GAME Internatinal Science Panel GISP

THE 5TH GAME INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE PANEL MEETING

Kenji Nakamura
Institute for Hydrospheric-Atmospheric Sciences
Nagoya Univesity
nakamura@ihas.nagoya-u.ac.jp

      The Fifth GAME International Science Panel (GISP) Meeting was held for 26 and 27 June, 2000 at Seavans, Tokyo Japan with kind supports of the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture  (MESSC), Frontier Research System for Global Change (FRSGC).  Sixty-four participants are twenty-eight GISP members or representatives and  thirty-four observers/experts from fourteen countries participated.
      Participants in GISP meeting were: one from Bangladesh, four from China, two from India, twenty-eight from Japan, four from Korea, two from Malaysia, two from Mongolia, one from Myanmar, one from Nepal, two from Russia, one from Singapore, one from Sri Lanka, eleven from Thailand, and two participants came from USA. Thus, total participants of GISP are sixty-four (GAME-ISP members are twenty-eight, observers/experts are thirty-four).
      After the opening addresses from Prof. T. Yasunari, Chairperson of GISP, Dr. Y. Furuhama, Executive Director, NASDA and a congratulatory message from Mr. K. Yoshio, MESSC, the panel discussion started. First, current status of international activities closely related to GAME, such as GEWEX/GAME, WCRP and GHP were presented including an introduction of FRSGC activity and future plan. After those, current activities and results of each component of GAME were reported. In addition to them, GAME-related experiments such as KORMEX and SCSMEX, etc. were introduced. The activity reports continued until second day morning.
     Generally speaking, each component of GAME does not have any serious problems, and many workshops are planned to be held, such as, GAME-HUBEX workshop in September 2000, and GAME-Siberia Workshop in March 2000. The data opening policy was reconfirmed and data will be opened to communities nearly on schedule. However, it is recognized that the main objectives of GAME, that is:
A) to understand the role of Asian monsoon in the global energy and water cycle and
B) to improve the simulation and seasonal prediction of Asian monsoon and regional water resources.
Data analyses of each component are going well and several interesting results have been shown, but we are not yet in the phase to link each analyzed results. Model studies and reanalysis data set including the GAME enhanced observations are essential, and they are now going on. It is too early to obtain full results from the model studies and reanalysis data set. Some issues has come out from the observation. One of them is the so-called imbalance problem in the surface flux measurement. This problem is crucial to
understand the land-atmosphere interaction.
     Future of GAME is the biggest subject of this GISP. One big international Plan is CEOP (Coordinated Enhanced Observation Period)/CAMP (CEOP Asia Monsoon Project). CEOP is two year project based on the well-established Earth observing satellites, such as US's Aqua, Japan's ADEOS-II, French ENVISAT. Ocean component will also be included and CLIVAR will also support CEOP. CEOP observation will utilize the heritage of GEWEX projects including GAME. CAMP is the Asian and Australian part of CEOP. Everybody recognized that CEOP is a timely project and a good one as a GAME follow-on. However, the objective of CEOP is different from that of GAME It is agreed that GAME would support a part of CEOP which relates to GAME.
     As a summary, GISP considered that:
1). According to the GAME Implementation Plan, the period of 1996-2001 is dedicated for data collections including IOP's.
2). The GAME was/would being well conducted,
3). The objective of GAME has not yet achieved, though many interesting observational results have come out,
4). CEOP which is for a study of the interannual variations of land-atmosphere-ocean interactions under a framework of GEWEX/GHP, in corporation with CLIVAR and CLIC has been proposed.

 and, GISP members recommended that:
1) GAME Phase II (2002-2003/4) should be started in 2002 after reviewing Phase I activities. The reviewing results will be reported in the next ISP in 2001,
2) GAME Phase II should be concentrate on deeper data analysis including modeling studies for the primary goal of GAME,
3) CEOP/CAMP working sub-committee under GAME-ISP led by Prof. Koike should be established.
4) The progress of GAME and its future plan including, the initiation of CEOP/CAMP project 2001-2003 should be presented in the forthcoming WMO Regional Association II 12th session in 19th-27th Sep., 2000 at Soul, Korea.

 Other business included that:
1) The Fifth International Study Conference on GEWEX in Asia and GAME will be held in Nagoya, Japan in October 2001 along with the Sixth GAME International Science Panel Meeting.
2) GISP membership at least until 2001 were reconfirmed.
3) After confirming that every member has a good access to e-mail system, GISP mailing list (GAME-ISP e-mail service) was decided to be made.