Overview of Climate Observation in Switzerland

In the context of GCOS, 50 Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) were defined that are both technically and economically feasible for systematic observation. The list of ECVs includes air temperature, atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, snow cover, and land use, amongst others. Switzerland contributes significantly to GCOS, with its numerous systematic observation programs, long-term time series of ECVs, and international data- and calibration centers. For example, Swiss institutions operate:

• two GCOS Surface Network stations (GSN): Säntis and Grand St. Bernard
• a GCOS Reference Upper Air Network station (GRUAN): Payerne
• a Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) station: Payerne 
• a Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) station: Jungfraujoch 
• 12 hydrological stations as a contribution to the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) 
• the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
• the World Radiation Center at the Physical-Meteorological Observatory Davos (PMOD/WRC) 
• the World Calibration Centre (WCC-Empa) for surface ozone, carbon monoxide, methane and carbon dioxide 
• the GAW Quality Assurance/Scientific Activity Centre (QA/SAC Switzerland)