OPAG on the Monitoring and Analysis of Climate Variability and Change

Overview

Organized under the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) World Climate Data and Monitoring Programme (WCDMP), the Commission for Climatology (CCl) has three Open Programme Area Groups (OPAGs). OPAG 1 is on Climate Data and Data Management. OPAG 2 is on the Monitoring and Analysis of Climate Variability and Change. And OPAG 3 is on Climate Applications, Information and Prediction Services.

OPAG 2 is chaired by Thomas C. Peterson (USA) and co-chaired by Panmao Zhai (China) and Abdallah Mokssit (Morocco). It consists of:

    2.1 Implementation/Coordination Team on Data Sets and on Climate System Monitoring (CSM). Terms of Reference. Members.

    2.2 Expert Team on Data Set Catalogues. Terms of Reference. Members.

    2.3 Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Monitoring and Indices (joint with CLIVAR). Terms of Reference. Members. Additional information on the Team's activities can be found on the Expert Team's web page, their indices web page, and the report on their November 2003 meeting. Also a report on the joint CCl/CLIVAR Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Monitoring and Indices was prepared by Francis Zwiers and presented at the CLIVAR Scientific Steering Group Meeting 12 held May 6-9, 2003.

    2.4 Expert Team to Develop Guidance for Climate Watches, which was formed in late 2003 and held its first meeting in January 2004. Members.

    2.5 Rapporteurs on Regional Aspects of Analysis of Climate Variability and Change, including Climate System Monitoring. Terms of Reference. Members.

An article in the July 2003 issue of the WMO Bulletin on Detecting Climate Change describes many of the OPAG's past and future activities.

Statements of Guidance

• Metadata and Homogeneity.
• Data Rescue.

Indices Software

The Frich et al. (2002) paper on observed coherent changes in climatic extremes during the second half of the 20^th century used a carefully defined set of indices derived from daily observations of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation. Unfortunately, many areas of the world were not assessed by Frich et al. In an effort to facilitate and coordinate the analysis of a standard set of indices of extremes, simple software has been developed using widely available and easy to use spreadsheet technology. Called ClimDex, this software reproduces all the indices used in Frich et al. It was first used at a Caribbean Climate Change Workshop in January of 2001. An improvement on ClimDex, called RClimDex, was developed in 2004 by Environment Canada on behalf of the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Monitoring and Indices. The ET's indices web site also provides a FORTRAN version of the indices software.

One of the major activities of Expert Team on Dataset Catalogues is the compilation of the 1991-2000 World Weather Records. Thanks to strong international collaboration, the World Weather Records is expected to continue to be one of the most geographically comprehensive in situ climate data sets in the world.

Additional Reading

• Report from previous Working Group on Climate Change Detection.
• Rural-urban temperature comparison.
• Radiosonde continuity assessment.
• Description of 2004-2005 Regional Climate Change Workshops.

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