Synergetic Observations of the Water Cycle Forum Successfully Held at ISSI-BJ

The forum Synergetic Observations of the Water Cycle was successfully held at ISSI-Beijing on November 20-21, 2014. A total of 27 leading scientists from around the world participated in this forum convened by Jian-Cheng Shi (RADI, China) Xiaolong Dong (NSSC and ISSI-BJ, China) Ji Wu (NSSC, China) Lennart Bengtsson (University of Reading, UK) and Maurizio Falanga (ISSI-BJ, China).

The forum’s main aims were to discuss key scientific questions and new perspectives in the research of responses and feedbacks of the water cycle to global change. Defining requirements of data assimilation in the modeling of the global water cycle as well as identifying the demand for observations and information retrieval of key parameters of the global water cycle, represented the core focus of the brainstorming. The debate laid emphasis on the global water observation mission (WCOM), one of the candidate missions for advanced studies in the space science program of the Chinese Academy of Science, with regard to complementary missions. The mission’s science scenarios and its definition, as well as some of the technical and information retrieval issues were discussed thoroughly.

After starting with an overview of water cycle observations and research in the US, Europe and China, the forum continued with a discussion on the key science of water cycle observations as well as on the required instruments and capability. As a main goal of the forum, possible synergies which can be gained through complementary missions and international collaboration were evaluated.

An issue of TAIKONG>>, the ISSI-BJ magazine will be devoted to the insight gained at this Forum and distributed to the science communities and space science institutions.