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About ISCCP

What is the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)?

The WCRP is now organized into five main components, the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX), the Climate Variability and Prediction (CLIVAR) program, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), the Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC) program, and the Climate and Cryosphere (CLIC) program.

GEWEX focuses on the analysis of global observations, supplemented by process modeling studies, to understand the processes controlling the fast climate feedbacks that determine water supplies for the biosphere, including humans.

CLIVAR, as a follow-on to the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program, focuses on global atmosphere-ocean modeling, supplemented by observations of the upper ocean, to understand the processes causing climate change, including human-induced changes, and the slow climate feedbacks arising from ocean-atmosphere coupling. The objective is to understand these processes well enough to predict climate change.

WOCE focuses on observation, analysis and modeling of the whole ocean circulation and the role of the ocean in very long-term climate variations.

SPARC focuses on the chemical and dynamical processes that determine ozone abundances and ultraviolet radiation at the surface and on the role of the stratosphere in the climate system.

CLIC focuses on the role of the polar cryosphere in the climate system, particularly interactions involving sea ice and the ocean.