The WMO Rolling Review of Requirements and application areas for Essential Ocean Variables and Essential Climate Variables

The WMO Rolling Review of Requirements and application areas for Essential Ocean Variables and Essential Climate Variables Workshop Session Description (max.300 words): Current global challenges demand a significant worldwide upgrade of space- and surface-based observations and predictions and a solid network of regional and national actors to build observing capabilities, achieve better national, regional and global coverage, improve economic efficiency and successfully integrate these systems. The Rolling Review of Requirements (RRR) is a process defined by the World Meteorological Organization in the manual “Integrated Global Observing System”. It is a process to compile information about requirements for (ocean) observations, observing system capabilities, their cost-effectiveness, and drawing on experts and impact studies to provide guidance on the most important priorities for addressing the gaps between requirements and capabilities. An application area is an activity involving the direct use of observations that allows National Meteorological, Hydrological Services and other relevant national organizations to render services related to weather, climate and water, and other environmental events, contributing to public safety, socioeconomic well-being and development in their respective countries. Following the RRR approach, ObsSea4Clim aims at delivering an improved framework for sustainable ocean observation and at demonstrating the functioning of a sustainable ocean observation system. The ultimate goal is to support the regional and global climate assessments, projections and actionable indicators for a sustainable development. ObsSea4Clim focuses on refining the current global Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) framework, and on integrating it within the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). Six application areas have been selected in the project to test and improve the EOV/ECVs framework: Sea Level, Ocean Transports, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Mesoscale, Ocean stratification, and Sea Ice. This session will present and discuss our approach to working with RRR and EOV/ECVs framework and how the application to some of the application areas will be implemented in the next 4 years.