Third Pole Environment (TPE) Working Group meeting was held at ITP, Beijing, during November 14-15, 2012, attracting over 50 research scientists from home and abroad to address the challenges posed by precipitation sampling, data interpolation and application of observed precipitation data to modeling and forecasting.

During the two-day meeting, 23 research scientists contributed by presenting academic reports in the four sessions entitled respectively “Observations and datasets”, “applications of precipitation data and products”, “weather and precipitation dynamics”, and “remote sensing and reanalysis”. Presented at the workshop include the latest research progress of precipitation study relating to the Third Pole region, challenges and opportunities in precipitation observation in the cold alpine region, and existing precipitation databases and research approaches. Possible precipitation dynamics unique over the Third Pole region was also proposed and discussed.

Group discussions followed the academic presentations, revolving around the applicability of current precipitation data for the Third Pole environment study, updated progress in the precipitation data analyses, as well as problems to be confronted in the future study.

This meeting is called upon by Prof. YAO Tandong, co-chair of the TPE program, and sponsored by the TPE program. Core members of the TPE precipitation working group were also nominated. These core members planned to submit a report to the group shortly after the meeting. They also planned on jointly composing research papers and conducting precipitation projects under the framework of TPE.