GEWEX and GHP
Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment(GEWEX)
started in 1990, as a major sub-program of the World Climate Research Programme(WCRP).
GEWEX has established GEWEX Hydrometeorology Panel(
GHP) to strive for the development of a quantitative understanding
of the global hydrologic cycle and energy flux based on global observations
and comprehensive climate models. An essential step toward this objective
is comparing model formulations of hydrological and energetic processes
with corresponding observed properties. This task will be accomplished
within the framework of five GEWEX Continental Scale Experiments(CSEs):
GEWEX Continental-scale International Project(GCIP),
BalTik sea EXperiment(BALTEX),
Mackenzie Etude GEWEX Study(MAGS),
the Large-scale Biosphere-atmosphere experiment in Amazon (LBA)
and GAME. These 5 CSEs are being conducted around the world. A simple comparative
schematic showing the functions of temperature and precipitation summarizes
some characteristics of the 5 CSEs. GAME covers the widest range of climates.