4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany GEO Introduction/Perspective George J. Huffman, GEO Precip Subtask Point of Contact Science Systems and Applications, Inc. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD USA

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) A high-level (“ministerial”) intergovernmental policy-oriented activity Themes -Disasters-Weather -Health-Ecosystems -Energy-Agriculture -Climate-Biodiversity -Water Water theme “work plan” tasks -Droughts, Floods and Water Resource Management -Capacity Building for Water Resource Management -Integrated Products for Water Resource Management and Research

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany The GEO Precip Sub-task (1/2) Sub-task definition (as given in the Work Plan): Under the guidance of CGMS/IPWG -promote and advance the development and validation of multi-sensor satellite- based precip estimates -including snowfall Inputs from the Precipitation Virtual Constellation (AR-09-02a) will supplement these efforts

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany The GEO Precip Sub-task (2/2) Scope of the GEO precip activity Integrate satellite data and products with surface observations and numerical model information to provide long-term, fine-scale records of global precip Participate in analyses of the global water and energy cycle (WEC) -explore this crucial element of the global environment -constrain the permissible values of precip by comparison to estimates of the other components

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany Overlapping Groups Integrated Global Water Cycle Observations (IGWCO) orginally formed under the Integrated Global Observing Strategy Partnership (IGOS-P) -develop and promote strategies for the coordination of diverse global water cycle observing systems -progress towards an integrated water cycle observation system that  unites data from different sources (e.g. satellite systems, in-situ networks, field experiments, and new data platforms)  with emerging data assimilation and modeling capabilities adopted by GEO as the “Community of Practice” for precipitation Committee on Earth Observation Satellites - Precipitation Constellation (CEOS-PC) GPM is adopted as the prototype

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany My One-Slide Summary of What “We” Do into this We want to get better at turning this TRMM Sat-Gauge (mm/h) 00Z 01 March 2000 Images courtesy GPM (top), George Huffman (bottom)

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany Precip Subtask Activities CGMS recommended the IPWG Co-Chairs to lead Co-Chair George Huffman is the “point of contact” for WA-08-01d A first Task Plan was submitted, revised 2 or 3 times Meetings 3 rd Precipitation Constellation Workshop, October 2009, Salt Lake City, UT, CEOS- PC [G. Huffman] GEO Water Cycle Integration Workshop, 21 November 2009, Frascati, Italy [C. Kidd] IGWCO Planning Meeting, February 2010, New York, NY [D. Toll] GEO Work Plan Symp., May 2010, Pretoria, South Africa [R. Lawford] GEO-VII Plenary and 2010 Ministerial Summit, 3-5 November 2010, Beijing, China [G. Huffman; poster sent, on-line presentation, brochure materials]

4th International Precipitation Working Group Workshop 11 – 15 October 2010, Hamburg, Germany Closing Thoughts Precipitation is seen as a pathfinder for other water cycle dataset subtasks Level of organization, activity, funding, data sources Multi-sensor combinations The buzzword in GEO is “integration” There’s a great deal of interaction that just hasn’t been cast in a GEO framework Integration is included in the subtask charter What more does GEO need to be doing? Improve interaction with additional groups Advocate for the necessary resources (satellites, archive reanalysis activities, etc.)