The Strategic Implementation Team (SIT) has changed from an ad-hoc group over-seeing the IGOS-P development to a standing working group of CEOS. The out-going Chair, J.-L. Fellous has been replaced by Tillman Mohr, the Director of EUMETSAT.

The IGOS-P will now meet once annually in either May or June, instead of having a meeting close to the CEOS Plenary. The IGOS-P will now be co-Chaired by the Chair of CEOS and a representative of the non-satellite institutes that are members of the IGOS-P. The CEOS Chair will serve from CEOS Plenary to the next, i.e. from November to November. The other co-Chair will be elected at IGOS-P meetings and will also serve for one year, except for the incoming co-Chair (UNESCO) who will serve for 18 months. Thus the co-chairs will be replaced annually but with a phase difference of 6 months.

New Members

Two new members were approved to join CEOS; the Korean Space Agency (KARI) as a full member and Thailand’s GISTDA as an Associate Member. Malaysia is likely to be proposed for membership at the 16th Plenary. It is interesting to note that the new members all come from S.E Asian countries further supporting continued Australian involvement in this international forum with CEOS providing valuable links for our regional activities.

Proposed Coral Reefs Theme

Australia (through CSIRO and AIMS) has a strong interest in this proposal.

The proposal had rather a bumpy ride through the different meetings during the week. At the SIT breakfast meeting the Chair (J.-L. Fellous) stated that the proposal was late with its submission and suggested that it is far too focussed and should be presented as part of a coastal zone theme. The SIT recommended to CEOS to adopt the following position for IGOS-P8:

“Encourage the promoters to work at developing a broader Coastal Regions (or Coastal Ecosystems) Theme, adjacent to the Ocean Theme, with a first focus on Coral Reefs as a near-term element.”

At the CEOS Plenary this position was adopted for the IGOS-P meeting without discussion.

IGOS-P Maneuvers: During discussion on the future directions of IGOS-P Arthur Dahl (UNEP), the promoter of the Coral Reef Theme expressed concern with the lack of directions available for theme proposal and the subsequent selection process. He suggested that the IGOS-P should develop some clearer guidelines.

During discussions on the Coral Reefs Theme Arthur Dahl changed tack and presented the coral reef theme as a coastal zone theme with an initial focus on coral reefs. The links between the ocean theme and coastal theme were not clear. NOAA also supported the coastal theme – but it should be separate to the oceans theme. The Australian delegate (IJB) spoke in favour of a coral reef theme suggesting that the development of a coastal theme was far too broad – if not impossible. He also mentioned the urgency brought about by possible increases in coral reef bleaching episodes due to global warming. A parallel was drawn between the GOFC which had started out as just forest cover but had expanded to all vegetation types. Perhaps, in a similar manner, a coral reef theme could expand to a broader coastal theme.

The following Draft Decision was made: IGOS-P approves the coral reef sub-theme as an element of a broader coastal theme and encourages UNEP to lead efforts to produce a short scoping paper on a broader coastal theme within 6 months and report to IGOS-P9 at its next meeting in Paris on 31 May 2002.

WSSD

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio + 10) is to be held in Johannesburg (during September?) next year. This will be a vital meeting for CEOS to promote the importance of space observations. It was felt that the Rio+5 meeting in 1997 contained no reference to Space Activities and the image and importance of space based earth observation was diminished. This omission should be re-dressed and the new CEOS Chair will push this along as a matter of urgency. Should Australian earth observation institutes also make an attempt to brief likely Australian representatives to this meeting?

Opportunities for Australia

Ghassem Asrar (NASA) gave a short presentation on the Global Precipitation Mission which is a follow-on for the successful Tropical Rain Measurement Mission (TRMM). This project will consist of a central satellite with an active microwave payload and a series of small passive microwave radiometers which will support the mission. These smaller satellites can be provided by foreign agencies. This may be an opportunity for Australia to contribute to an important mission by supplying one of these support satellites. This could be led by the BoM and would give an opportunity for Australian industry to build (to print?) a small simple satellite.

CEOS 15 Action Item 15-03: CEOS Plenary supported the development of Land Product Validation (LPV) Sites as part of a joint WGCV/WGISS initiative. The CAR-CIGSN and COSSA’s Hyperion test sites should support this initiative.

The Final Disaster Management Sub-Group report will be presented to CEOS 16th Plenary. A draft report is available and Australian input may be valuable. Possible input regarding VAACs from CAR (Prata) and BoM (Potts) should be sought.Input to DMSG report.

The Global Water Cycle Theme presents as an important opportunity for Australia. The adequacy of Australian involvement through BoM and CSIRO (CLW, CAR, ?) should be checked.

GODAE-WGISS Test facility

The possible joint development of a test facility with GODAE and WGISS was discussed. There had been a successful joint endeavour between WGISS and the TCO theme and a similar facility was suggested. However, the discussion suggested that the Oceans Theme was not keen for this to happen. Why? Check with Neville Smith on the history of this.

JASON-II

Ghassem Asrar (NASA) announced that, during these meetings, four agencies had signed an agreement for Jason-next (high precision altimeter follow-on). NASA, NOAA, EUMETSAT, & NASDA/MEXT. This is important for oceanographic applications as it takes radar altimetry from experimental research satellites to operational environmental satellites. This step has already been taken by wind scatterometers that are now included in meteorological satellites.

JASON-1 will be launched on Dec. 12.

Stephen Ward meeting

A lunch meeting was held with Stephen Ward. He said there was a possible delay with the launch of ADEOS-II which may accommodate a delayed FEDSAT. This would probably be announced next week. If this happens then the possibility of some Australian-Japanese collaboration on launch publicity, science ideas, and data requirements will follow. Parallels with ENVISAT launch publicity exist. It was suggested that CSIRO CMR communications section may contribute and a planning meeting in Canberra during December may be useful.

NOTE: ADEOS-II launch has been delayed until November 2002.

CEOS 15th Plenary and 8th IGOS-P Meeting Documents on the WWW. Most of the Working Documents for the meetings were available on the CEOS Intranet. Access is via a password which can be supplied on request.

Meeting documents held by Ian Barton - available on request.

1. Agendas for SIT Meeting, CEOS 15th Plenary, IGOS-P Open Session, and the 8th IGOS-P meeting.
2. List of Attendees at the CEOS 15th Plenary.
3. SIT presentation to CEOS 15th Plenary – a good summary of the SIT Breakfast Meeting.
4. Action Item status from 14th Plenary.
5. 15th CEOS Plenary decisions.
6. DMSG Advance Summary Report from Helen Wood. (Copy also sent to Fred Prata, CAR, CSIRO, and Rod Potts, BoM).
7. IGOS-P Glossy brochure dated July 2001.
8. Glossy brochure on “The Global Carbon Challenge”. An IGBP-IHDP-WCRP Joint Project.
9. CEOS WGCV Glossy Brochure with inserts for each of the sub-groups.
10. Un-edited meeting notes taken by IJB.

GLI2001 Meeting. EORC, Harumi, Tokyo 14-16 November

Executive summary

ADEOS-II launch has been delayed till November 2002. GLI is at Tanegashima so the problems are with other instruments or the launch vehicle.

250 meter data will only be available via Direct Broadcast and then only to those stations with a capability greater than 6 MB per second. Thus TERSS and Alice Springs can receive the data, but the new WASTAC antenna will not have this.

Some discussions were held with Terry Nakajima about the possibility of having an International Radiation Symposium in SE Asia every 4 years – interleaving with the major IS conference that is also held each 4 years. He will explore the possibility further.

Both Fred Prata and Merv Lynch supplied a powerpoint presentation for the meeting. All three presentations were down-loaded to the meeting secretariat. All three presentations were also printed and used as a poster in the poster session on the Thursday evening. Ian Barton made a presentation to the Oceans Group about Australian plans for GLI SST Validation. He also presented Merv Lynch’s presentation to this session. The Prata presentation was shown to the Land Group leader, but not made as a presentation.

All presentations and meeting materials will be on WWW about 1 month after the Workshop at http://www.eorc.nasda.go.jp. These documents will include a full report of the meeting.

Discussions on the possibility of arranging an increased budget with Naoto Matsuura for validation cruise costs were held. A new budget needs to be submitted as soon as possible – it should include detailed information on cruise timing and costs.

The three Powerpoint presentations and the un-edited meeting notes for this meeting are available on request.


Ian Barton, CMR, CSIRO.
22 November 2001.

(Ian.Barton@csiro.au)