A WCRP workshop that focused on essential climate variables (ECV), including sea ice, was held in Frascati, Italy (May 2011). J. Key was a co-organizer of the workshop; W. Meier attended and discussed sea ice CDRs. The broad aim of the workshop was to promote the implementation of the “Guideline for the Generation of Datasets and Products Meeting GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) Requirements”. It focused on international assessment and review processes for quality control. It was decided that an inventory of ECV data ets will be developed. It is likely that the inventory will be established at the NOAA Global Observing Systems Information Center (GOSIC), and the admission of new datasets into the inventory will be managed by the GCOS Panels.
W. Meier organized and led a sea ice workshop at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD with support from the WCRP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project. A group of 25 researchers from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, and Japan attended and several issues were discussed. A workshop report is under preparation and will be published through CliC. In addition, plans were made for a thorough review of different products to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
