The Steering Committee formulates the overall concept and scope of GCOS, and provides scientific and technical guidance to sponsoring and participating organizations and agencies for planning, implementing and further developing GCOS.

Specifically, the Steering Committee is called upon:

• To identify observational requirements, define design objectives and recommend coordinated actions by sponsoring and participating organizations and agencies, in order to optimize the system's performance and coherence, recognizing the responsibilities, working arrangements and recommendations of established scientific and technical bodies of such organizations and agencies
• To review and assess the development and implementation of the components of GCOS, and report to the sponsoring organizations and participating agencies as required
• To facilitate the exchange of information among sponsoring and participating organizations and agencies, and in general make the objectives, resource requirements capabilities and outputs of GCOS known to relevant national and international bodies