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Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) is a program initiated by the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). GEMEX aims to observe and model the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes on the atmosphere, at the land surface, in the upper oceans as well as their response to changes in the environment, such as the increase in greenhouse gases. The project will ultimately lead to better understanding of global and regional climate change.

The GEWEX Radiation Panel (GRP) Working Group on Data Management and Analysis (WGDMA) is currently holding a 3-day workshop (22-24 September) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). During the workshop, experts and officials from government agencies such as NASA, NOAA of USA, German Weather Service, Chinese Meteorological Agency and leading universities undertake a formal assessment for all GRP/WGDMA global, long-term data products, namely clouds, precipitation, radiation and aerosols, and evaluate their quality and suitability in global environment studies. The findings will reduce the uncertainty of data products and will greatly improve the accuracy of analysis. More importantly, the working group will decide on the future research directions and international co-operation projects for new data products according to the latest requirements from stakeholders.

Professor Willie Chiu Long-sang of the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, CUHK is the co-chair of WGDMA. He said it was an honor for CUHK to host the workshop. “Researchers and scientists of CUHK continuously support climate research and projects of WCRP/GEWEX and WMO. The hosting of the working group is an affirmation of CUHK’s commitment to earth system and geoinformation research.” Geoinformation and earth sciences is one of the five strategic development areas of CUHK, of which some of the key research focuses are in the areas of atmosphere/land/sea interaction processes, aerosol-cloud-precipitation interaction, and the effects of local changes to global climate changes.

Immediately after the workshop, the first conference on “Global Change and the Environment in Asia and Pacific” (GCEAP) will be held this Thursday and Friday (25-26 September) at CUHK. The conference will address environmental changes in Hong Kong’s near-by regions and will provide a forum for discussion and networking among scientists and stakeholders on issues related to global climate change and its impact on the environment and feedback processes in the Pacific Rim and Asia.

Website of the first conference on GCEAP:http://www.iseis.cuhk.edu.hk/gceap