About CLIVAR

CLIVAR Objectives

The specific objectives of CLIVAR are:

To describe and understand the physical processes responsible for climate variability and predictability on seasonal, interannual, decadal, and centennial time-scales, through the collection and analysis of observations and the development and application of models of the coupled climate system, in cooperation with other relevant climate-research and observing programmes.

To extend the record of climate variability over the time-scales of interest through the assembly of quality-controlled paleoclimatic and instrumental data sets.

To extend the range and accuracy of seasonal to interannual climate prediction through the development of global coupled predictive models.

To understand and predict the response of the climate system to increases of radiatively active gases and aerosols and to compare these predictions to the observed climate record in order to detect the anthropogenic modification of the natural climate signal.

A complete overview about CLIVAR can be found on the CLIVAR Handbook.

CLIVAR Measures of Success

Each element of WCRP is developing a set of success measures against which they will assess progress throughout the year and report to the JSC annually.  Those currently identified for CLIVAR are below.

New resources enabled by leveraging off CLIVAR efforts

Scientific improvements in:

the spectral character (i.e. spectral power, frequency)

predictability of ISO, seasonal, interannual, decadal variability in coupled models

Transitions into operational benefits:

reduction of uncertainty in climate models, bias reduction

number of new parameterizations incorporated into operational models

Global ocean observation improvement:

number of deployments and

transition of process study and research observations to operational status

Capacity building within and incorporation of developing nations into activities

Global and regional data products enabled

Wider WCRP success measures are at: http://wcrp.wmo.int/About_FactsMeasures.html