The Global Climate Observing System program (GCOS) addresses the global observing system needed to monitor and understand climate and climate change and provides guidance on its improvement which is formalized through the GCOS Implementation Plan (IP) and observing requirements for Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)’s Snow Watch team, in collaboration with the GCOS Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC), is undertaking an off-cycle review of the current snow requirements and ECV products. As part of this review, a short survey (five minutes) has been developed that aims to better understand how the snow community understands and interacts with GCOS and the GCOS ECV requirements. 

As part of the MRI’s role and collaboration under the IACS / WMO-GCW / MRI-led Joint Body on the Status of Mountain Snow Cover, we also encourage those in our network who are working on snow and snow requirements, to participate and complete the survey. 

As the review of the current requirements gets underway, it is critical to know where there is (and isn’t) alignment between how GCOS and the snow community view them. Broad engagement through this survey is one step toward this goal. 

An initial meeting with those interested in participating in the initiative will take place on 5 July 2024, 9:00-10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) / UTC-4 (13:00-14:00 UTC).   

Those interested in participating in the ECV requirements review and would like more information about the online meeting on 5 July, are invited to indicate so on the survey and are welcome to contact Colleen Mortimer (Colleen.Mortimer(at)ec.gc.ca) directly.

Cover image by Markus Spiske.