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Project Description

General Overview

The Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Continental-Scale International Project (GCIP) took place over the Mississippi River basin of the central United States over the period 1995-2001, with some additional data collected back to 1992. It was a multifaceted program of activities designed primarily to improve scientific understanding and the ability to model for climate prediction purposes the coupling between the atmosphere and the land surface on a continental scale.

Scientific Objectives

Within the overall goal, GCIP set out the following science objectives:

GCIP Activities

The GCIP Enhanced Observing Period (EOP) commenced in October 1995 and ended in March 2001. GCIP conducted research over multiple scales in a four-tiered framework as follows:

Continental-Scale Area (CSA) activities

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Large-Scale Area (LSA) activities cover 10⁵ to 10⁶ km². Four such areas were defined for GCIP that in aggregate cover most of the GCIP domain. These activities occured in a phased timetable, examining each regions characteristics over a two year period. These regions were the LSA-Southwest (LSA-SW) covering the Arkansas-Red River basin, the LSA-North Central (LSA-NC) covering the Upper Mississippi River basin, the LSA-East (LSA-E) covering the Ohio-Tennessee River basin, and the LSA-Northwest (LSA-NW) covering the Missouri River basin.

Intermediate-scale area (ISA) activities cover 10³ to 10⁴ km². These occured in conjunction with the LSA activities.

Small-scale area (SSA) activities cover 10² km² and typically occured over concentrated regions to study a focused set of issues.

The boundaries of the GCIP LSA regions. (Click Image for Full Resolution)

GCIP Data Collection Periods

The GCIP data collection periods were as follows:

The temporal phasing of the GCIP LSA regions. (Click Image for Full Resolution)

The GCIP Initial Data Set (GIDS-1) covered the period from 1 February to 30 April 1992 and included data from the STorm-scale Operational and Research Meteorology - Fronts Experiment Systems Test (STORM-FEST) project augmented by an additional six weeks of atmospheric, hydrological, and land surface data from existing data centers for the central Mississippi River basin.

The LSA-SW region was the initial focus for GCIP and the following data sets were developed for the region:

GCIP Integrated Systems Test (GIST) (also known as GIDS-3) - 1 April to 31 August 1994.

Enhanced Seasonal Observing Period 1995 (ESOP-95) - 1 April to 30 September 1995

ESOP-96 -1 April to 30 September 1996

Near Surface Observation Data Set 1996 (NESOB-96) - 1 April to 30 September 1996

NESOB-97 - 1 April 1997 to 31 March 1998

The focus was shifted to the LSA-NC region:

ESOP-97 - 1 October 1996 to 31 May 1997

ESOP-98 - 1 October 1997 to 31 May 1998

The LSA-E region followed with two annual cycles:

Enhanced Annual Observing Period 1998 (EAOP-98) - 1 October 1997 to 30 September 1998

EAOP-99 -1 October 1998 to 30 September 1999

GCIP closed with two annual cycles over the LSA-NW region:

EAOP-99 - 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2000

EAOP-00 - 1 April 2000 to 31 March 2001

Finally, GCIP developed a specialized Near Surface Observation Data Set (NESOB) over the LSA-SW region for the periods of 1 April to 30 September 1996 and 1 April 1997 to 31 March 1998.

Further information on GCIP is available in the overview article published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.