WATCH/LoCo workshop report

The joint workshop of the European Union Water and Global
Change (WATCH) Project and GEWEX Local Coupled Project
(LoCo) Workshop brought together experts on hydrological
land-atmosphere coupling to assess current knowledge of
land-atmosphere coupling and develop plans for future studies.
Research in modelling and observing the degree of landatmosphere
coupling and feedbacks on local and regional scales
has been evolving since the start of the well-known GEWEX
Global Land Atmospheric Coupling Experiment (GLACE).
WATCH addresses hydrological land-atmosphere coupling,
and LoCo under the GEWEX Global Land Atmosphere System
Study (GLASS) is studying local land-atmosphere coupling
to identify conditions or areas where land-atmosphere
interaction has a significant impact on the local climate. LoCo
also designs model intercomparison studies. Results from the
workshop included a better definition of local coupling and an
outline of an overview scientific paper on the topic.