– contributed by Alice Bradley, François Massonnet, and Jenny Baeseman
The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) is a major initiative of WMO’s World Weather Research Programme Polar Prediction Project (WWRP-PPP). The mission, to “enable a significant improvement in environmental prediction capabilities for the polar regions and beyond,” will be achieved through a combination of observational and modeling efforts, including focus on user engagement and education.
YOPP is coordinated by a steering group together with a group of representatives from partners and like-minded initiatives, including CliC. YOPP is still in the planning stages, developing an implementation plan and coordinating with the polar science community in preparation for the intensive observational and modeling period in 2017-2019. Major activities in this period include dedicated model experiments, coupled data assimilation, intensive verification efforts, and special observational efforts including both field campaigns and satellite remote sensing.
The Climate and Cryosphere project (CliC) is one of the 4 core projects of the World Climate Research Programme, and is tasked with coordinating research efforts within the cryosphere community and climate research. The primary scientific goals of CliC are to assess and quantify the impacts of climatic variability and change on components of the cryosphere and their consequences for the climate system, and to determine the stability of the global cryosphere. These goals are closely aligned with the YOPP mission, as the cryosphere is a dominant component of the polar climate system that is the central focus of YOPP. As a partner organization to the YOPP initiative, CliC efforts in support of the YOPP objectives can make a critical contribution to the overall success of the project.
CliC is composed of established working groups, limited-lifetime targeted activities and technical committees. These contributions are based on existing projects; the role of CliC will be to coordinate efforts between researchers rather than initiate new projects. Ongoing work by these groups comprises the bulk of the contributions that CliC can make to the YOPP efforts. This document outlines these contributions in the observational and modeling domains as well as in outreach and community building.