Preparations are being rolled out for the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS ) Surface Reference Network (GSRN) thanks to support from China.
GSRN is a surface reference network established by GCOS, and once implemented it will consist of a series of high-standard and high-quality meteorological observation stations distributed across the globe. GSRN will provide surface climate observation data with high quality climate-representation, long time series, and traceability of measured quantities to absolute standards. This will help improve our understanding of the climate system and of climate change and it will help strengthen the scientific basis for climate policy and decision-making.
A GCOS delegation visited the headquarters of the China Meteorological Organization in October. A certificate of recognition for the ongoing support to the GCOS Upper-Air Network (GUAN) and the GCOS Surface Network (GSN) was presented to Mr. Guan Hong, deputy director general of the CMA Meteorological Observation Centre.
At present, the global GSN includes 1023 sites, GUAN includes 177 sites, of which China has a total of 33 GSN sites and 7 GUAN sites.
The delegation attended the International Technical Conference of Upper-Air Reference Observations, jointly hosted by China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Meteorological Observation Centre (MOC) and Inner Mongolia Meteorological Service in Xilinhot. This is is the home of a candidate GRUAN station, and one of the near-term priorities of CMA is to achieve GRUAN certification by the end of 2025.
A visit was also made to the Xilinhot Observatory Field Base, located in a vast expanse of grassland, which makes it ideally sited for climate observations due to minimal highly variable local influences on the measurements. The site includes a variety of instrumentation for both atmospheric and terrestrial observations. In 2023, a GSRN site was set up.
In 2021, the China Meteorological Administration Meteorological Observation Center took on the responsibility of hosting the GSRN lead center, which is responsible for managing the overall operation and development of the GSRN. It will provide strong technical support for the standardization of global reference climate observations, which will facilitate the establishment of a global coordinated surface climate observation network. This will lead to significant improvements in our overall global climate monitoring capabilities and help the global community prepare for and respond to global climate change in the future.
The 3rd meeting of the GSRN Task Team (TT-GSRN-3) was held from 14 to 18 October in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province to make progress with the implementation of the pilot phase of the GSRN, including the requirements for observational data and metadata, data transmission formats and protocols, data products, website, as well as the development of manuals for the operational system. To date, 17 stations worldwide have been selected and included in the network.
