GEWEX is a core project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), which is organized as a network of core and co-sponsored projects, working groups, and cross-cutting initiatives that study issues related to the predictability of climate and the impact humans have on the climate.
GEWEX works closely with WCRP and partner organizations. Collaborative work between organizations helps to push scientific frontiers forward.
The other WCRP core projects are CLIVAR, CliC, and SPARC. Each of the core projects has some degree of overlap. CLIVAR is most strongly associated with regional climate information, sea level rise and regional impacts, and science underpinning the prediction and attribution of extreme events. The foci of CliC are in the areas of cryospheric monitoring, process studies, data management and access, and modeling. SPARC coordinates international efforts to bring knowledge of the stratosphere to bear on relevant issues in climate variability and prediction.
The activities in support of WCRP Integrating themes are carried out by ad hoc working groups:
WCRP’s six Grand Science Challenges, listed below, represent major areas of scientific research, modelling, analysis, and observations for WCRP and its four core Projects in the ensuing decade. The Challenges will yield information on climate change that is relevant to society. GEWEX contributes to all the Challenges, but is the lead within the four core Projects for Water for the Food Baskets of the World and Weather and Climate Extremes.
CliC assesses and quantifies the impacts of climatic variability and change on the cryosphere and their consequences for the climate system, and determines the stability of the global cryosphere.
CLIVAR’s mission is to observe, simulate, and predict the Earth’s climate system with a focus on ocean-atmosphere interactions in order to better understand climate variability, predictability, and change.
GEWEX observes, understands, and models the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes in the Earth's atmosphere and at the surface.
SPARC's focus is research on the role of stratospheric processes in Earth’s climate, with an emphasis on the interaction between chemistry and climate.