CEOP/EOP-4

The Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period (CEOP) seeks to establish an integrated global observing system for the water cycle which responds to both scientific and social needs. It is built as the foundation of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) in cooperation with the World Meteorological Organization(WMO) and Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) under the framework of the Integrated Global Observing Strategy partnership (IGOS-P).

Objectives:

CEOP is an effort to address some of the critical aspects of the climate system involving land areas in particular over a 2 year period beginning in mid-2001. It will focus on two overall issues:

1. water and energy fluxes and reservoirs over land areas, and
2. monsoonal circulations. CEOP will involve the simultaneous or near-simultaneous collection of observations from several regions around the world.

In particular, it will include:

1. several reference sites in the continental-scale experimental regions of GEWEX as well as other regions,
2. extensive field measurements for addressing monsoonal systems, and
3. validation studies for new satellite systems CEOP will lead to:
   • better understanding of water and energy fluxes and reservoirs over specific land areas,
   • progress at better appreciating the role of land areas in the whole climate system,
   • a testing of our capabilities to transfer techniques and models between different GEWEX continental-scale experimental (and other) regions and to predict water-related parameters and,
   • enhanced understanding of the land-atmosphere-ocean interactions. CEOP Enhanced Observing Period 4 (EOP-4) covers the time period from 1 October 2003 through 31 December 2004.