WGSF

Working Group on Surface Fluxes

https://psl.noaa.gov/psd3/wgsf/
Type of Structure: program
Regional Scope: global
Parent Organisations: WCRP
Child Organisations:
Duration : 2007 to present
Contact Address: no office contact defined

holding an official function in WGSF

General information and objectives

The Working Group on Surface Fluxes (WGSF) was established to review the requirements of the different WCRP programmes for surface sea fluxes including biogeochemical fluxes, develop communication and co-ordination between various related research initiatives, encourage research and facilitate operational activities on surface fluxes.
Specific objectives include:
  • developing flux data sets available from different sources (in-situ, remotely sensed, NWP-based);

  • improving measurement technologies, parameterizations and flux field production algorithms; and
  • assessments of sensitivity of climate models and limits of predictability associated with uncertainties in surface fluxes.
The WGSF will also serve as a bridge between WCRP and the Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (CACGP) and WCRP. A powerpoint file that gives a bit more background can be obtained at the following ftp site or as pdf. The JSC's proposed Terms of Reference (TORs) for WGSF:
  • to review the requirements of the different WCRP programmes for air-sea fluxes;

  • to develop communication and co-ordination between the research initiatives of WCRP and IGBP on air sea-fluxes;
  • to encourage research and operational activities aimed at improving the knowledge of air-sea fluxes;

  • to keep the scientific community and the JSC informed of progress achieved through regular reports, World Wide Web, and as necessary, scientific workshops.

Proposed specific objectives of WGSF for the nearest perspective:
  • ongoing compilation, evaluation and intercomparison of existing flux data sets, including those of biogeochemical fluxes;

  • further improvement of parameterisations of physical and biogeochemical fluxes, quantification of uncertainties in surface flux products and development of metadata for these products;
  • assessment of model sensitivity to and limits on predictability from errors associated with surface fluxes and development of objective analysis schemes and data assimilation techniques in support of the coupled system (re-) analysis;
  • development of strategy for merging and combining surface flux data sets to meet the requirements of WCRP and IGBP;
  • development of the requirements for flux and flux-related observations in co-operation with IGBP, GCOS, GOOS and other relevant activities;
  • interaction with and support to SOLAS.


For further details, link to the WGSF Home Page

Last update: 5/6/22
Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)

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