intrusion, and are
used to calibrate satellite observations.
16
Other GLOSS components are: the Long Term Trends (LTT) set, comprising priority gauge sites for GPS
installations to monitor vertical land movements; the (satellite) altimeter calibration (ALT) set, consisting mostly of
island stations; and the ocean circulation (OC) set, used to complement altimetric coverage of the deep ocean and
including gauge pairs at straits and in polar areas.
15
Figure 4.
GLOSS stations within the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)
dataset, October 2002. The GLOSS stations have been classified into the
following 4 categories:
Category 1: “Operational” stations for which the latest data is 1996 or later.
Category 2: “Probably Operational” stations for which the latest data is within the period
1986-1995.
Category 3: “Historical” stations for which the latest data is earlier than 1986.
Category 4: “Stations for which no PSMSL data exist.
(Responsible National Oceanographic Data Centres), and WDCs (World Data Centres –
Oceanography). NODCs have been established in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, providing important access and distribution nodes for
oceanographic data and products. In addition, the Argentinean NODC has undertaken to act as
the Responsible National Oceanographic Data Centre for the Southern Oceans (RNODC SOC) and, in that role, has assumed responsibility to quality control, archive, and make
available physical and chemical data from the Southern Oceans.
3.2.2 Overall Assessment for the Oceans
It is clearly essential that the operations of vital GLOSS monitoring stations achieve and
maintain acceptable standards of observational quality and reliability of reporting over the long
term if GCOS requirements for sea level observations are to be met. Consequently, there is an
urgent need to ensure the quality and reliability of sea level monitoring and reporting
16
programmes at all sites in South America. Observing stations need to be equipped with up-todate instrumentation (including GPS receivers and meteorological instruments) and
telecommunications, and several additional stations could be added to the network. Every effort
must be made to supply data from GLOSS stations to the PSMSL global archive regularly and
in a timely manner. The difficulties faced by the scientific community in maintaining operational
sea level data collection stations have been highlighted. It has been suggested that national
organizations should adopt these responsibilities, being provided with the financial and human
resources needed to ensure the long-term operation of these vital programmes.
From a broader perspective, enhancing the acquisition, management, quality assurance,
archiving and free and open exchange of oceanographic observations from the Atlantic and
Pacific Ocean and Caribbean waters off South America must continue to be given a high
priority. There are requirements for a regional calibration facility to ensure the accuracy and
inter-comparability of measurements, and standardization of observation platforms could be
pursued to advantage. The development of a regional modelling capability and the production
and dissemination of useful ocean products and services represent important priorities. More
effective and widespread dissemination of readily understandable advice and products related
to El Niño events has been cited as an area for special emphasis. Regional modelling and
product and service development initiatives should build on strengthened regional cooperation
and joint projects. Particular stress must also be given to the preservation of historical records
of sea level and other oceanographic variables in order to provide the long duration time series
needed for the assessment and prediction of variability and trends. Consequently, needs exist
for data rescue of tide gauge and other oceanographic data records that are in perishable
formats.
3.3 The Terrestrial System
The terrestrial environment of South America contributes substantially to the functioning of the
global climate engine. The continent's vast tropical rainforests17 are an important carbon
reservoir and a major player in the exchange of carbon dioxide and water vapour between the
earth's surface and the atmosphere. In addition, the Andean Cordillera exerts a significant
influence on the dynamics of the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The terrestrial
environments of the continent are also directly affected by climatic events, experiencing the
impacts of storms, floods, mudslides, droughts and other phenomena. Countries such as
Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, for example, are already adversely affected
by seasonal to interannual climate variability, particularly variability related to the El Niño/La
Niña phenomenon.
Throughout much of the continent, changes in land use and land cover are occurring at a rapid
rate, with logging, burning and other land clearing operations modifying the land's radiation
balance and the earth-atmosphere exchanges of heat, moisture, and gas. Concern exists that
these changes may have very substantial impacts on climate in the region and elsewhere. A
considerable proportion of the precipitation over the Amazon basin, for example, originates from
evapotranspiration, which could be reduced by continued, large-scale deforestation. A
significant reduction in precipitation would, in turn, reduce the enormous runoff of the Amazon
River system, affecting oceanic conditions along and beyond the Brazilian coast. To compound
these regional impacts, global climate change may result in the migration of terrestrial (and
marine) species, force changes in agricultural patterns (e.g., crop types, decreased yields) and
change glacier, permafrost and other regimes.
17
Tropical forests represent about 40% of the world’s forested area, and Latin American tropical forests contribute
over half of that figure.
17
Projected changes in climate may also worsen the impacts of already serious chronic
malnutrition and diseases affecting some Latin American populations. Global warming could
increase the number and severity of extreme weather events and the hazards these present to
people. Increases in daily death rates are associated with extreme temperatures and these
impacts are exacerbated by high humidity, intense solar radiation, and light winds (and in large
cities, by air pollutants, especially particulates). Infectious and parasitic diseases are important
causes of morbidity and mortality throughout South America, and a warmer climate would tend
to expand their extent. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and
others already affect large numbers of people in the region and could increase their geographic
and elevation ranges. In addition, climatic variations may lead to increased occurrences of
aquatic pathogens and biotoxins that can jeopardize seafood safety and aggravate diseases
resulting from water contamination, as in the case of increases in Salmonella infections
experienced in Bolivia following a flood associated with the 1993 El Niño event.
3.3.1 Terrestrial Observation Networks - Present Status
In view of the preceding realities, systematic monitoring of terrestrial climate variables18 is of
significant importance to South America and the global community. As noted earlier, GCOS is
collaborating with the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) in addressing observational
needs related to the terrestrial component of the climate system. The GCOS/GTOS strategy is
to develop an initial observing system under the umbrella of GT-Net - a system of observational
networks and projects focused on particular themes, habitat types, or regions.19 To date,
progress in implementing this strategy has been somewhat uneven due to the breadth and
complexity of the scientific and organizational challenges that must be surmounted.
Consequently, terrestrial networks for climate around the world have generally not been
developed to the same extent as atmospheric networks. Three major terrestrial components –
water, natural ecosystems, and the carbon cycle - are of particular concern in the context of
GCOS in South America.
3.3.1.1 Hydrology and Water Resources
Current and future water resource availability represents a dominant regional concern in South
America. The continent is rich in freshwater systems, but their distribution within and among
countries is highly variable. Large portions of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, northeastern
Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia are arid or semi-arid, and many areas have great difficulty
meeting their water needs. A general retreat of Andean glaciers20 is currently underway,
causing increases in streamflow in some rivers. However, as glaciers shrink in extent, a longterm decrease in streamflow is expected, raising concern regarding the future availability of
fresh water for power generation and other uses. There are, moreover, about 270,000km2 of
permafrost in the Andes, and this shows signs of general degradation with implications for
hydrologic regimes in adjacent rivers and streams. In addition, the drastic collapse of ice
shelves currently underway in the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming of about 2.50C has
occurred over the past 50 years, has major implications for global sea level rise.
18
Terrestrial climate observations focus on properties and attributes that control climate processes, are affected by
climate, serve as indicators of climate change or relate to its impacts.
19
Currently 5 such networks are under development – an Ecology Network (GTN-E), a glacier network (GTN-G), a
Permafrost Network (GTN-P), a Global Flux Tower Network (GTN-Fluxnet) and a Hydrology Network (GTN-H). In
addition, GTOS-endorsed projects are addressing the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) project and Net
Primary Productivity/Net Ecological Productivity (NPP/NEP).
20
Recent localized precipitation increases may result in partial advance of some glaciers.
18
South American nations operate extensive hydrometeorological observation networks that
contribute information that is essential for many domestic applications and, as in the case of the
Amazon River system, of significant importance to GCOS and other global programmes. Under
the aegis of WMO's RA III, efforts are being made to improve the exchange of hydrological data.
This presents significant challenges as much observational data is in private hands or is
regionalized. The region is also contributing to the development of WMO’s World Hydrologic
Cycle Observing System (WHYCOS). Related initiatives include an Amazon-HYCOS, which
proposes incorporation of Brazil's large network of Data Collection Platform (DCP) stations into
a project covering the whole Amazon Basin; a La Plata-HYCOS involving the countries of the La
Plata Basin and building on an existing DCP network and organizational structure; and a
CARIB-HYCOS that involves Colombia and Venezuela.
These activities underpin the
development of the evolving Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology (GTN-H) as a component
of GCOS. Countries in South America are also assisting this global initiative by contributing to
the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) and the Global Terrestrial Network for
Permafrost (GTN-P), 21 both sub-components of the GT-Net.
3.3.1.2 Natural Ecosystems
Impact studies suggest that many natural ecosystems in South America are at risk due to
climate change compounded by human activities. Rates of global warming may exceed the
migration capabilities of some vegetation species; losses of existing habitat may be expected;
reductions in species diversity may occur as habitat is fragmented; and, in drier climates, fire
disturbances are likely to become more frequent and severe. Sensitive wetlands could also be
affected by shifts in the hydrological cycle, and the current decline of coastal wetlands as a
result of human activity could be compounded by sea level rise that could also disturb mangrove
ecosystems.
Comprehensive information on climatic impacts on terrestrial ecosystems is needed to underpin
scientific research programmes and facilitate national reporting required under multilateral
environmental agreements relating to climate, biodiversity, wetlands, and desertification.
Systematic monitoring of natural ecosystems is, therefore, an important priority in the context of
GCOS22 and national programmes. South American nations are currently operating a number
of important Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring Sites and Biosphere Reserves that contribute to
improving understanding of ecosystem behaviour and responses to climatic and other stresses.
3.3.1.3 The Carbon Cycle
The role of tropical forests and soils in the global carbon cycle is of major concern to the
international climate research community, yet is poorly understood. In particular, the impact of
significant land use changes in South America on the global carbon budget is poorly quantified.
However, efforts are now underway to respond to the requirement for improved understanding
of the carbon cycle in South America. Several South American FLUXNET sites contribute to the
worldwide network aimed at measuring the earth-atmosphere exchanges of carbon dioxide,
water vapour, and energy in representative terrestrial ecosystems. These sites provide vital in-
21
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela are supplying glacier data to the World Glacier
Inventory. To date, two South American borehole sites (Mendoza and el Balcon, both in Argentina) have been
submitted as candidate sites for inclusion in the GTN-P.
22
The complex relationships between the climate system, the natural environment, and human activities dictate the
22
need for an interdisciplinary approach to investigating the processes and impacts of climate variability and climate
change.
19
situ information for validating estimates of net primary productivity, evaporation, and energy
absorption generated by sensors on the NASA TERRA satellite.23
3.3.2 Overall Assessment for the Terrestrial Component
As a top priority, hydrometeorological networks and related infrastructure in South America must
be enhanced and real-time hydrological monitoring improved to support more timely and
accurate prediction of droughts, floods and water resource availability for agriculture, power
generation and other uses. This necessitates continuing efforts to rationalize, modernize, and
sustain observation stations and networks. As a particular issue, there is a need to expand
monitoring programmes at higher elevations with a focus on Andean glaciers and permafrost in
order to provide data to address glacier and permafrost decay and underpin the provision of
additional South American data to the global GTN-G and GTN-P databases. Corresponding
emphasis must be devoted to enhancing overall data quality and improving data management,
data exchange, databases and archives and facilitating user access to data.24 Planning for
regional components of WHYCOS (i.e., Amazon-HYCOS, La Plata-HYCOS) and for a GTN-H
provides a logical foundation on which to base these efforts. From a broader perspective,
systematic monitoring of natural ecosystems must receive continuing attention in order to
provide data and information for scientific assessments and policy formulation and to respond to
national reporting requirements. Equally, systematic monitoring of carbon and carbon dioxide
fluxes must continue to be pursued at sites that are representative of major soil and vegetation
zones.
3.4 Remote Sensing
Many GCOS requirements for systematic observations can only be met in a practical and costeffective manner by the use of space-based observing systems. In particular, only satellite
remote sensing can provide consistent areal observational coverage over the entire globe and
systematic monitoring on a worldwide scale is, obviously, essential for a Global Climate
Observing System to be meaningful.25 All South American nations now possess the capability
to acquire and utilize satellite data and several (e.g. Brazil, Argentina) have modern, welldeveloped, satellite remote sensing programmes and institutes. Imagery and data from a broad
range of satellites including GOES, POES, METEOSAT, TERRA, AQUA are being received,
processed and used for weather forecasting, environmental monitoring and other applications.
WMO has reported that, as of 2002, all 13 WMO Members in South America were equipped
with low-resolution polar-orbiting receivers (APT) and that 6 also possessed high-resolution
polar-orbiting receivers (HRPT). A similar pattern was reported for geostationary satellite
reception, with 12 WMO Members possessing low-resolution WEFAX receivers and 6 operating
high-resolution receivers. Furthermore, a project has been initiated to effect the transition from
low-resolution APT and WEFAX to Low Rate Picture Transmission (LRPT) and Low Rate
Information Transmission (LRIT) technologies. In addition, satellite data from the Space Station
and Shuttle flights can be made available via the Internet, representing a potentially valuable
source of high quality imagery that could be very useful in monitoring of glaciers and some other
features.
23
High-resolution satellite data now make possible routine monitoring of forest cover and land use. However,
monitoring changes in forest and soil carbon content still presents significant challenges.
24
A specific need has been cited for improved collection and exchange of groundwater observations.
25
As noted earlier, however, space-based and in-situ observations are complementary. Satellite observations
provide spatial coverage while in-situ observations provide essential “ground truth” for calibration and validation of
satellite data, in addition to their own intrinsic value and length of record.
20
Attention must also be drawn to the capabilities of weather radar as a remote sensing tool that
can usefully be applied to systematic climate monitoring. South America has a significant
network of weather radars providing coverage over important sections of the continent. Use of
data from weather radars can significantly improve estimates of the intensity and spatial
distribution of precipitation. Consequently, these radars provide a potential source of highresolution data for exploitation in addressing water resources and other climate-related issues.
3.4.1 Overall Assessment for Remote Sensing
It is clear that considerable capability to receive, process, and apply satellite remote sensing
data is already in place in South America, although there is some variation in reception and
processing facilities between different nations and institutions. South American capabilities
should, moreover, improve significantly over the next decade as reception facilities are
modernized and additional training is provided to staff. Several problem areas related to
satellite remote sensing application have, however, been identified. These include inadequate
validation of satellite products for the continent, the need to develop additional useful products,
centralized and complex data preprocessing systems that make it difficult to develop regional
applications of data, and failure to protect satellite frequencies.
Applications of satellite remote sensing and telecommunications capabilities to the observation
and exchange of climate system observations should, therefore, be more aggressively pursued.
Advantage should be taken of regional and other training facilities and institutions to further
develop national and regional capacities in satellite data preprocessing, product retrievals, and
use of satellite products. Satellite product validation for South America should continue to be
stressed, a satellite data bank established, networking and information exchange further
enhanced and the passive microwave band should be protected for climate studies.
Furthermore, additional real-time data from the continent's extensive DCP networks should be
made available on WMO's Global Telecommunication System. Development of a geostationary
satellite that fulfils South American requirements has also been advocated, possibly through the
addition of a meteorological sensor to a proposed South American Communication Navigation
Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) satellite.
Improving understanding and application of relationships between rainfall and runoff in major
watersheds is a continuing priority in South America. Consequently, it also seems important to
encourage efforts to develop applications of radar data to precipitation estimation in the region,
such as, for example, the Brazilian initiative that is being undertaken in cooperation with the Air
Force in that country.
3.5 Regional Coordination and Organization
GCOS is a global programme that is closely inter-linked with and reliant upon other global and
regional programmes. It is, however, being implemented through national contributions that are
often delivered by several different agencies within each country. Consequently, it is not
surprising that the need for effective coordination is a recurring theme at both international and
domestic levels.26 At present, no over-arching organizational infrastructure exists in South
America to facilitate GCOS-related coordination. Though sectoral structures, such as the WMO
Regional Association are in place, no broadly-based regional forum or centralized web site
26
The IPCC has identified that coordination is becoming more and more critical because of common factors affecting
climate variability and climate change (e.g., the ENSO phenomenon) and has encouraged cooperative regional
actions in undertaking activities of common interest.
21
exists to bring the various stakeholders in South America together as a coherent group with a
focus on systematic observations of the total climate system. Moreover, few nations have
designated someone to coordinate climate system observing and data management issues
across all of their involved government departments and agencies or to act as an interface
between national, regional, and global GCOS concerns.
3.5.1 Overall Assessment
The implementation of the present Action Plan will require close cooperation between the
nations of South America in the common pursuit of initiatives and funding opportunities and to
pool capacities to achieve operational goals.27 In addition, the broad spectrum of agencies,
institutions, and client groups involved in climate system monitoring, data management, and
applications within individual countries generates requirements for enhanced domestic
coordination. These national and regional requirements for cooperation and coordination must
be addressed by establishing appropriate GCOS coordination structures to facilitate the delivery
of capacity-building programmes and initiatives, minimize duplication, improve data access and
exchange, and gain optimum benefits from investments in infrastructure and human resources
development. Links already established by WMO's Regional Association III, the Permanent
Commission of the South Pacific (CPPS), the International Centre for Research on the El Niño
Phenomenon (CIIFEN), and other regional bodies provide a useful base from which to develop
improved regional coordination and encourage related domestic initiatives within individual
countries.
4.
SPECIFIC ACTIONS TO ADDRESS ISSUES AND REQUIREMENTS
Clearly, an effective Regional GCOS Action Plan must first address global-level GCOS
requirements, aiming to ensure the long-term operation of the regional components of the
primary GCOS networks (e.g., GSN, GUAN, GLOSS) to established standards. While this will
contribute substantially to meeting regional needs, a truly meaningful plan must, as stressed
earlier, also address other high regional priorities. The following sections outline a series of
strategic thrusts, specific projects and recommendations that will:
Significantly enhance the abilities of the nations of South America to meet GCOS, regional, and
national requirements for observations and related products to support climate change
detection, monitoring of climatic variability, climate modelling and prediction, climate impact
assessments, and planning for sustainable development and for adaptation to climate and its
extremes.
Improve domestic coordination among national institutions, agencies and individuals engaged in
data collection, data management, data exchange, and production of related products and
services and between these entities and the user community.
Improve coordination across the region and with international programmes to ensure regional
and global needs for climate data are met.
27
A more coherent regional approach could yield benefits in areas such as data management, data access and
exchange, maintenance of observing systems, and in the purchase of equipment and consumables. It could also
assist in optimizing the design of observing networks and data archives; delivering training courses, graduate, and
post-graduate studies and other capacity building efforts; and in the planning and conduct of research programmes.
22
4.1 Action Plan Projects
Substantial capacity building and investment in infrastructure must be undertaken in South
America if the objectives of this Regional Action Plan are to be met. The following projects and
recommendations are aimed at remedying critical deficiencies in the continent's systematic
climate observation programmes.
4.1.1 The Atmosphere
The most immediate atmospheric priority is to ensure that GSN and GUAN stations operate to
specified global standards, relay their data in a timely manner and are adequately resourced to
sustain their operations over the long term. Other atmospheric observation networks and
systems are also, however, essential to providing finer scale data needed for impact
assessment, model downscaling and other applications.
To address the preceding
requirements, the following projects are planned:
Project 1. Enhancement of the GUAN Network in Central South America.
BACKGROUND: There are 17 GUAN sites located in the South American region. The overall
performance of the GUAN systems has some problems on both its historical and real-time
elements. Reports from some GUAN stations in the region are not regularly being received at
the GCOS Monitoring Centres.
There is also a considerable observation gap over central South America particularly around the
South American low-level jet (SALLJ) east of the Andes. The SALLJ is part of a continentalscale gyre that transports moisture from the tropical Atlantic Ocean, first westward across the
Amazon Basin, and then southward to the extratropics of South America. Although this gyre
has continental scale, it displays a regional intensification just to the east of the Andes
Mountains, with strongest winds apparently near Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Low-frequency variability
from the intra-seasonal to the interdecadal has been shown to modulate the SALLJ and suggest
the predictive potential of this orographically bound current. Observed small negative rainfall
trends in northern Amazonia, and systematic increases in rainfall and runoff in southern
Amazonia and southeastern South America since the middle 1970s is consistent with an
increase of the frequency of SALLJ events. Climate change scenarios mostly agree with these
observed features.
The relatively small spatial scale (compared with the density of the sounding network) of the
SALLJ, however, has limited the understanding of any variations in the LLJ intensity and
structure and downstream rainfall variability over Paraguay, Argentina, southeastern Brazil and
Uruguay. Also the surface station separation is inadequate to accurately describe daily rainfall
amounts during the convection dominated wet season, even when averaging over rather larger
areas. Recently the VAMOS/SALLJEX experiment was held during the austral summer 20022003 in order to better understand the atmospheric circulation and rainfall over Bolivia,
Paraguay, western Brazil and northern and central Argentina, which lacks regular upper-air data
area. SALLJEX observations provided a unique opportunity for numerical model validations and
sensitivity studies that attempt to reproduce the structure of the jet and its variability as well as
the related precipitation. Preliminary results show that the operation of a denser upper-air
observation network over central South America has a strong impact on both analysis and
predictions.
OBJECTIVE: Consolidate and expand the upper-air operational network over central South
America.
23
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The project aims to:
Guarantee the full operational state of the current upper-air stations listed in Table 1. Some of
them are already GUAN stations while the others are operational upper-air stations not yet
included in the GUAN network.
OPTION 1: Deploy a group of new GUAN stations (Table 2) or OPTION 2: guarantee the full
operational state of the current upper-air stations listed in Table 3.
The stations will make daily observations (at 12UTC).
LOCATION: The locations listed in Tables 1 and 2 or 3.
DURATION: 3 years
Expected outcome: Greatly improved regional GUAN network that will be sustained into the
future. Such improvement in the GUAN network will provide a full monitoring across the South
American continent along the SALLJ axis that will lead to more comprehensive climate
observations for the region with its associated benefits.
Risk and sustainability: Regarding the stations listed in Tables 1 and 3, the risk of failure is
very low and a high degree of sustainability may be expected, based on the experience of the
NWSs of the region. Regarding the stations listed in Table 2, the risk level and the degree of
sustainability strongly depends on the commitment level of the corresponding countries.
IMPLEMENTATION: As soon as funds will be available.
INDICATIVE BUDGET: (A site survey will be carried out to determine exact equipment needs
before a detailed budget is proposed.)
OPTION 1
Budget line
Cost per station (US$)
Rehabilitation of stations listed in Table 1
Procurement of consumables
200 (radiosonde cost) 400
(days per year) x 3
(years)= 240,000
SUBTOTAL
Installation of the new stations listed in
Table 2
Procurement of Radiosonde equipment
140,000
Procurement of Hydrogen generator
80,000
Procurement of consumables
200 (radiosonde cost) 400
(days per year) x 3
(years)= 240,000
SUBTOTAL
TOTAL
24
Total Cost (US$)
1,200,000
1,200,000
280,000
160,000
480,000
920,000
2,120,000
OPTION 2
Budget line
Cost per station (US$)
Rehabilitation of stations listed in Table 1
Procurement of consumables
200 (radiosonde cost) 400
(days per year) x 3
(years)= 240,000
SUBTOTAL
Rehabilitation of stations listed in Table 3
Procurement of consumables
200 (radiosonde cost) 400
(days per year) x 3
(years)= 240,000
SUBTOTAL
TOTAL
Total Cost (US$)
1,200,000
1,200,000
720,000
720,000
1,920,000
ANNEX
Table 1: Set of current upper-air stations to be supported by the Project.
Argentina
Resistencia, Comodoro Rivadavia, Córdoba
Brazil
Tabatinga
Paraguay
Mariscal Estigarribia
Table 2: New upper-air stations to be installed in the region by the Project.
Bolivia
Trinidad
Uruguay
Tacuarembó or Rivera
Table 3: Additional set of current upper-air stations to be supported by the Project.
Colombia
Bogotá or Las Gaviotas
Brazil
Rio Branco
French Guiana
Rochambeau
Project 2. Enhancement of the Surface and Upper-Air Network for South America.
SPECIFIC BACKGROUND: In Region III, South America, there is a network composed of 119
surface meteorological stations (GNS) and 17 upper-air stations (GUAN) including Easter
Island, which are part of the GCOS. The distribution of surface stations appears to be quite
homogeneous, due rather to criteria of synoptic scale and availability of historical data from the
selected stations. On the other hand, the present upper-air network presents deficiencies in its
distribution leaving large areas of the region without monitoring.
25
According to the reception of information from the surface stations during the month of January,
only 67 out of the 119 were received at the Monitoring Centres. That is, around 44% of the
stations did not submit reports. In the case of the upper-air stations, no information was
received from 5 stations for the month of February, that is, about 31% of the total of 16
continental stations.
An improvement in the spatial resolution of surface stations to monitor and detect changes at a
more local scale requires the identification of other existing stations that belong to National
Meteorological Services or other entities of the respective countries. To the contrary, an
improvement of the upper-air network has to do with the reactivation of some previously existing
stations that for several reasons are not today operational and, in other cases, the installation of
an aerological station. A primary inspection indicates that aerological stations are required in:
Argentina (2 to 3), Brazil (2 to 3), Bolivia (1), Ecuador (1) and Venezuela (1).
OBJECTIVES: In view of the foregoing the following objectives are established:
General
To conduct a survey for the purpose of elaborating a cadastre of the status quo of the surface
and upper-air stations network, and of the existence of meteorological stations with historical
data that may be possibly incorporated into the GCOS system.
Specific
1.
To establish the reasons for the deficiency in the reception of CLIMAT and
CLIMAT/TEMP information at the monitoring centres for its optimization through recuperation
and/or operational improvement of those stations that are part of GCOS.
2.
To carry out a cadastre of surface stations that will allow to increase the spatial
resolution and to become a part of GCOS for regional studies on climate variability and
changes.
3.
To improve the upper-air network of the region through the reactivation or installation of
aerological stations.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The status of surface meteorological stations that are part of the
GSN network of GCOS will be reviewed and analyzed. To this end, all NMHSs will be
requested to reply to a survey prepared to determine the reasons leading to the non-remittance
of CLIMAT information. This stage will allow identifying if a particular station is or is not
operational and in the event it is discontinued to learn if it is due to reasons of maintenance
and/or irreplaceable deterioration of sensors, or whether there are communication problems for
the transmission of information to the monitoring centres.
The costs involved for the permanent operation of stations and the level of commitment of the
respective country through its Meteorological Service will have to be determined. This will allow
carrying out a cadastre of all stations at the regional level from which a plan will be prepared for
the recuperation and maintenance of stations. In addition, the cadastre will include those
surface stations already existing and in operation that have historical data and that may be
included in the GSN network with the aim of increasing its spatial resolution.
It is necessary to evaluate the availability and disposition to contribute with daily meteorological
data (temperature and precipitation) of the present stations belonging to the GSN and of those
26
that could become a part of it. The foregoing relates to the increasing interest in investigating
extreme events as a component of climate change.
The feasibility of reactivating some aerological stations and installing others in those places that
allow increasing resolution and filling the gap of upper-air information will be assessed. The
level of commitment of the institutions of the respective countries with respect to the operation
and maintenance of the stations will have to be assessed. The operation for a minimum of 10
years is required.
EXPECTED OUTCOME: Status quo of the GSN and GUAN networks for South America
(Region III) that will allow elaborating investment projects for the enhancement of the surface
and upper-air networks of the GSN and GUAN, respectively.
To improve the GSN and GUAN networks in relation to the transmission and reception of
CLIMAT and CLIMAT/TEMP messages, the spatial resolution and its permanence in time.
To have access to daily data of temperature and precipitation for studies of extreme events
affecting the region.
DURATION: It is estimated that the preparation of the questionnaire will take from 4 to 6 months
after the process of the Action Plan has been initiated. The later preparation of the cadastre will
take around 8 months depending on the celerity of response on the part of NMHSs.
It is estimated that the implementation of new surface stations in the GSN network will take
about 4 months after they have been identified. It is expected that the rescue of historical
monthly information (included in the CLIMAT) from the new stations will be completed in 10
months.
The time required for the rescue of daily meteorological information cannot be determined a
priori due to the level of commitment that NMHSs will assume with the project.
The improvement in infrastructure and instruments of stations will depend on the financing
obtained and this may take around one year from the date that individual projects are approved
and financed.
IMPLEMENTATION: The survey will be prepared by the Working Group on Climate Activities,
with the participation of the Working Group on Planning and Implementation of the WWW
(World Weather Watch) in Region III.
The communication and remittance of questionnaires will be done through traditional ways and,
principally, via electronic mail.
The assessment of deficiencies in the reception of CLIMAT and CLIMAT/TEMP information will
be made by the Chairman of the Working Group on Climate Activities, in conjunction with the
corresponding WMO Office.
The cadastre with the results of the survey will be elaborated by the Chairman of the Working
Group on Climate Activities in collaboration with the rapporteur of the Working Group on
Planning and Implementation of the WWW or whoever is designated by the Chairman of the
Group.
27
The enhancement of the networks through the replacement of sensors, reactivation of stations
(surface and aerological) and installation of new aerological stations will be performed by the
respective NMHSs and will depend on the date in which the funds are available, and are beyond
the purposes of this project.
BUDGET: No financing is required for the questionnaire and cadastre elaboration phases as
they will be done mainly via electronic mail and ordinary mail, the costs of which could be borne
by the respective NMHSs.
Only financing is required for attending meetings of Region III to present purposes and/or
outcomes and to seek commitments.
To participate in a meeting on data management (Carolina Vera’s project). Air fares and per
diem US$ 1300. To participate in Regional Association session US$ 1300.
The rest of the financing referred to the enhancement of networks depends on the outcome of
the cadastre.
Project 3. Consolidation of the Network Measuring Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in South
America.
BACKGROUND: The Atmospheric Research and Environment Programme (AREP) of the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) coordinates and fosters research on the structure
and composition of the atmosphere, on the physics and chemistry of clouds and research on the
artificial modification of weather, and research on tropical meteorology and meteorological
prediction. One of the programme’s objectives is to foster research on very important themes,
such as the composition of the atmosphere and climate change, and part of it is the Global
Atmosphere Watch (GAW)28 system that monitors changes in the chemical composition of the
atmosphere including greenhouse effect gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, among others), reactive
gases (CO, COVDM, NOx, SO2), the physical and chemical properties of aerosols, stratospheric
and superficial ozone, radiation (visible and ultraviolet) and the chemistry of rainfall water.
The national and international policy decisions that will affect the environment in the XXI century
will be based on the scientific data collected by the GAW (WMO, 2003), and it is thus necessary
that the region contribute with more reliable information and in representative areas. According
to the web page of the World Data Centers of GHGs (of the GAW-WMO) some GHGs
monitoring stations located in the region are:
List of observing stations. REGION III (South America)
Name of Station
Arembepe
Bird Island
Easter Island
Country /
Territory
Brazil
United
Kingdom
Chile
Latitude
Longitude
Altitude
Parameter
12° 46' S
38° 10' W
0m
O3
54° 00' S
38° 03' W
30 m
CO2, CH4
27° 09' S 109° 27' W
50 m
CO2, CH4, CO, H2,
13CO2, C18O2
28
In 1989, the ozone monitoring network and the Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network (BAPMoN) became a
part of the GAW.
28
Peru
12° 04' S
75° 32' W
3313 m
Tierra del Fuego
Argentina
54° 52' S
68° 29' W
20 m
Ushuaia
Argentina
54° 51' S
68° 19' W
18 m
Huancayo
CO2
CO2, CH4, CO, H2,
13CO2, C18O2
O3, CO
As can be seen in the following graph, of the 22 global stations that are part of the GAW, the
Arembepe and Ushuaia stations are located in South America. With respect to the foregoing
list, there are only few stations on the continental territory (Arembepe, Huancayo and those
belonging to Argentina that are close to the continent) and, in additiion to those measuring CO2
there are stations in Peru, Argentina and Chile alone, with practically only one on the continental
territory.
a. GAW global stations network
b. GAW stations network
Source: http://www.wmo.ch/web/arep/gaw/gaw_home.html
In accordance with the foregoing, it can be noticed that there is a deficit of information on the
concentration of the main GHGs of direct29 effect (CO2, CH4 and N2O) and other reactive gases
in reference stations.
OBJECTIVE: Advance the necessary actions in countries of RA III, to implement a network for
the measurement of the main GHGs in places of interest, with an appropriate coverage in
reference stations, as well as the updating of already installed instruments.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: This project will contribute to establishing a system for monitoring
some gases (GHGs of direct effect and other reactive gases) through the installation, in several
places of interest, of equipment in stations of a regional type (new or already existing) that will
serve for various applications: generation of climate scenarios at the regional scale; application
of models of a global character; background concentrations for different studies of air quality at
the urban level and of a regional type; dispersion of these gases, among others.
LOCATION: As one of the requirements for the selection of sites where equipment will be
installed in new or already existing GAW stations, is that they are not affected by nearby
pollution sources such as vehicles, industrial centres, agricultural activities and any other human
influence that might alter the concentration of these gases, the sites will be selected in
29
Direct: Gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect as they are released to the atmosphere.
29
accordance to some specific needs. For example, Colombia would be interested in measuring
gases such as: CO2, CO, NOx and SO2, at the Gaviotas station30 located east of the country.
DURATION: It will be developed during the twelve-month period following approval of the
project.
EXPECTED OUTCOME: Monitoring stations will be operational and coverage will include the
measurement of concentration of the different gases.
IMPLEMENTATION: As soon as the funds are available and with GAW’s support for: selection
of sites, selection of gases, installation of equipment and training for their maintenance.
RISKS AND SUSTAINABILITY: Monitoring equipment will be installed at places with a good
access and the host country must ensure, through its meteorological service, a regular
maintenance and their sustainability with funding support from the present plan.
INDICATIVE BUDGET: The costs suggested in the document entitled: GLOBAL
ATMOSPHERE WATCH MEASUREMENTS GUIDE (Technical Note: 143) should be taken into
account. This document specifies the requirements for the measurement sites of the different
parameters measured by the GAW, measurement methods, sampling frequency, data reporting
and procedures for their archiving, as well as instruments required and some suggested costs.
For instance, to measure CO2 from a remote station, the costs in connection with equipment and
infrastructure amount to approximately US$ 40,000.
Project 4.
Assessment and Enhancement of the UV-B Radiation Measurement Network
in South America.
BACKGROUND: With respect to UV-B radiation, a marked increase in the incidence of skin
cancer in the world population has been noted since the early seventies, associated with sun
exposure and its ultraviolet (UV) component, and the WMO has thus encouraged its
measurement and the socialization of its effects on health through indicators such as the UVl.
A preliminary assessment of the GAW web page (GAWSIS), allows a determination that of the
stations presented in Figure No. 1, and of which the parameters they measure are described in
Annex 1, there are very few countries whose stations relate UV-B radiation as a measurement
parameter. Only Argentina and Colombia report a high number of stations measuring this
parameter.
In the case of Colombia, the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies
(IDEAM) has established a national network of ultraviolet stations31, with five stations at sites
selected because of their representative geographical position. The stations are: Riohacha,
Pasto, Leticia, San Andres Island and Bogota. Of these stations, three are out of operation:
Leticia (the equipment burned due to a lightning), Riohacha (access wires burnt) and San
Andres Island (the CPU got damaged) and, at present, there is no calibration programme for
those in operation.
30
GAW contributing station at which radio sounding is carried out and where, in the past, the chemical properties of
rainfall water were analyzed.
31
Each station has a GUV511C ultraviolet radiometer designed to collect information on the ultraviolet irradiance
measured on the earth’s surface.
30
Figure 1. GAW stations network.
(Source: http://www.wmo.ch/web/arep/gaw/gaw_home.html)
In light of the foregoing, it is necessary to make a diagnosis allowing, in the short term, to put in
operation deteriorated equipment, as well as to calibrate existing ones.
OBJECTIVE: Take the necessary actions to optimize the operation of and strengthen the UV-B
radiation measurement network in RA III countries.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: This project is composed of the following four phases:
First phase: Identification in each country of the person responsible for the radiation
programme, with the aim that he/she make a diagnosis of the UV-B radiation network, assess
its operation and define its priorities.
Second phase: Repair of equipment in poor conditions, replacement of those that cannot be
repaired and installation of new equipment, if so required.
Third phase: Carry out a regional workshop on calibration and maintenance of equipment that
measure UV-B radiation. It is proposed to hold this workshop in Argentina as this country has
been designated by WMO as calibration centre. (Mr. Grossi Gallego is the person in Argentina
devoted to the subject of radiation and he owns calibration equipment).
Fourth phase: Workshop for training in UV index forecasting models whose results will
contribute to socializing the effects of this radiation on health.
LOCATION: In those countries of the region that have UV-B radiation measurement stations
and those interested in its measurement.
31
EXPECTED OUTCOME: A UV-B radiation measurement network in countries of RA III in
operation, optimized, with ample coverage, with trained staff in the calibration of equipment to
ensure the quality of measurements, as well as trained in forecasting UVI and in socializing
these forecasts to diminish the risk of UV-B on health.
IMPLEMENTATION: As soon as funds are available and with GAW’s support for the repair and
installation of new equipment, training for their maintenance and calibration, as well as for the
definition of workshops.
RISKS AND SUSTAINABILITY: The nations must ensure, through their meteorological
services, the regular maintenance and sustainability of equipment.
INDICATIVE BUDGET
Component
First phase: Diagnosis
Second phase: Repair, replacement and
installation of new equipment
Third phase: Regional workshop on
calibration and maintenance
Fourth phase: Regional workshop on
forecasting models of UV index
Total (Preliminary)
Costs (Dollars)
0.0
Depends on the
previous component
Duration
Two months
25.000
One week
25.000
One week
Ten months
50.000
Observations:
The total duration of the project will be one year and the workshops will be carried out during
said period. The price of a new GUV511C equipment is approximately US$ 20,000.
32
Annex 1. Information provided by the GAWSIS web page on the stations in South
America.
Station
Porto Nacional
Cuiaba
Brasilia
Arembepe
Cachoeira – Paulista
Natal
Kourou
Paramaribo
Gaviotas
Leticia
Pasto
Bogota
Riohacha
San Andres Island
San Cristobal
Huancayo
Marcapomacocha
La Paz – Ovejuyo
La Quiaca Observatory
Pilar Observatoriy
Buenos Aires Observatorio
Comodoro Rivadavia Airport
San Julian Airport
Ushuaia
Vicecomodoro Marambio
Jubany
Belgrano II
San Lorenzo
Tololo
Valdivia
Puerto Montt
Easter Island
Torres del Paine
Salto Grande
Mount Pleasant
Stanley
Bird Island (South Georgia)
Country
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
French Guiana
Suriname
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Ecuador
Peru
Peru
Bolivia
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Paraguay
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Uruguay
Falkland Islands-UK
Falkland Islands-UK
UK
33
Programme Content
Unknown programme
Ozone column
Unknown programme
Superficial ozone
Ozone column
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Chemical composition of rainfall water
UV radiation
UV radiation
UV radiation and ozone column
UV radiation
UV radiation
Unknown programme
Ozone column, CO2
Ozone column
Unknown programme
Ozone column, solar radiation and UV-B
radiation
Ozone column, solar radiation and UV-B
radiation
Ozone column, solar radiation and UV-B
radiation
UV radiation and ozone column
Ozone column, solar radiation and UV-B
radiation
Aerosols, GHGs, O3 (superficial, column),
solar radiation and UV-B radiation
UV Radiation and ozone column
CO2
Ozone column
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
4.1.2 The Oceans
A systematic, long-term, ocean observing system is needed to support climate and ocean
modelling and prediction (e.g. of El Nino events), underpin the provision of ocean products and
services and assist South American nations in managing their coastal and ocean environments.
Implementation of the following project(s) will contribute significantly to meeting GCOS and
related requirements for ocean observations from the region:
Project 5.
Enhancement of Sustained Surface and Subsurface Observations in the
Western Subtropical South Atlantic.
BACKGROUND: South America is characterized by a monsoon circulation system, which
develops over tropical continental regions during the warm season. During summer, the main
convective activity is centered over central Brazil and linked with a southeastward band of
cloudiness and precipitation extending towards southeastern Brazil and the surrounding Atlantic
Ocean. That convection band, known as the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), is a
distinctive feature of the South American Monsoon System, exhibiting variability in a wide band
of timescales ranging from synoptic to interannual. The conditions over the southwestern
Atlantic influence the precipitation changes over southeastern South America on interannual
timescales, as well as the frequency and intensity of daily extreme precipitation events. A
dipolar-like structure characterizes the regional rainfall variability on intraseasonal and
interannual timescales. Enhanced precipitation over the SACZ is accompanied by decreased
rainfall in the subtropical plains of South America and cold conditions over the southwestern
Atlantic. The opposite phase is associated with increased moisture flux from the Amazon region
into the subtropics, warm conditions in the southwestern Atlantic and increased rainfall in the
subtropical plains. Analysis of climate trends in the region shows significant positive trends in
the rainfall over subtropical regions as well as in the sea surface temperature of the
southwestern Atlantic, which has been interpreted as a climate change signal.
SACZ then plays a key role in South American climate, its variability and change. It has been
identified as a source of variability on intraseasonal and interannual timescales influencing
central South America and also remote regions as the North Atlantic Ocean. Recent model
experiments show a consistent air-sea coupling associated with the SACZ variability, although
the lack of continuous observations of both ocean and atmospheric conditions over the
southwestern Atlantic has limited the understanding of such interaction on an observational
basis. It is therefore expected that a system for observation of the air and surface and
subsurface ocean conditions over the southwestern Atlantic, as proposed here, will help validate
and improve climate models, provide data required for prediction purposes, and for climate
variability and climate change monitoring.
Currently, only the tropical Atlantic is being monitored as part of the Pilot Research Moored
Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA). However, the PIRATA backbone and its southwest
extension, proposed by Brazil, are located north of the region of high precipitation associated
with the SACZ (see Figure 1). Thus, it is proposed to deploy an additional ATLAS type buoy in
the western subtropical South Atlantic in the region of maximum rainfall associated to the SACZ.
The new site will complement the PIRATA southwestern extension and provide the much
needed information necessary to better understand the role of sea-air interactions and vertical
mixing at the base of the ocean mixed layer. Given that there are no time series observations in
the subtropical South Atlantic, to some degree the proposed observations should be viewed as
exploratory.
34
Project 5, Figure 1: Monthly mean total precipitation averaged from December through
March 1979–93, contoured every 1 mm (from Nogues-Paegle and Mo,
Mon. Wea. Rev., 125, 279, 1997). The red dots indicate the locations
of the Pirata Southwestern Extension and the light blue dot marks
the location of the proposed site.
THE SITE. The site is located approximately at 28°S – 43°W, east of the core of the Brazil
Current (see Figure 2). Historical hydrographic data reveals that the sea surface temperature at
this location varies between 19 and 26°C, and the mixed layer depth increases from ~20 m in
January to ~150 m in August. Though the region is recognized as important for the regional
continental climate, there is no knowledge of the interannual variability and on how these
changes are related to the ocean circulation.
35
Project 5, Figure 2:
Surface current velocity field derived from 10 years of surface
drifter observations. The black dot indicates the location of the
proposed observing site.
MOORING CONFIGURATION: Atlas type moorings are the best, well proven observing device
for the proposed observation. Atlas moorings are fixed at the ocean bottom and can house
both, meteorological and subsurface temperature and conductivity sensors, required to
determine the vertical stratification.
Project 5, Figure 3:
Schematic diagram of Atlas mooring, developed and built by NOAA
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), such as those
used in the TAO and Pirata arrays.
36
Alternatively, commercial buoys can be used, but the cost of commercial products is
significantly higher than the cost of Atlas mooring. The budget below is for an instrumented
Atlas mooring. Supply of Atlas buoys requires an agreement and approval of scientific and
experimental design by NOAA/PMEL.
Budget for three year pilot deployment (in thousands of US dollars)
ATLAS buoy (cost price at NOAA/PMEL)
ATLAS spares
Shipment and handling
Custom agent
Local handling
Training
Administration
Salary local engineer 3 mo/yr
Ship time @ 4.0/day, 6 days/yr (*)
Total estimated
50.0
5.0
3.5
1.5
1.0
3.0
1.0
9.0
72.0
146.0
(*) Ship time is estimated assuming that the buoy will be serviced twice a year using the same
Brazilian vessel from Diretoria de Hidrografia e Navegacao that services the Pirata SWE sites.
4.1.3 Terrestrial Systems
Systematic observation of the hydrologic regime in South America is a regional GCOS priority.
To address this priority, it is planned to undertake the following projects:
Project 6.
Analysis of the hydrological observing systems and networks existing in
South America (precipitation and levels/volumes) as a regional contribution
to the initial development of the Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology
(GTN-H).
BACKGROUND: The Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology (GTN-H) was established on the
occasion of the Second Meeting of Experts GCOS/GTOS/HWRP. The provision to users of
hydrological information and related metadata, to promote and facilitate the free exchange of
hydrological data and products within the framework of resolutions 40 (Cg-XII) and 25 (Cg-XIII),
as well as the identification of requirements for the data for such exchange, are among the main
functions of the GTN-H. During the meeting of the GTN-H Coordination Panel held in Toronto,
Canada from 21 to 22 November 2002, several demonstration projects were discussed for the
development of products to improve, among other areas, the knowledge of available and
accessible hydrological information. Likewise, during the GCOS Regional Workshop for South
America, the framework document for the preparation of the GCOS Action Plan for the Region
was presented as well as the identification of projects that might be considered in said Plan.
The present project draft is included within the regional component to attain the development of
the GTN-H in relation to level, volume and precipitation parameters.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present project is to carry out an analysis of the operation of
the hydrological observing systems and networks existing in South America in direct relationship
with the objectives of the Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology (GTN-H), to identify data
37
requirements on the part of GCOS at the regional level and their availability in each country, as
well as to make proposals to improve the existing situation in the short, medium and long terms.
PROJECT DESIGN: It is proposed that the following activities will be carried out:
a) Identification and funding of a person responsible for the project.
b) Establishment of a working group (in particular, the existence of the RA III Working Group on
Hydrology and the eventual designation of the GCOS Focal Point in each country is
highlighted), capable of carrying out the following activities:
- to gather information on the hydrological systems and networks of the countries to assess their
operation. The foregoing includes, after a draft design of the regional network is available, the
identification of historical information (only that having to do with level and volume variables)
that requires digitalization for an eventual future enhancement
- to identify data requirements on the part of GCOS at the regional level. In particular, the
coordination that is to be done with the person responsible for the project on the monitoring of
glaciers (when establishing the stations of the regions to be a part of the GTN-H) in those
indispensable hydrological stations that are useful for studies in this field is to be remarked
- to visit specific countries to discuss the state of situation
- to coordinate with the person responsible for the project “Enhancement of the surface and
upper-air network for South America” the identification of potential pluviometric stations to
improve the GSN and the GTN-H. These actions would be complementary as they are
adequately coordinated
- to encourage those countries that are not providing data to the World Centers to do so and to
recommend which data it would be necessary to offer
- to interact with the persons responsible for the aforementioned Centers to establish a standard
system for the remittance of information.
c) To initiate contacts in order to establish a service or organization that might serve as regional
Center.
LOCATION: Those countries in the region that express an interest in participating in the project
(a maximum of 13 countries).
DURATION: First phase: two years (diagnosis and analysis, implementation of the Regional
network of hydrological information exchange).
Second phase: two years (updating and enhancement of existing hydrological networks).
EXPECTED OUTCOMES: Updated diagnosis and analysis of the situation
Establishment of a network of hydrological information exchange at the regional level
Improvement in the regional exchange of the hydrological information (establishment of
standards) to be provided and, therefore, an improvement in the Global Climate Observing
System
Updating and enhancement of existing hydrological networks (second phase).
38
IMPLEMENTATION: The implementation of the project will be carried out at the national and
hydrographical basins level. Among its components, the project might utilize the experience
and functioning of the RA III Working Group on Hydrology as well as those of the GCOS Focal
Point, in which each country will eventually have staff designated for this purpose. In a first
instance, a General Project Coordinator and Regional Coordinators for hydrographical basins
should be identified in order to establish a working methodology for the two years of duration of
the first phase of the project. During this phase, how to establish a functional regional network
and to optimize the hydrological systems of climate observation with existing economic
resources will be sought. In the future, funds will be provided for those cases identified in the
diagnosis and analysis as critical or extremely necessary and which do not have national
financing at the present time. To this effect, it is remarked that for the first phase, great
investments in equipment, software or professional education seminars are not foreseen but,
rather, the utilization of currently installed capacity for the identification of the required
information and the establishment of the Regional network already described. Along the
development of the first phase and as the established objectives are met, the series of activities
and methodology for the second phase could be generated.
RISKS AND SUSTAINABILITY: Due to the procedure established for the implementation of
the project, it is understood that risks are not significant. In particular, they depend on the
follow-up given to the project and of the commitment assumed by each participant in each of the
participating countries in connection with the activities outlined in the project. As concerns
sustainability, due to the fact that in the first phase the approach is based on organizing the
system considering the present configuration and existing maintenance, there are no great
costs involved that would hinder the project continuity. It is worth mentioning that the existence
of concessionary or privately-owned hydrological networks is every time more common. This is
a point requiring particular attention in the event the station(s) is(are) to become a part of the
GTN-H (RTM-H) In this case, a strategy must be proposed so as to involve said organizations
explaining the advantages and outcomes that might be obtained from participating in the
network. It is also very important to consider a draft written statement clearly establishing the
rights and obligations of each of the institutions participating in the network, as a catalyzing tool
for the exchange of information.
INDICATIVE BUDGET:
First phase
No
Description
Activity
1.
Project Coordinator
Coordination and follow-up (full time)
2.
Working Group
3.
Working Sessions
4.
Minimum equipment
5
Expenditures of Regional
Five 3-day meetings (4 persons)
Coordinators of Basins
6.
Unforeseen Expenditures
7.
Total Cost of Project
Diagnosis and identification of GCOS
requirements. Establishment of
Regional network
Compatibilization of the Group’s work
(two 3-day meetings)
Provision of basic hardware and
software:
13 PCs and acc. @$2500
Budget
(US$)
24000
13000
24000
32500
26000
6500
(PHASE 1)
39
126000
Project 7. State of the Cryosphere Project.
BACKGROUND: The cryosphere is a sensitive indicator of present and past climate changes.
The Global Terrestrial Observation System (GTOS) includes long-term understanding of
processes related to three main cryosphere variables: glaciers (GTN-G), snow and permafrost
(GTN-P). Study of these three variables is particularly relevant in terms of their different
response times to climate: glaciers in South America have a response time in the range of a few
years to a few decades; seasonal snow has an immediate response to climate; and permafrost
has a decadal-centennial response to climate. Existing data for South America show a
generalised glacier recession over the past few centuries, with an ongoing wastage and even
disappearance of small ice bodies. The limited snow cover data for the last few decades
suggests an important snow line elevation rise in many regions, while the very scarce
information on permafrost also suggests degradation in recent decades.
Current monitoring of the three cryosphere variables in South America is limited, with
inadequate spatial coverage. There is also a strong need for standardising measurement
methods within different countries and agencies for a better assessment and comparisons of
data.
JUSTIFICATION: The reduction of snow and ice volume has a relevant potential effect on water
resources. Enhanced melt can also result in environmental changes, such as increased icerelated hazards (e.g. catastrophic glacier floods, ice avalanches), together with associated
ecological impacts.
OBJECTIVES: Establish an adequate and sustainable cryosphere observing system spanning
the Andes from Venezuela (8° latitude north) to Tierra del Fuego (56° latitude south). The
specific objectives include:
Identify the current cryospheric observations and associated hydro-meteorological monitoring
carried out in South America by national and international groups.
Select representative glacier basins throughout the Andes for establishing long-term monitoring
programmes, collecting historical data bases available.
Organise meetings and workshops for standardising measurement methods among the different
South American countries.
Perform monitoring of glacier volumes, spatial coverage and time changes of glaciers, snow and
permafrost through ground, airborne and satellite-based methods in selected basins and
regions.
Determine the glacial contribution to river runoff in selected basins throughout the Andes.
Establish a basic high elevation climate reference network for the Andes within selected
basins/regions by means of automatic stations.
Retrieve new glacier ice core records in the region for providing an appropriate continental-scale
coverage of past climate conditions.
Increase the candidate boreholes for long-term monitoring of permafrost temperature within the
GTN-P, seeking an appropriate spatial coverage in South America.
40
PROJECT DESIGN:
a. Glaciers: Measurements of the proposed South American glacier network will be part of the
Glacier Monitoring Network in the Andes (A-GMN) of the International Commission on Snow
and Ice (ICSI), which is in turn part of the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC) Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) of GCOS. The GTN-G initiative is coordinated
through the World Glacier Monitoring Programme (WGMS), with selection criteria according to
the concept of a Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy (GHOST) encompassing 5 tiers
indicated below. In order to fulfil the objectives, representative basins are proposed to be
chosen within each region, as indicated in 5. Location.
Tier 1. Large scale transects: multi-component system observation across latitude, longitude
and altitudinal environmental gradients, covering equatorial, tropical, subtropical, mid-latidude,
subpolar/polythermal, temperate, maritime and continental glaciers.
Tier 2. Glacier mass balance and flow studies within major climatic zones for improved process
understanding and calibration of numerical models.
Tier 3. Determination of regional glacier volume change of selected glaciers in the Andes using
a combination of ground and remote sensing methods. E.g. with selected index ground stakes
(annual time resolution) combined with precision mapping at multi-year intervals using satellite
(SRTM, GLAS) and airborne (laser, SAR, photogrammetry) data.
Tier 4. Long-term observations of glacier length data for assessing the spatial representativity of
local mass balance and volume change measurements, e.g. considering different climate
characteristics, size effects and dynamics (calving, surge, debris cover, etc.), minimum of about
10 sites within each region.
Tier 5. Upgrading of glacier inventories every few decades by using satellite remote sensing
data. Collaboration with ASTER/GLIMS project, WGMS, national and international agencies.
In addition to these 5 tiers, the retrieval of new ice core records for paleoclimatological studies
should be pursued, aimed at filling in large spatial data gaps existent in the region, particularly in
mid latitudes.
b. Snow: Areal extent of seasonal snow is proposed to be monitored during the wet/winter
season in each selected basin/region by analysing visible and infrared satellite imagery (e.g.
NOAA-AVHRR, LANDSAT, ASTER, etc.) in monthly intervals. The construction of historical time
series of snow cover for each basin/region by means of archival satellite imagery is also
desirable.
c. Permafrost: New candidate boreholes for long-term monitoring of permafrost temperature
should be identified and implemented within the Global Terrestrial Network-Permafrost (GTN-P),
seeking an appropriate spatial coverage in South America.
d. Hydrology/Meteorology: Complement ice/snow monitoring with hydrological/meteorological
stations within glacier basins at high altitudes in the Andes. One automatic weather station and
one runoff gage station should be deployed in each basin/region. One additional meteorological
station should be installed in each country for better understanding the spatial variations. The
station network will be a relevant contribution to the meteorology and hydrology network
programmes of GCOS.
41
LOCATION:
a. Glacier basins - Representative glacier basins are to be selected after careful inspection.
Automatic meteorological and hydrological stations should be deployed in each basin. A priori
the following sites are envisioned.
Venezuela: no glaciers are currently being monitored. One representative glacier basin is
proposed for Cordillera de Mérida.
Colombia: basic glaciological research is currently under way at least in one glacier. Two
glacier basins are proposed to be selected, one in Cordillera Central and one in Cordillera
Oriental.
Ecuador: detailed glaciological studies started 10 years ago by INAMHI in collaboration with
IRD-France, with adequate glacio-hydrological-meteorological measurements. Studies should
continue in glaciers Antizana and Carihuairaso.
Peru: Since 2001 UGRH-INRENA is carrying out a programme for glacier monitoring and
control, in co-operation with IRD of France and the Institute of Geography of the University of
Innsbruck, Austria. Seven glaciers are being monitored in Cordillera Blanca, one in Cordillera
Raura and Glaciar Shullcón in the central area of the country. In southern Peru (Cusco),
inspections are under way to establish an appropriate glacier for having a more representative
spatial coverage of the country. Four glacier basins are proposed for the GCOS network, to be
selected among the 9/10 glaciers currently monitored in Peru: 2 in Cordillera Blanca – 1 on the
east and 1 on the west, 1 in central Peru and 1 in southern Peru.
Bolivia: Detailed glacier and hydro-meteorological measurements were started in 1991 by IRD
in collaboration with Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. Measurements include Glaciar
Chacaltaya (a small glacier near La Paz) and Zongo, a very important glacier for water supply
and energy generation for La Paz and El Alto. A study of a third glacier, Charquin, is now being
launched, which will replace Chacaltaya, predicted to disappear in the next 15 years. Zongo and
Charquin are proposed as selected GCOS glacier basins.
Argentina: IANIGLA started glacier measurements in the area of Mendoza in 1974, and is
currently maintaining a basic monitoring programme at Glaciar Piloto.
In Patagonia,
measurements were carried out by Russian researchers in the 1990s and early 2000s at Glaciar
de Los Tres, a small mountain glacier. The ablation areas of the large valley glaciers in
Patagonia such as Moreno and Upsala are currently being studied by researchers from Instituto
Antártico Argentino, in collaboration with Japanese universities and the University of Innsbruck,
Austria. In Ushuaia, researchers from CADIC are conducting basic monitoring of Martial and
Vinciguerra glaciers. Three GCOS basins are proposed: Glaciar Piloto near Mendoza; Glaciar
de los Tres in Patagonia and Glaciar Martial or Vinciguerra in Ushuaia.
Chile: There are only two glaciers being monitored in detail; Glaciar Echaurren Norte in central
Chile since 1975 by Dirección General de Aguas (DGA) and Glaciar Mocho in the lake district
since 2003 by Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECS). In addition airborne and satellite remote
sensing and ground measurements are carried out in central-southern Chile by CECS and
Universidad de Chile, and in Patagonia by CECS, German Universities, Universidad de
Magallanes (UMAG), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of USA and Japanese universities.
UMAG is also studying glaciers in Tierra del Fuego in collaboration with scientists from USA.
Three glacier basins are proposed as part of the GCOS network: Glaciar Echaurren Norte in
central Chile, Glaciar Mocho in southern Chile and Gran Campo Nevado in Patagonia.
42
In order to assess the spatial representativity of local mass balance studies at the selected
basins and evaluate the status of glaciers and their temporal changes at a more regional level
(Tiers 4 and 5 of GHOST-WGMS), remotes sensing studies and also ground field work for
validation should be performed in several regions by different groups.
b. Snow - Areas for monitoring snow cover by means of satellite imagery should be generally
larger than individual glacier basins. At least one snow-covered region should be selected in
each country.
c. Permafrost - Only 2 boreholes are candidate sites for the GTN-P in South America. Both are
located east of Mendoza, Argentina: El Balcón I (3560 masl, 5 m depth) and El Balcón II (3770
masl, 3 m depth). These sites are too shallow and deeper (> 20 m) boreholes should be drilled.
In addition at least 2 borehole sites should be identified in the equatorial Andes (Venezuela,
Colombia and/or Ecuador); 2 sites in the tropical Andes (Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile) and 2
additional sites in Patagonia (Chile and/or Argentina).
d. Hydrology/Meteorology - One meteorological station and one hydrological station should be
deployed in each glacier basin. In addition one high-altitude meteorological station should be
installed in each country for obtaining a more representative spatial coverage.
DURATION: The implementation of the programme is planned for a 3-year period.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES: Establish adequate and sustainable glacial/snow/permafrost
observing systems for South America.
Better understanding of the physical cryospheric processes affecting the region, particularly the
interactions between climate and glacier/snow/permafrost response.
Understanding of present and past climatic conditions of the region using instrumental and
glaciological methods and glacial records.
Contribute to the assessment of freshwater volume stored as snow/ice reserves in the Andes,
and the glacial contribution to river runoff.
Contribute to the understanding of the socio-economic impacts of glacial and climatic changes.
Improve the regional expertise and capabilities in cryospheric science and technology.
IMPLEMENTATION:
Assess existing activities and monitoring programmes (YEAR 1).
Capacity building: organise 3 workshop/meetings: glaciers, snow and permafrost (YEAR 1).
Select glacier basins and determine sites for installation of automatic weather, hydrological and
permafrost borehole stations (YEAR 1).
Deployment of automatic weather stations, hydrological stations and permafrost borehole
stations (YEAR 2).
Implementation of GIS/image analysis capabilities (YEAR 1).
Analyse airborne/satellite imagery for detection of snow and glacier extent at different epochs
(YEARS 2 and 3).
Field studies of glacier mass balance at selected basins (YEARS 2 and 3).
Selection of sites, sampling and analysis of ice cores (YEARS 2 and 3).
43
RISK AND SUSTAINABILITY: The success of the present programme highly depends on the
active participation of responsible agencies/parties in each country which need to provide
substantial effort and investment. Sustainability will highly depend on the selection of
appropriate agencies/parties responsible for the development of the monitoring programme at
each basin/region. Active coordinating bodies should be designated at regional and national
levels. Collaboration with other international programs and foreign research groups is highly
needed, such as the Pole-Equator-Pole Transect of the Americas (PEP1) of the IGBP Past
Global Changes (PAGES) Project, A-GMN of ICSI, WGMS, UNESCO, IRD-France, foreign
universities and researchers, etc.
INDICATIVE BUDGET: An approximate total cost of USD 2,715,000 results for the 3-year
programme, as follows.
a. Network assessment - The assessment of the current glacier-snow-permafrost observation
programme in South America and the selection of new basins/regions for implementing a
programme with adequate spatial coverage can be done at no cost by the interested
countries/research groups.
b. Workshops/meetings - Three meetings/workshops are proposed for discussions and
standardising measurement methods among the different South American countries, covering
each cryospheric variable: glaciers, snow and permafrost. A total cost of USD 90,000 is
estimated for the three meetings, based on an attendance of 20 participants at each meeting,
including field/laboratory work and the attendance of 1 expert/instructor.
c. Glaciers - A total of 17 glacier basins are proposed to be monitored in South America. Of
these, 12 basins are already being monitored at a basic level. Considering that interested
countries and parties should provide the main funding for the monitoring of each glacier basin,
an additional seed funding of USD 15,000/year is needed for full implementation of each glacier
basin, i.e. a total of USD 765,000 for the 17 sites for the 3-year period.
d. Remote sensing of snow and ice - A budget of USD 20.000/year is considered for each
country, for acquisition of specialised GIS/image analysis software, computer hardware and/or
satellite imagery, resulting in a total of USD 480,000 for the 3-year period for the 7 Andean
countries plus Brazil.
e. Permafrost - Considering a total of 8 permafrost boreholes with a minimum depth of 20 m at
USD 30,000 each and the deployment of an automatic array of thermistors at each site at USD
10,000 each, an approximate investment cost of USD 320,000 results. Operational costs of
each site should be provided by each country/party.
f. Hydrology/Meteorology - An array of 24 automatic weather stations, one for each basin,
plus one additional station for each Andean country is considered, with a cost of USD
20,000/each plus an installation cost of USD 10,000, with a subtotal cost of USD 720,000.
Similarly, one automatic station for measuring runoff is considered at each basin, with a cost of
USD 10,000/each plus an installation cost of USD 10,000, with a subtotal cost of USD 340,000.
Total instrumentation and deployment cost is thus USD 1060,000.
4.1.4 Data
As pointed out earlier, the acquisition, quality assurance, timely exchange, archiving and
application of high quality climate system data are essential to achieving the objectives of
44
GCOS, and for national socio-economic and environmental policy-making and applications. The
following projects respond to these requirements.
Project 8.
Improvement of South American capacities in hydrological, meteorological
and climate database management.
BACKGROUND: Since 1985, several climate data management systems (CDMSs) have been
pursued under the World Climate Data and Monitoring Programme (WCDMP). This programme
has as its main objectives: the exchange and transfer of data management techniques,
technology transfer (hardware and software), and capacity building. The first step was the
CLICOM (Climate Computing) project. In 1988, the CLICOM AR II Project was implemented in
South America with the installation of the system in Chile and Venezuela. In 1990, the system
was installed in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru and Guyana. In 1999 a roving
seminar on CLICOM 3.1 was held in Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Suriname, and a
training course was held in Chile involving technicians from Venezuela, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Several expert meetings on CDMSs have been held since 1997, when it was agreed to
terminate CLICOM and a group of experts was established to work on the future CDMS. In May
2002, after evaluating seven National CDMSs in different parts of the world, some technical
innovations were suggested, but these have not been adopted worldwide. During the preceding
period of time, South American countries had different levels of participation (in some cases
none). CDMSs of South American NMHSs are quite varied, and this variation is a potential
limitation to the integration of products and services across the continent.
CLICOM was a good initiative that yielded different results across the region since economic
constraints and other circumstances within countries had forced prioritization of operational
services, including, in some cases, data management activities and organization of archives.
Technological improvements in NMHSs were made independently, and for this reason no
uniform standards exist. Since the most recent training activities in the region were based on
CLICOM, they need to be updated in view of new requirements and growing needs in each
country. There is a current need for capacity building that must be addressed by alternative
methods of learning such as e-learning strategies that facilitate efficient follow up of students,
geographical coverage, and rapid update of educational content related to CDMSs.
OBJECTIVES: The general objective of this project is to improve South American capacities in
hydrological, meteorological, and climate database management
The specific objectives are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Diagnose in detail the current deficiencies in CDMSs in South America.
Provide training on the new tools and existing alternatives to systematise the CDMSs.
Rescue climatological and hydrological data in South American NMHSs.
Establish a web site as a medium by which to update regional experts on CDMS standards,
new developments, and contact points for consultation and assistance.
Develop an e-learning training tool on CDMSs for South America.
Implement a standard CDMS in South America.
ACTIVITIES:
• Carry out a survey of current CDMS capacities, including an inventory of data that needs to
be rescued and the status of databases in the region.
• Organize two training workshops for technicians of NMHSs of the region on data
management methodologies and CDMS implementation.
45
•
•
•
•
•
Support local data rescue working groups to digitize and rescue their data sets.
Establish a web site as a medium by which to update regional experts on CDMS standards,
new developments and contact points for consultation and assistance.
Develop an e-learning training tool on CDMSs for South America.
Establish a regional group of experts on definition of the most suitable CDMS for South
America.
Assist to NMHS’ s to implement the adopted CDMS.
LOCATION: NMHSs of South America and CIIFEN as project Coordinator.
DURATION: 3 years
EXPECTED OUTCOMES:
• Accurate inventory of data to be rescued and of current deficiencies in CDMS in the region.
• A regional group of NMHS technicians trained and updated on data management and
CDMS implementation.
• Data migrated from analogue format to digital format and input to databases of South
American NMHSs.
• An e-learning system implemented which makes available updated training on data
management to technical staff of NMHSs.
• A web site implemented for updating and information on CDMS.
• CDMSs implemented in Implementation Plans of NMHSs in the region.
• Improvement of products and in the quality of services
• Contribution to research for a improved understanding of climatic change, thanks to the
supply of reliable data
• Improved accessibility and dissemination of climatic and hydrological data.
IMPLEMENTATION:
• Design a survey and distribute to NMHSs of RA III. (3 months)
• Train the administrators of the systems of each country (month 4)
• Train the managers and users of the databases of each country (month 6)
• Migrate the historical data already existing in numerical formats to these new systems (2
years)
• Web site implementation (month 2)
• E-learning system (1 year)
• CDMS implementation (3 years)
RISKS AND SUSTAINABILITY:
• Recognition by countries of the need to have a modern climatic and hydrological data
management system of which responds better to the needs of end-users.
• It is necessary that this action becomes a daily activity of the NMHSs.
• It is necessary that the various actors (administrative staff, climatologists, hydrologists) are
well trained.
• It is necessary to have the engagement and support of WMO.
46
INDICATIVE BUDGET (US Dollars):
ACTIVITY
1. Conduct a survey of current CDMS capacities
including an inventory of data that needs to be
rescued and information on databases in the
region.
2. Organize two training workshops on data
management
methodologies
and
CDMS
implementation addressed to technicians of
NMHSs of the region.
3. Support local data rescue working groups to
digitize and rescue their data sets.
4. Establish a web site as a means for updating
regional experts on CDMS standards, new
developments and contact points for consultation
and assistance, and maintenance
5. Develop an e-learning training tool on CDMSs for
South America.
6. Establish a regional group of experts to define the
most suitable CDMS for South America.
7. To assist to NMHSs to implement the adopted
CDMS.
Total:
COSTS (US$)
0
TIME
MONTH 1-3
50000
MONTH 4 AND
MONTH 6
35000
MONTH 6-3O
13000
MONTH 2
15000
8000
MONTH 6-18
MONTH 6
MONTH 6-36
121,000 US$
As pointed out earlier, many irreplaceable South American climate records are at risk. The
following project addresses the critical need for data rescue in South America drawing upon
resources from the US NOAA Data Rescue project, WMO’s DARE initiative, and other domestic
and external sources.
Project 9.
Improvement of the GCOS Daily Database Available Over South America for
Studies on Extreme Events.
BACKGROUND: Substantial scope exists for improving access to daily data within the South
American region. In particular, at least two interrelated problems confront efforts to develop
meteorological and climate change-related activities and projects: 1) the non-availability of
important historical climate data, and 2) inadequate sharing and networking of existing
information. It is then vital to promote coordinated efforts among countries of South America
regarding the treatment and quality control as well as sharing of historical daily databases. It is
fundamental to promote the creation of a regional database. The resulting database will be of
great value to assess climatic variability and change studies, with emphasis in evaluating
climate trends and extreme event frequency changes.
Our society is the most vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather (hours-to-days) and
climate (month-to-season or even longer) events. So far, there have been only very few studies
on climate variations of daily extreme events over South America. Such studies need to be
facilitated through the promotion and the creation of a regional daily database and the
exchanging derived series of indices.
47
A climate daily database will also favour stronger cooperation with regional climate modellers
and will allow a better evaluation of the model skills in simulating spatial and temporal scales of
extreme events that will be appropriate for climate change scenarios.
OBJECTIVES: The promotion of international collaboration, bringing together data managers
and scientists in the region.
The improvement of the South American database by gathering the data available from the
GSN and GUAN stations in the region.
Digitization and archiving of historical data for at least the period 1940-2003 and for at least the
following variables: daily accumulated precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature, sea
level pressure. At some stations, efforts will be also made to digitalize the longest period
available.
The promotion of data sharing and networking over South America.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES: The project will result in:
•
•
•
An improved daily database throughout the South America.
Enhanced networking and data availability between the climate change and meteorological
communities.
Strengthening capacity for development planning applications (example climate extremes,
agriculture, tourism, health, fisheries, water supply, disaster mitigation, etc.).
LOCATION: The project will be implemented throughout the South American region.
DURATION: Three years
WORKING PLAN: The plan is based on three main elements:
a) Survey of the status of the historical daily datasets available for the South America GSN and
GUAN stations in South American NWSs.
b) Organization of regional meetings to promote and discuss the implementation of the present
initiative among the different regional and national institutes collecting meteorological data in the
South American countries.
The participants of the meetings should discuss the following issues:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Status of the historical daily dataset available for the South America GSN and GUAN
stations.
Needs of data recovery and digitization to complete the GSN and GUAN daily database.
Training and development of network exchange protocols.
Archiving of data in accessible formats and networks
Data networking, accessibility and sharing.
Potential need for the establishment of a regional information coordinating center.
c) Digitization and archiving of historical data in the South American GSN and GUAN stations in
the different countries.
48
IMPLEMENTATION: The project will be implemented throughout the South American Region.
A steering committee (around 10 members) involving representatives from NWSs, the scientific
institutions of the region and from the National Climatic Data Center in the U.S (which serves as
the archive for GCOS data) will coordinate the project activities. The project should be jointly
implemented by the WMO regional office and the CLIVAR project office in South America. This
joint coordination displays the strong commitment of the project in integrating both scientific and
operational communities.
ESTIMATED BUDGET:
BUDGET ITEM
TOTAL COST
(US$)
Workshop for tropical South America during the 1st year
20000
Workshop for extratropical South America during the 1st year
20000
Data digitization of GSN stations
10000
Data digitization of GUAN stations
10000
2 Meetings of the Steering Committee (during the 2nd and the 3rd year)
30000
4.1.5 Remote Sensing
The expanding use of space-based observing systems, satellite telecommunications and radar
has added a new dimension to our capability to observe the climate system and relay data and
products economically and efficiently. The following project will assist South American nations
to take optimum advantage of remote sensing and satellite telecommunications capabilities in
carrying out their systematic climate observation programmes.
Project 10. South American Atmosphere Remote Sensing: Data Integration for Validation
of Numerical Models and Climate Studies.
BACKGROUND: Precipitation is a key variable to measure the state of the climate system.
Large spatial and temporal rainfall variability and the occurrence of extreme events at regional
scales require a high-density measurement network. Since precipitation is poorly measured
around the world, its quantification depends upon satellite observations as described in the
Second Report on the Adequacy of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) in support to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - UNFCCC (WMO/TD – 1143).
This report suggests that the analysis of regional impacts and vulnerabilities requires high
frequency and high-density climate observations, and for precipitation studies, it is
recommended that the observations must be at least on an hourly basis. These high frequency
data together with the density description of the precipitation fields are vital to produce
information about extreme events.
49
The Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) is a program initiated by the World
Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and dedicated to observing, understanding and
modelling the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes in the atmosphere, over land surface and in
the upper ocean. GEWEX phase II raised some scientific questions like: Are the earth’s energy
budget and water cycle changing? Is the water cycle accelerating? Those questions can be
answered only by describing precipitation at both high spatial and high temporal resolutions.
This need is clearly described by the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC).
Most of precipitation over South America is associated with mesoscale convective systems
(MCS) and climate changing is closely related to the frequency and intensity of those systems.
Precipitation monitoring at high spatial and temporal resolution is the only way to capture the life
cycle of the MCS, and therefore, to understand the impacts of climate changing on precipitation
features and in the water budget.
There are many weather radars operating in the southern South American region. Nine of them
are located in southern Brazil, two in Argentina (one in Buenos Aires and another one to be
installed in Pergamino) and one planned to be installed in Asuncion, Paraguay. Figure 1
illustrates a radar network covering South America.
Project 10, Figure 1: Weather radars operating in South America.
Most of the radars shown in Figure1 do not store data in digital format, and this information is
restricted to the private use of the agencies responsible for the radars. Despite the existence of
the data, there is a weak data exchange among these agencies. In addition, Brazil, Uruguay,
Argentina, and Paraguay have a raingauge network operating at near real-time, which is not
50
integrated with the radars. The integration of radar and rain gauge measurements with satellite
data can provide a unique, reliable and accurate rainfall data set to be used not only in climatic
studies but also in validation of numerical weather prediction models and the monitoring of
intense weather events. Therefore, this action plan proposes the enhancement of the use of
radar data, the integration of rainfall information, the standardization of data recording in a
common format, and the arrangement of an hourly rainfall database from multi-instrumentation.
The main tools for the rainfall integration and data extrapolation are the geostationary satellites.
The GOES geostationary satellite is also very important for weather forecasting, for climate
studies, and for retrieving meteorological parameters to be assimilated in numerical weather
prediction models. Regarding meteorological purposes, GOES-12 is one of the most powerful
meteorological satellites in orbit, producing accurate data acquired in the most important bands
of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, the GOES imaging schedule for South America is
very unstable, mainly over the south of the southern hemisphere. Therefore, the South
American coverage depends on severe weather events in the Northern Hemisphere. During
these events, GOES improves the time coverage over that area and leaves South America
without any image. The effects of this unstable schedule cause impacts on the products
retrieval, and consequently on the South American climatological database. Considering this
data dependence and the importance of the South American climate to the global climate, this
project will provoke discussions in the South American countries focusing on the need of a
meteorological satellite designed specifically for this region.
It will also prepare all
documentation describing the needs, structure and viability of such satellite.
OBJECTIVES: The main objectives of this project are:
1) Create an operational South American precipitation database for a given target region, using
information from satellite images and derived products, weather radar and real-time rain gauge
data acquired by Data Collecting Platforms (DCP). The purpose of this database is to validate
numerical models, support climatic studies and monitoring extreme climate conditions.
2) Prepare a proposal that will focus on the viability of launching a meteorological geostationary
satellite designed specifically for the South American region, in order not only to decrease its
dependence on GOES data, but also to produce information that can be amalgamated by
different meteorological agencies.
PROJECT DESIGN: The first objective described in the previous section will be achieved in
parallel with the second. A workshop involving representatives from the South American
meteorological offices, universities, and research institutes will be organized to discuss the
viability of South America having its own geostationary satellite. The workshop will discuss the
following topics: 1) How can South America be organized to manage and finance the satellite?;
2) What are the basic satellite specifications?; 3) What are the expected outcomes of this
satellite?; 4) Establishment of a working group to prepare a document to be signed by the
participants and sent to the authorities of the respective countries.
To achieve the first objective, the project will concentrate efforts and studies in a target area
involving the four countries previously mentioned (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay),
where mechanisms to integrate radar, raingauge and –satellite data will be implemented. This
is the first phase from which the experience acquired and the methods implemented could be
expanded and replicated to other regions. Figure 2 shows the target area covered by the first
phase of this project.
51
Project 10, Figure 2: Target area covered in the first phase of the project.
The central database containing all the information about precipitation should be located in one
country and a mirror system should be located in another country. Firstly, the operational
system will be developed and implemented in the central database and after that the mirror site
will be concluded.
In the central database, satellite images such as GOES, NOAA, Terra, and Aqua, will be
organized to be used in data integration procedures. Satellite operational products like
precipitation estimation, cloud-wind motion, and life cycle of convective systems will be
assimilated in the database. Those products will be made available by the institutions that
produce them and will be electronically transferred to the central database.
Real-time precipitation measurements from the Data Collecting Platforms in different South
American countries will also be gathered in the central database; however, a plan to manage
the reception of those data must be drawn. The Brazilian satellite SCD, which collects data
from the DCPs over Brazil will be offered free of charge.
The agencies responsible for each radar site will be contacted and invited to get involved in the
project. They will participate in the discussions on how to implement the plan, receive training
and technical advice. A direct link connecting all sites to the central database will be proposed.
The second step consists in the standardization of radar products and in defining an operational
routine for data acquisition and further transmission to the central database by each radar. The
implementation of standard products, like the Constant Altitude Plan Position Indicator (CAPPI),
using the same horizontal, vertical and temporal resolution, could be applied to all the weather
radars. If necessary, a computer can be allocated to each radar site in order to support tasks of
data acquisition and transmission to the central database. Only the CAPPI of 2 km height will be
transmitted to the central database.
All data (satellite, raingauge and radar) will be integrated at the central database that will
generate hourly charts of precipitation, temperature, humidity profiles, winds and convective
systems life cycle. All raw data and derived products will be stored and will be available for all
participants.
52
LOCATION: Countries of southern South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay)
DURATION: 24 months
EXPECTED OUTCOMES: The expected outcomes of this project are:
Creation of a database describing all the convective systems life cycles detected by the
geostationary satellite;
Creation of a database of cloud-wind motion at upper levels and temperature and humidity
profiles from polar orbit satellites;
Creation of a database of precipitation information acquired by weather radars, rain gauges
(DCPs), satellites, and integrated products describing the precipitation field on an hourly basis;
Creation of a white page project for a geostationary South American satellite; and
Establishment of a central and a mirror site that will manage and make available all information
provided by the different meteorological agencies of different countries.
IMPLEMENTATION: A working group will be constituted by representatives of all participant
countries in order to prepare the project implementation. This working group will provide all
available instrumentation and information required by the project.
The main operational database will be implemented in the "Centro de Previsão de Tempo e
Estudos Climaticos" - CPTEC (Centre for Weather Forecast and Climate Studies), of the
"Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais" - INPE (Brazilian Institute for Space Research). The
mirror site will be established in another country. GOES, NOAA, Terra and Aqua satellite
images and derived products are available at CPTEC, which provides wind, temperature and
humidity profiles. However, during the implementation of this project, efforts should be made to
control the quality of the retrievals. Convective systems are also tracked and mapped by
CPTEC in real time. The Data Collecting Platforms will be catalogued and the procedures for
real time data exchange will be defined. A large number of DCPs are already available in
CPTEC. The agencies that control the radars will be contacted, and the project will be
advertised. Advice, training, data exchange, availability of different types of meteorological data
acquired in real time, and an active participation in a unique and important project for the entire
southern South America will be used as an argument to encourage each agency to get involved
in the mission. Each participant country will send representatives to the central database to
participate in that effort.
RISK AND SUSTAINABILITY: The radars, satellite images and DCP data are available over
the entire southern South American region. All participant countries have the necessary
technology, knowledge and capable people to prepare strategies for the radar operation,
generate satellite derived products and integrate all different types of data. However, there is a
risk that a specific institution or agency will not allow the use of their data. This risk can be
reduced through the establishment of a previous letter of intention, signed by the
instrumentation owners, indicating their intention to make their data available to the database
integration center.
INDICATIVE BUDGET: The following is a preliminary budget:
Travel support: Allows regional coordination and working group meetings; (Approximate cost:
US$25.000,00)
Workshop: One workshop with the participation of South American meteorological offices and
Research Institutes to discuss the viability and needs of the South American Geostationary
Satellite; (Approximate cost: US$20,000.00)
53
Training: Support for personal training and technical advice in radar operation, strategies for
radar operation and data recording; (Approximate cost: US$18,000.00)
Operation: Support to implement the operational strategies and the production of derived
products at the radar sites. (Approximately cost: US$9,000.00)
Data Transfer: Implementation of the communication links between the radar site and the
central database; (Approximately cost: US$20,000.00)
Equipments: 9 computers to be used in the data integration center and radar sites;
(Approximate cost: US$18,000.00)
Employee: One-year salary for a Software Engineer. (Approximate cost: US$18,000.00)
4.1.6 Impacts of Climate
Climatic variations exert a major influence on societies and economies and extremes of climate
can be devastating in their impacts. The following project aims to refine our understanding of
the impacts of climatic conditions and events in South America.
Project 11. A Socio-Economic Project - A Necessary Complementary New Focus for
GCOS Data.
INTRODUCTION: GCOS objectives are to provide data for climate system monitoring, climate
change detection and response monitoring (especially in terrestrial ecosystems), data for
applications to national economic development, and research towards improved understanding,
modeling and prediction of the climate system. The General Plan and Basis for the World
Climate Programme (1980-1983) under Section 4, Impacts of Climate Change and Variability,
includes an important reference to the interaction between climate and society, making it
abundantly clear that the character of the climate impacts in a given region will partly depend on
the nature, range and rate of the climate fluctuation and partly on the nature, affluence and
degree of technological development of the regional community. This is the human dimension
of climate and, hence, of climate change. Consequently, the summary of the General Plan and
Basis for the WCP for the period 1980-1983 included a clear reference on the need for a wide
variety of data, such as:
1. Meteorological, oceanic, hydrological and geophysical data
2. Biological and ecological data and
3. Social and economic data.
As early as 1979, the Plan (included in the Annex to Resolution 29 of the Eighth Meteorological
Congress) emphasized that the first goal is to develop an internationally concerted programme
to collect the data described under point 1 above, and the second goal is to encourage the
acquisition of information related to the other issues. Further converging developments include
the following: The World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, Implications on Global
Security (WMO, Toronto, 27-30 June), stated: “Humanity is conducting an unintended globally
pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear
war.” Two months later a proposal put before the United Nations General Assembly was
adopted as a Resolution on the Protection of Climate for Present and Future Generations of
Humankind (UNGA 43/49/Add. 1, United Nations, New York, 1989). In November 1988, the
World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme established
54
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC. In 1990, the Second World
Climate conference and the associated Meeting of Ministers recommended the development of
an international agreement on the climate system issue. That same year, the United Nations
General Assembly responded by establishing the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for
a Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention was opened for signature at the
Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, June 1992) and entered into force on 21 March 1994. As is well
known, the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize the greenhouse gas concentration
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system, so to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, ensure that food
production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable
manner.
Article 4.1 of the UNFCCC places emphasis on the commitments of all the Parties, taking into
account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional
development priorities, objectives, and circumstances. These commitments include performing
measurements to facilitate adequate adaptation to climate change. This implies a close link to
GCOS goals regarding the need for specific geophysical data as well as information on issues
of an environmental and socio-economic nature, as mentioned in the Introduction. Article 4.1
(g) draws attention to the commitment to ”promote and cooperate in scientific, technological,
technical, socio-economic and other research, systematic observation and development of data
archives related to the climate system and intended to further the understanding and reduce or
eliminate the remaining uncertainties regarding causes, effects, magnitude and timing of climate
change and the economic and social consequences of various response strategies.” It has
been on these and other commitments of the Parties (UNFCCC Article 6, Kyoto Protocol Article
10) that the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) requested GCOS
to prepare a report on the capacity of this global observing system to satisfy the needs of
Parties vis-à-vis research activities related to vulnerability, impacts and adaptation to climate
change, as well as to fulfil the needs of studies on the scientific basis of climate change.
After completion and evaluation of the GCOS Report, the 18th SBSTA Session, under Item VII
“Research and Systematic Observation”, point b) declares: The SBSTA also noted that the
global observing systems for climate are not designed to meet all the needs of the community
concerned with climate change impacts. To address this and related issues, future planning
activities by Parties and Intergovernmental Organizations should examine the potential to
enhance links with, or establish specialized networks in regions vulnerable to climate change.
OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSAL: The preceding paragraphs make it clear that the World
Climate Programme has already envisaged the need for socio-economic information related to
climate events. The exacerbation of extreme events in South America has brought more
hazards than any other environmental disaster. Considering that the future development of
GCOS should include an improved observational approach to analyze, assess and define
procedures and methods to foresee extreme events that cause serious impacts on the socioeconomic, health and security conditions of the many South American communities exposed to
them (i.e., heat waves, floods, droughts), urgent action is needed to undertake a pilot project to
analyze the social, economic, environmental, health, and sanitary consequences of such
events.
In view of the experience already gathered in the analysis of extreme event processes in the
Pampas region and considering that concomitant environmental conditions (i.e.,
geomorphology, edaphology, topography, soil coverage) define other important and closely
linked interdisciplinary factors, it is proposed that a Pilot Project be developed in the Pampas
Region to understand the multidisciplinary effects of extreme events. This choice is not arbitrary
55
nor is it intended to restrict the study to only one region of the South American Sub-Continent.
There are some relevant additional factors:
- Population density (more than 40% of Argentina’s population lives in this region),
- Economic productivity (more than 60% of the total national income also comes from
the Pampas),
In addition, this region has an essentially fully managed ecosystem, comprised of “exotic”
species that dominate its very peculiar agriculture and cattle raising development. These
conditions would facilitate the evaluation of vulnerabilities and impacts as well as the application
of the results for possible/feasible adaptation strategies, better and simpler ways than in areas
of ecosystem complexity. Such conditions will make rezoning of agriculture and cattle raising
for adaptation purposes easier, particularly since this can be undertaken more readily than in
regions with more complex species structure. Where health impacts are concerned, this region
is free of many of the vector-borne, air and water-borne diseases, and this would also provide
an “easier” scenario for assessing the invasion of these and other new diseases (i.e.,
antiviruses).
METHODOLOGY:
1. Information on past hazardous climatic events will be researched in newspapers, magazines
and other information media and in studies and research material related to those events.
2. A careful evaluation of the damages registered on human and natural systems will be made
from the above information and from the available registries in the relevant
departments/municipalities, as well as from private groups like agricultural producers, cattlerising associations, etc.
3. Re-analyses of the meteorological conditions prior to, during, and following the events will be
carried out, with the co-operation of the National Meteorological Service of Argentina.
4. Contacts will be also established with the local police and other authorities (i.e hospitals,
firemen) as well as with local/regional environmental groups and NGOs to search for available
information related to the events.
5. The valuation of the disasters will be made by analyses of the gathered information and,
when possible, through a matrix study of the different socio-economic implications of the event.
6. The information will be tabulated in a convenient, understandable manner to facilitate the
interpretation of the effects of each hazardous climatic event. More detailed information, as
available, will be put at the disposal of interested persons.
56
BUDGET: Study of extreme precipitation events in the Pampas - Socio-economic and health
impacts - Budget for one year operation
ITEM
MANPOWER
1. Selection of 60 observation stations with
complete and reliable data records from,
1970 onwards. (1)
1 m / m (*)
2. Analysis of relevant raingauge records
2 m / m (*)
3. Collection of hydrological data and
classification of basins
2m/m
4. GIS charts with topographic, geological,
edaphic and geomorphological information,
with special emphasis on the River SaladoVallimanca hydrological system
4m/m
5. Analyses of meteorological and hydrological data to identified defined storm and
flood cases (2)
6 m /m
6. Collection of data of socio-economic,
sanitary conditions and health situation, as
related to “storm” events.
4m/m
7. Re-analyses of synoptic charts related to
relevant “storm” events
3 m / m (*)
8. Development of reference indexes (3)
4m/m
9. Team leader (4)
12 m / m
References
(*) Tasks to be assumed by the National Met Service of Argentina
(1) The list of stations shall include all the GCOS stations in the Pampas and selected synoptic,
climatological, agrometeorological and rainfall stations. The selection should be guided by the
distribution of hydrological stations.
(2) A “rainstorm” is defined as a precipitation event lasting from a few hours up to a consecutive
period of 6 days, but whose total precipitation exceeds 100 mm, 150 mm, 200 mm or more.
(3) These would be indexes relating the precipitation intensity and duration, and, when
pertinent, the effects of floods and flooding and their duration, to the different damages and
hazards related to social, economic and health effects (i.e death toll, injuries, exacerbation of
diseases, damages to crops and cattle, infrastructure destruction, etc), and their sequel.
(4) The Team Leader will be a meteorologist/climatologist with experience in climate impact
analysis. He must establish the working time-table in accordance with the availability of data
and other information.
General: The cost of a man/month will range upward from 500 USD/month for technicians and
operators. For professional staff the cost will range from 1500 to 2000 USD per month,
including the team leader assignment.
57
4.2 Action Plan Recommendations
The following recommendations are targeted at several important issues related to GCOS
implementation in South America.
•
The identification of users' needs for climate system data and products can assist in
prioritizing requirements for capacity building and infrastructure investments, providing a
substantive basis for the development of regional and national32 plans and for national
reporting required under the UNFCCC. It is, therefore recommended that national and
regional initiatives directed towards the identification of users needs for climate system data
and products should be strongly encouraged in South America.
•
The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) has requested that Parties to the Convention prepare and
submit National Reports on systematic climate observations33 in support of GCOS and
related programmes. It is, therefore, recommended that South American nations that have
not already done so should prepare and submit National Reports on the status of their
national programmes for systematic observation of the climate system.
•
Time series of observations from the GSN and GUAN station networks represent vitally
important, long-term, reference climate data sets. It is, therefore, recommended that station
operators who have not already done so provide historical data from their GSN and GUAN
stations to the World Data Centre (US NCDC) as soon as possible.
•
Effective coordination between data providers, analysis and archive centres and users of
climate information is essential to ensure that data collected meets the users' needs in terms
of quality, timeliness, relevance, and accessibility. Moreover, ongoing coordination between
agencies and institutions engaged in climate data collection and management can increase
the efficiency and effectiveness of these programmes and reduce their operational costs. It
is, therefore, recommended that continuing priority be given to ensuring effective
coordination between nations, agencies, institutions and interests involved in the GCOS
programme in South America, and, to that end, that national Focal Points for GCOS be
established within each country in the region.
•
South America has close physical interactions with and a clear interest in the climate and
climatic changes occurring in the Antarctic continent and its adjacent ocean areas. In view
of the importance of the Antarctic to the global climate system and to regional climates in
South America, it is strongly recommended that countries, institutions and agencies involved
in Antarctic activities should give high priority to GCOS observational requirements in the
Antarctic region, including the adjacent Southern Ocean. These efforts should be
coordinated and undertaken in collaboration with existing and planned Antarctic programs
and initiatives including those associated with the Scientific Committee for Antarctic
Research (SCAR) of the Antarctic Treaty system, the Scientific Committee for Ocean
Research (SCOR) of ICSU, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of
UNESO, WMO's Antarctic Activities Programme, the Planning Group of the International
Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY 2007-2008) initiative, and other relevant bodies.
32
GCOS encourages individual countries to prepare National Plans to address their domestic requirements for
climate system data and related products.
33
The UNFCCC, with the assistance of GCOS, has prepared guidelines to assist countries in preparing these
reports.
58
4.3 Action Plan Outputs
The following table summarizes the specific outputs that will result from implementation of the
individual projects ("Activities") described in section 4.1.
ACTIVITIES
OUTPUTS
Project No.1.
South American GUAN stations become fully compliant with GCOS
standards and the regional GUAN network is greatly improved.
Project No. 2.
South American climate observation networks and programmes become
more effective and efficient.
Project No. 3.
A representive South American network of high quality atmospheric
chemistry monitoring stations.
Project No. 4.
A representative regional network of high quality UV-B monitoring Stations
underpins issue of UV-B Index forecasts to the public.
Project No. 5.
Deployment of an additional ATLAS type buoy in the western subtropical
South Atlantic
Project No. 6.
Reliable, high quality hydrological observations are available to support
water resources planning, flood prediction, hydro power generation and
climate analysis in South America.
Project No. 7
Representative, sustainable South American cryospheric observing
networks underpin assessment of freshwater volumes stored as snow and
ice, glacial contributions to river runoff, climate-cryosphere studies and
analyses of socio-economic impacts.
Project No. 8.
Modernized database management systems enhance users' access to
South American climate data.
Project No. 9.
An improved climate database and enhanced networking provide
strengthened capacity for South American development planning.
Project No. 10.
Improved South American remote sensing infrastructure and capacity
provide enhanced data for model validation, climate studies and other
applications.
Project No. 11.
Clarification of the socio-economic and health impacts of extreme
precipitation events and improved capacity for climate impact studies in
South America.
59
4.4 Anticipated Impacts, Benefits, and Beneficiaries
Direct benefits from the preceding projects and recommendations will include improved
understanding and more accurate prediction of climate change, climatic variability, and climatic
extremes including, in particular, El Niño events and other important regional phenomena. This
will assist in mitigating natural disasters such as floods and droughts, increase human and
environmental security, and support sustainable development. Enhancement of the quality,
reliability, and representativeness of systematic climate observations will, for example, facilitate
science-based decisions on crop selection and land use leading to increased agricultural
productivity and competitiveness.34 It will permit more effective and sustainable management of
South American water resources, through improved understanding and prediction of the impacts
of changes in the precipitation regime or in runoff from mountain glaciers on water supply and
power generation. Enhanced understanding of trends and variations in sea level, ocean
currents, temperature regimes and of ocean-atmosphere interactions will facilitate sustainable
fisheries management and safe and reliable marine transportation, and minimize the human and
environmental hazards associated with coastal and offshore hydrocarbon exploration and
development. It will also assist in planning coastal zone development to minimize hazards
associated with rising sea levels, storm surges and tsunamis. The design of dams, bridges,
drainage systems, buildings and other vulnerable infrastructure components will benefit from
better definition of the climatic forces arising from heavy rainfalls, floods, and high winds. In
addition, greater awareness and understanding of climatic patterns, variations and extremes
and their impacts on human health will enable measures to be taken to prevent and control
outbreaks of diseases associated with specific climatic conditions.
As will be evident from the preceding discussion, the beneficiaries of improved knowledge of
climatic conditions and their impacts will encompass all sectors of society. Government and
private sector decision-makers will be empowered to plan for climate related contingencies on
the basis of more realistic scenarios and to take measures in advance to avoid or mitigate
adverse impacts. Disaster management agencies and relief services and will benefit from
improved analyses of the hazards, vulnerabilities and risks associated with climatic extremes.
Public health organizations will be better able to predict potential outbreaks of climate related
and vector borne diseases. The security and economic stability of the agricultural community
and of poor rural populations will benefit from more sustainable crop selection and management
practices that accommodate anticipated climatic variations and trends. Corresponding benefits
will flow to fishing, transportation, merchandising and other climate sensitive sectors by enabling
them to mitigate adverse impacts and to take optimum advantage of opportunities presented by
particular events. In short, modest present-day investments in upgrading the quality,
representativeness and accessibility of systematic climate observations and related products
will yield high-multiple returns for present and future generations.
34
Long-duration time series of climatic data have underpinned the development of a crop yield model used to assess
the effects of varying climatic conditions (e.g., El Niño/La Niña events) on maize production in Argentina. The model
can be used in agricultural risk management, making possible the assessment of the potential of strategies, such as
fertilizer applications, to mitigate the adverse effects on crop yields of unfavorable climatic conditions.
60
5.
RESOURCE MOBILIZATION
The implementation of the initiatives in this Regional Action Plan will require additional resource
commitments. A practical strategy for mobilizing resources to implement this Plan comprises
two parallel thrusts:
1. National governments will be targeted as the primary funding sources to sustain
systematic observation networks and related data and service provision over the longterm.
2. External donor funding35 will be sought to undertake GCOS- related capacity building
and infrastructure improvements in South America.
With respect to the first thrust, the region recognizes that the most realistic sources of funding to
ensure the long-term sustainability of systematic observations of the climate system are the
national governments of the region. Hence, national governments will be targeted as the
primary funding sources to sustain long-term systematic observation.
Nevertheless, there exist substantial needs for GCOS-related capacity building and
infrastructure improvements that cannot be met by the resources available within the region.
For these resource requirements, external funding from international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, donor countries, and such financial mechanisms as the Global
Environment Facility and World Bank will be sought.
Fundamentally, the improvements in climate observing systems that will result from
implementation of the projects in this Action Plan will support economic growth and assist in
poverty reduction, with associated benefits related to education, health, and good government.
Given that such priorities are emphasized in the long-term development agenda of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the region has every reason to
expect that the projects contained in this Plan will be given due consideration by the more
advanced countries. At the same time, it is hoped that the need to respond to commitments
arising from the UNFCCC (and, if ratified, the Kyoto Protocol) will provide a strong incentive for
developed countries to work with the countries in the region to implement worthwhile climaterelated projects.
In seeking resources, the proponents of this Action Plan also recognize that international
development assistance is increasingly being provided through the budgetary processes of
national governments. Hence, an important strategy for NMHSs, oceanographic agencies, and
other project proponents will be to develop closer relationships with bureaucratic and political
decision-makers in their own countries. Likewise, the proponents will demonstrate how project
activities and initiatives support national government priorities (for example, services to rural
populations, poverty reduction, and public health). Finally, given that political leaders rely on the
advice of national Climate Change Coordinators and others in the climate change community,
greater coordination with these key people will be sought, both with respect to assistance in
obtaining resources for Action Plan projects and in helping to communicate the many important
applications of climate data to decision-makers.
35
From international agencies, non-government organizations, donor countries, the GEF, etc.
61
It will be necessary to further develop this general resource mobilization strategy. With this goal
in mind, the region proposes to hold a small meeting in order to consider more precisely who to
approach for funding assistance for the projects contained in this Plan and how to go about it. It
will be useful to confer with resource mobilization specialists and also to seek the advice,
assistance, and contacts of the GCOS Secretariat, WMO, IOC, and other relevant bodies in
formulating, targeting, and presenting project proposals for funding. It will also be useful to
consider how, whenever relevant, the projects contained in this Plan can be coordinated with
other ongoing projects.
6.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
This Regional GCOS Action Plan has reviewed the status of GCOS implementation in South
America, identifying areas where improvements are needed in climate observing programmes
and networks and in related data management, data exchange and data access. It has
proposed specific projects and made recommendations to address these deficiencies along with
a resource mobilization strategy to support implementation of improvements and to sustain the
long-term operation of critical GCOS systems. The enhancements advocated herein will ensure
the availability of vital observational records needed to underpin climate change detection,
climate modeling and prediction, address climate-related public health concerns, mitigate
natural disasters and promote sustainable development. It is hoped that the Action Plan will
prove to be an effective tool in focusing energies on meeting GCOS and related national
requirements for systematic climate observations in South America and in gaining the support of
governments and donors for its proposed initiatives.
62
SELECTED REFERENCES
Report of the GCOS Regional Workshop for South America (in Press). Santiago, Chile, 14 16 October 2003.
Second Report on the Adequacy of the Global Observing Systems for Climate. GCOS-82,
April 2003.
Report of the GCOS Regional Workshop for Western and Central Africa on Improving
Observing Systems for Climate. GCOS-85, Niamey, Niger, 27 - 29 March 2003.
Report of the GCOS Regional Workshop for East and Southeast Asia on Improving
Observing Systems for Climate. GCOS-80, Singapore, 16 - 18 September 2002.
Report of the GCOS Regional Workshop for Central America and the Caribbean. GCOS78, San Jose, Costa Rica, 19 - 21 March 2002.
Report of the GCOS Regional Workshop for Eastern and Southern Africa on Improving
Observing Systems for Climate. GCOS-74, Kisumu, Kenya, 3 - 5 October 2001.
Report of the Pacific Islands Regional Implementation Workshop on Improving Global
Climate Observing Systems. GCOS-62, Apia, Samoa, 14-15 August 2000.
Report on the Adequacy of the Global Climate Observing Systems. GCOS-48, United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, November 2-13 1998, Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
63
(Intentionally blank)
64
APPENDIX I
GCOS Monitoring Principles
1. The impact of new systems or changes to existing systems should be assessed prior to
implementation.
2. A suitable period of overlap of new and old observing systems should be required.
3. The results of calibration, validation and data homogeneity assessments and assessments of
algorithm changes should be treated with the same care as data.
4. A capability to routinely assess the quality and homogeneity of data on extreme events,
including high-resolution data and related descriptive information, should be ensured.
5. Consideration of environmental climate-monitoring products and assessments, such as IPCC
assessments, should be integrated into national, regional and global observing priorities.
6. Uninterrupted station operations and observing systems should be maintained.
7. A high priority should be given to additional observations in data-poor regions and regions
sensitive to change.
8. Long-term requirements should be specified to network designers, operators and instrument
engineers at the outset of new system design and implementation.
9. The carefully planned conversion of research observing systems to long-term operations
should be promoted.
10. Data management systems that facilitate access, use and interpretation should be included
as essential elements of climate monitoring systems.
65
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66
APPENDIX II
GSN Stations in South America
WMO No.
Station Name
Latitude
Longtitude
ARGENTINA
87007
87047
87065
87078
87129
87155
87217
87257
87270
87305
87344
87374
87418
87534
87544
87623
87692
87715
87750
87803
87828
87860
87925
LA QUIACA OBSERVATORIO
SALTA AERO
RIVADAVIA
LAS LOMITAS
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO AERO
RESISTENCIA AERO
LA RIOJA AERO.
CERES AERO
RECONQUISTA AERO
JACHAL
CORD0BA AERO
PARANA AERO
MENDOZA AERO
LABOULAYE AERO
PEHUAJO AERO
SANTA ROSA AERO
MAR DEL PLATA AERO
NEUQUEN AERO
BAHIA BLANCA AERO
ESQUEL AERO
TRELEW AERO
COMODORO RIVADAVIA AERO
RIO GALLEGOS AERO
22
24
24
24
27
27
29
29
29
30
31
31
32
34
35
36
37
38
38
42
43
45
51
06S
51S
10S
42S
46S
27S
23S
53S
11S
15S
19S
47S
50S
08S
52S
34S
56S
57S
44S
56S
12S
47S
37S
65
65
62
60
64
59
66
61
59
68
64
60
68
63
61
64
57
68
62
71
65
67
69
36W
29W
54W
35W
18W
03W
49W
57W
42W
45W
13W
29W
47W
22W
54W
16W
35W
08W
l0W
09W
16W
30W
17W
BOLIVIA
85041
85043
85114
85141
85207
85223
85230
85289
85364
85365
COBIJA
RIBERALTA
MAGDALENA
RURRENABAQUE
SAN IGNACIO DE VELASCO
COCHABAMBA
CHARANA
PUERTO SUAREZ
TARIJA
YACUIBA
11
11
13
14
16
17
17
18
21
21
02S
00S
20S
28S
23S
25S
35S
59S
33S
57S
68
66
64
67
60
66
69
57
64
63
47W
07W
07W
34W
58W
11W
36W
49W
42W
39W
BRAZIL
82024
82026
82106
82113
82141
82198
82240
82331
BOA VISTA
TIRIOS
SAO GABRIEL DA CACHOEIRA
BARCELOS
SOURE
TURIACU
PARINTINS
MANAUS
02
02
00
00
00
01
02
03
49N
29N
08S
59S
43S
43S
38S
08S
60
55
67
62
48
45
56
60
39W
59W
05W
55W
33W
24W
44W
01W
67
82353
82400
82410
82425
82571
82586
82594
82668
82704
82741
82798
82825
82861
82886
82979
82994
83064
83229
83236
83264
83339
83361
83374
83481
83488
83498
83574
83611
83618
83650
83687
83743
83781
83842
83881
83919
83948
83964
ALTAMIRA
FERNANDO DE NORONHA
BENJAMIN CONSTANT
COARI
BARRA DO CORDA
QUIXERAMOBIM
MACAU
SAO FELIX DO XINGU
CRUZEIRO DO SUL
ALTO TAPAJOS
JOAO PESSOA
PORTO VELHO
CONCEICAO DO ARAGUAIA
CABROBO
REMANSO
MACEIO
PORTO NACIONAL
SALVADOR
BARREIRAS
GLEBA CELESTE
CAETITE
CUIABA
GOIAS
JOAO PINHEIRO
ITAMARANDIBA
CARVELAS
FRUTAL
CAMPOGRANDE
TRES LAGOAS
TRINDADE (ILHA)
LAVRAS
RIO DE JANEIRO
SAO PAULO
CURITIBA
IRAI
BOM JESUS
TORRES
ENCRUZILHADA DO SUL
03
03
04
04
05
05
05
06
07
07
07
08
08
08
09
09
10
13
12
12
14
15
15
17
17
17
20
20
20
20
21
22
23
25
27
28
29
30
12S
51S
23S
05S
30S
12S
07S
38S
38S
21S
06S
46S
15S
31S
38S
40S
43S
01S
09S
12S
03S
33S
55S
42S
51S
44S
02S
27S
47S
30S
14S
55S
30S
25S
11S
40S
20S
32S
52
32
70
63
45
39
36
51
72
57
34
63
49
39
42
35
48
38
45
56
42
56
50
46
42
39
48
54
51
29
45
43
46
49
53
50
49
52
12W
25W
02W
08W
16W
18W
38W
59W
40W
31W
52W
55W
17W
20W
06W
42W
35W
31W
00W
30W
37W
07W
08W
10W
51W
15W
56W
37W
42W
19W
00W
10W
37W
16W
14W
26W
44W
31W
85406
85442
85469
85488
85543
85585
85629
85743
85799
85874
85934
ARICA
ANTOFAGASTA
ISLA DE PASCUA
LA SERENA
QUINTERO
JUAN FERNANDEZ
CURICO
TEMUCO
PUERTO MONTT
BALMACEDA
PUNTA ARENAS
18
23
27
29
32
33
34
38
41
45
53
21S
26S
10S
55S
47S
37S
58S
46S
26S
55S
00S
70
70
109
71
71
78
71
72
73
71
70
20W
27W
26W
12W
31W
49W
13W
38W
06W
42W
51W
CHILE
68
COLOMBIA
80001 AEROPUERTO
SESQUICENTENARIO
(ISLA DE SAN ANDRES)
80222 BOGOTA/ELDORADO
80241 LAS GAVIOTAS
80259 CALI/
ALFONSO BONILLA ARAGON
80342 PASTO/ANTONIO NARINO
12
35N
81
43W
04
04
42N
33N
74
70
09W
55W
03
01
33N
25N
76
77
23W
16W
00
00
01
04
04
54S
21S
06S
02S
22S
89
78
79
79
79
37W
33W
29W
12W
56W
FRENCH GUIANA
81405 ROCHAMBEAU
04
50N
52
22W
PARAGUAY
86086 PUERTO CASADO
86297 ENCARNACION
22
27
17S
19S
57
55
52W
50W
03
06
06
15
16
45S
13S
27S
23S
19S
73
77
76
75
71
15W
50W
23W
10W
33W
SURINAME
81202 NICKERIE
05
57N
57
02W
URUGUAY
86330
86440
86490
86565
ARTIGAS
MELO
MERCEDES
ROCHA
30
32
33
34
23S
22S
15S
29S
56
56
58
54
30W
11W
04W
18W
VENEZUELA
80405
80423
80425
80438
80450
80453
80462
LA ORCHILA
GUIRIA
MENE GRANDE
MERIDA
SAN FERNANDO DE APURE
TUMEREMO
SANTA ELENA DE UAIREN
11
10
09
08
07
07
04
48N
35N
49N
36N
54N
18N
36N
66
62
70
71
67
61
61
11W
19W
56W
11W
25W
27W
07W
ECUADOR
84008
84088
84140
84270
84279
SAN CRISTOBAL (GALAPAGOS)
IZOBAMBA
PICHILINGUE
LOJA (LA ARGELIA)
MACARA AEROPUERTO
PERU
84377
84444
84455
84721
84752
IQU ITOS
CHACHAPOYAS
TARAPOTO
SAN JUAN
AREQUIPA
69
(Intentionally blank)
70
APPENDIX III
GUAN Stations in South America*
WMO No.
87576
87860
83379
82397
82332
82193
83378
85442
85469
85586
85799
85934
80222
84008
81405
84628
Station Name
Ezeiza Aero
Comodoro Rivadavia Aero
Marte
Fortaleza
Manaus (Aeropuerto)
Belem (Aeropuerto)
Brazilia (Aeropuerto)
Antofagasta
Isla de Pascua
Santo Domingo
Puerto Montt
Punta Arenas
Bogotá/El Dorado
San Cristóbal (Galápagos)
Rochambeau
Lima-Callao/
Aerop. Intl Chávez
88889 Mount Pleasant
Country
Latitude
Argentina
Argentina
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
French Guiana
Perú
34 49S
45 47S
28 36S
03 46S
03 09S
01 23S
15 52S
23 26S
27 10S
33 39S
41 26S
53 00S
04 42N
00 54S
04 50N
12 00S
58 32W
67 30W
53 31W
38 36W
59 59W
48 29W
47 56W
70 27W
109 26W
71 37W
73 06W
70 51W
74 09W
89 36W
57 22W
77 07W
Falkland/Malvinas
51 49S
58 27W
(*July 2003)
71
Longitude
(Intentionally blank)
72
APPENDIX IV
Information on South American Stations Reported by the GAWSIS Website
Station
Porto Nacional
Cuiaba
Brazilia
Arembepe
Cachoeira – Paulista
Natal
Kourou
Paramaribo
Gaviotas
Leticia
Pasto
Bogotá
Riohacha
San Andrés Isla
San Cristóbal
Huancayo
Marcapomacocha
La Paz – Ovejuyo
Observatorio La Quiaca
Country
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
Guyana Francesa
Surinam
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia
Ecuador
Perú
Perú
Bolivia
Argentina
Observatorio Pilar
Argentina
Observatorio Buenos Aires
Argentina
Aeropuerto Comodoro
Rivadavia
Aeropuerto San Julián
Argentina
Argentina
Ushuaia
Argentina
Vicecomodoro Marambio
Jubany
Belgrano II
San Lorenzo
Tololo
Valdivia
Puerto Montt
Easter Island
Torres del Paine
Salto Grande
Monte Pleasant
Stanley
Bird Island (South Georgia)
Argentina
Argentina
Argentina
Paraguay
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Chile
Uruguay
Islas Falkland-UK
Islas Falkland-UK
UK
73
Content of Programme
Unknown programme
Columna de Ozono
Unknown programme
Ozono superficial
Columna de Ozono
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Composición química del agua lluvia
Radiación UV
Radiación UV
Radiación UV y Columna de Ozono
Radiación UV
Radiación UV
Unknown programme
Columna de Ozono, CO2
Columna de Ozono
Unknown programme
Columna de Ozono, Radiación solar
y radiación UV-B
Columna de Ozono, Radiación solar
y radiación UV-B
Columna de Ozono, Radiación solar
y radiación UV-B
Radiación UV y Columna de Ozono
Columna de Ozono, Radiación solar
y radiación UV-B
Aerosoles, GEI, O3 (superficial,
columna),
Radiación
solar
y
radiación UV-B
Radiación UV y Columna de Ozono
CO2
Columna de Ozono
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
Unknown programme
(Intentionally blank)
74
APPENDIX V
List of Acronyms
ALT
Altimeter Calibration
APT
Automatic Picture Transmission
AQUA
EOS Satellite (water focus)
AWS
Automatic Weather Station
BAPMoN
WMO Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network
CCRI
Climate Change Research Initiative
CLIMAT
WMO Message Format for Surface Climatological Data
CLIMAT TEMP WMO Message Format for Upper Air Climatological Data
CLIVAR
Climate Variability and Predictability
CBS
Commission for Basic Systems
CDMS
Climate Data Management System
CHY
Commission for Hydrology
CIIFEN
The International Centre for Research on the El Niño Phenomenon
CNS/ATM
Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management
COP
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC
CPPS
Permanent Commission of the South Pacific
DARE
WMO Data Rescue Project
DCP
Data Collection Platform
DNA
Designated National Agencies
DWD
Deutscher Wetterdienst
ECMWF
European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts
EOS
Earth Observing System
ENSO
El Niño Southern Oscillation
EUMETSAT European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites
GAW
Global Atmosphere Watch
GAWSIS
GAW Station Information System
GCOS
Global Climate Observing System
GEF
Global Environment Facility
GIS
Geographic Information System
GLOSS
Global Sea Level Observing System
GOES
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
GCN
GLOSS Global Core Network
GOFC
Global Observation of Forest Cover
GOOS
Global Ocean Observing System
GO3OS
Global Ozone Observing System
GPS
Global Positioning System
GRASP
GOOS Regional Alliance for the South Pacific
GSN
GCOS Surface Network
GTOS
Global Terrestrial Observing System
GTN-E
Global Terrestrial Network for Ecology
GTN-Fluxnet Global Flux Tower Network
GTN-G
Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers
GTN-H
Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology
GTN-P
Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost
GTNet
Global Terrestrial Network
GTOS
Global Terrestrial Observing System
GTS
Global Telecommunications System
GUAN
GCOS Upper Air Network
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HRPT
ICSU
IOC
IODE
IPCC
IRI
ITCZ
JCOMM
JMA
LRPT
LRIT
LTT
MDG
METEOSAT
MSG
NCDC
NEP
NGO
NHS
NMC
NMHS
NMS
NOAA
NODC
NPP
NWP
OC
OECD
PIRATA
PMEL
POES
PSMSL
RBCN
RBSN
RNODC
RNODC-SOC
RTH
SAGOOS
SALLJEX
SATCOM
SOOP
TAO
TAO/TRITON
TERRA
TIGA
UKMO
UN
UNDP
UNEP
UNFCCC
USGS
VAMOS
High Resolution Picture Transmission
International Council for Science
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO
International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
Inter-tropical Convergence Zone
Joint Technical Comission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology
Japan Meteorological Agency
Low Rate Picture Transmission
Low Rate Information Transmission
Long Term Trends
UN Millennium Development Goal
Geosynchronous Meteorology Satellite
METEOSAT Second Generation
National Climatic Data Center (US)
Net Ecological Productivity
Non Governmental Organization
National Hydrological Service
National Meteorological Center
National Meteorological and Hydrological Services
National Meteorological Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanographic Data Centre
Net Primary Productivity
Numerical Weather Prediction
Ocean Circulation
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Pilot Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Polar Operational Environmental Satellite
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level
Regional Basic Climatological Network
Regional Baseline Synoptic Network
Responsible National Oceanographic Data Centre
Responsible National Oceanographic Data Centre for the Southern Oceans
Regional Telecommunications Hub
South Atlantic GOOS Alliance
South American Low Level Jet Experiment
Satellite Communications
Ship of Opportunity Programme
Tropical Atmosphere Ocean
Tropical Atmosphere Ocean/Triangle Trans-Ocean Buoy Network
EOS Flagship Satellite
Pilot Project for Continuous GPS Monitoring at Tide Gauge Sites
United Kingdom Meteorological Office
United Nations
United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
United States Geological Survey
Variability of the American Monsoon System Program
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VCP
WCRP
WDC
WEFAX
WHYCOS
WMO
WWW
XBT
Voluntary Cooperation Programme
World Climate Research Program
World Data Center
Weather Facsimile
World Hydrological Cycle Observing System
World Meteorological Organization
World Weather Watch
Expendable Bathythermograph
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