The initial successes of CEOP, up to the end of 2004, have led its Science Steering Committee and Advisory and Oversight Committee to endorse plans for a second phase of CEOP that will extend to the end of 2010. This decision has also been supported by the broader WCRP climate research community. At the March 2005 session, the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) for the WCRP noted with appreciation the completion of CEOP’s main observation period of Phase 1 and the on-going research and data collection activity.

The JSC has taken steps to help in the development of the unique attributes of CEOP’s observation and data component by providing guidance through the WCRP Observations and Assimilation Panel (WOAP). In a similar manner, the JSC plans to ensure that the CEOP science focus remains closely integrated with and complementary to the overall objectives of GEWEX and the other core projects of WCRP. For this reason, the JSC has asked that GEWEX maintain oversight of the research component of CEOP. In this context, CEOP is expected to provide a draft of the Phase 2 Implementation/Science Plan that includes criteria for measuring progress and a statement of resource requirements, to be considered at JSC-XXVII, March 2006. It has been agreed that in this way CEOP would continue to evolve as a leading contributor to water and energy cycle studies in the global climate research community and remain a fully functioning integrative component of the WCRP.

In this context, the main themes of the Fifth CEOP International Implementation Planning Meeting will be assessments and plans. 

Two types of assessments are required:

(i) An assessment that deals with the degree to which the commitments made by agencies and organizations to CEOP, such as for the provision of coordinated in-situ, satellite and model data; have been fulfilled, and

(ii) An assessment that focuses on the degree to which CEOP has been able to apply the resources it has been provided to meet its observational and science goals up to the present.

The main elements to the planning theme are:

(i) Plans related to the continuation of work on existing goals and objectives and

(ii) Plans related to the implementation of the next phase of CEOP (Phase 2) leading toward its contribution to COPES and its transition to the first element of the IGWCO, and GEOSS.

The underlying purpose for organizing the meeting in this manner is to end with a set of clearly defined specific implementation steps that can be used in the final refinement of the draft of the CEOP Phase 2 Implementation/Science Plan.

In keeping with the intent of the JSC recommendations, each step identified in the CEOP planning process will include specific implementation strategies that will ensure close and effective connections to other national and international activities concerned with research of the Earth’s water and energy cycle including, especially the core projects of WCRP.