Summary

The goal of the Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observation Project (CEOP) is to understand and predict continental to local-scale hydroclimates with application to water resources.

Associated science questions include: What are the average hydroclimate conditions over various regions and conditions? How does water and energy flow into and through individual regions as well as being redistributed within these regions by local mechanisms? How do extremes occur and what is their role in the hydroclimate? How do aerosols affect the hydroclimate? Can we simulate and predict the hydroclimate? What is the benefit of this increased knowledge about the hydroclimate for society?

CEOPs objectives include:

Objective 1: Produce consistent research quality data sets complete with error descriptions of the Earth's energy budget and water cycle and their variability and trends on interannual to decadal time scales, for use in climate system analysis and model development and evaluation.

Objective 2: Enhance the understanding of and quantify how energy and water cycle processes contribute to climate feedbacks.

Objective 3: Improve the predictive capability for key water and energy cycle variables and feedbacks through improved parameterizations to better represent hydrometeorological processes, and determine the geographical and seasonal characteristics of their predictability over land areas.

Objective 4: Undertake joint activities with operational hydrometeorological services, related ESSP projects like the GWSP, and hydrological research programs to demonstrate the value of GEWEX research, data sets and tools for assessing the consequences of climate predictions and global change for water resources