WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
PANEL OF EXPERTS ON POLAR OBSERVATIONS,
RESEARCH AND SERVICES
Fourth session
Lanzhou, China, 13-15 March 2013
EC-PORS-4/INF 22
Submitted by: GEO Secretariat
Date: 27.2.2013
AGENDA ITEM:4
GROUP ON EARTH OBSERVATIONS (GEO) COLD REGION
(WA-01-C3: INFORMATION SERVICE FOR COLD REGION)
SUMMARY
ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED:
The GEO Work Plan Implementation Report, meeting summary/minutes and activities reflecting
the recent efforts on Cold Region under GEO.
1.
GEO Cold Region motivation and vision
2.
The recent activities and developments of GEO Cold Region
3.
Strategy plan and coordination regimes for GEO Cold Region
4.
Action Plan for the year 2013
DECISIONS/ACTIONS REQUIRED:
1.
Invite the panel to review and comment on the GEO Cold Region Vision and Plan
2.
Review the meeting activities and action outcomes
3.
Enhance the linkage with WMO activities under WMO with the EC-PORS
recommendation and endorsement
REFERENCES:
1.
GEO 2012-2015 Work Plan (Rev2)
(http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/work%20plan/GEO%2020122015%20Work%20Plan_Rev2.pdf)
2.
GEO 2012-2015 Work Plan Implementation Report, Task Assessment (2012.11)
(http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/geo_ix/06_GEO%2020122015%20Work%20Plan%20Implementation%20Report_Task%20Assessment.pdf)
3.
GEOSS Implementation 2012 Highlights (2012) : Cold Region Monitoring (Page 19)
(http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/geo_ix/20111122_geoss_implementation_high
lights.pdf)
4.
SAON Boarding Meeting Online Documents and Presentations (2012) (Doc No.49 and
Doc No. 58)(http://www.arcticobserving.org/board/board-meetings/133)
5.
GEO Cold Region Beijing Side Meeting (2012, see FTP achieve and minute)
6.
Online GEO Work Plan and Component Sheet
(http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss_imp.php, select the WA-01-C3 Item)
7.
GEO Cold Region Documentation and Activities Archive FTP (Regular updates :
ftp.earthobservations.org/cold_region/)
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 2
Appendix 1: GEO and GEOSS
Appendix 2: 1st Working Meeting for WA-01-C3
Appendix 3: 1st Webex Meeting Minutes for GEO Cold Region (WA-01-C3)
Appendix 4: Beijing Side Meeting Minutes for GEO Cold Region (WA-01-C3)
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 3
GROUP ON EARTH OBSERVATIONS (GEO) COLD REGION
(WA-01-C3: INFORMATION SERVICE FOR COLD REGION)
1.
GEO Cold Region motivations and visions
The GEO Cold Region idea keeps the “Cold Region” as the observation target area, which
relates strongly to frozen water in its various forms, associated with influence of Water
(Cryosphere), Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Health, Energy, Disaster, Climate, Weather and even
Agriculture issues. Most of these issues are relevant to the GEOSS nine Societal Benefit Areas
and therein the implementation of 26 associated tasks. Cold Region has its cross cutting nature
in the GEOSS framework.
Fig 1. The GEO Cold Region Observation Target Areas
The motivations and visions of GEO Cold Region activities are to
1) Recognize that Cold Region is the most fragile ecosystem in the world, which not only
includes the South and North Poles, but also the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateau);
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 4
2) Provide spatially Cross Continent Observation Coordination and Cross Cutting
Application Domain Observation Synergy based on the scientific oriented driving; To
fulfil the observation gap in the far and hard-to-reach cold region by satellite and in-situ
data through the global platform of GEO;
3) Implement the observation strategy and provide a proactive framework for the
development of information and related services for the “Future Earth” research
initiative and to assess the sustainable development ability addressed in Rio+20;
4) Strengthen the partnerships with policy-makers, stakeholders, and funders over the cold
region ecological and engineering fields;
5) Facilitate the national infrastructure and capacity building as a whole effort in Cold
Region from GEO Members and POs, especially over the nine Societal Benefit Areas.
2.
The recent activates and development of GEO Cold Region
The GEO Cold Region and WA-01-C3 are now developing through a number of activities,
including mainly:

-
General Descriptions
Archive, manage, and provide access to in-situ and remotely-sensed metadata and data
sets for monitoring Cryosphere through appropriate national, regional and global
systems and centres.
- Archive, manage, and provide access to in-situ and remotely sensed data sets and
associated data for monitoring Cold Regions (Ecosystem and Biodiversity) through
appropriate national, regional, and global systems and centres.

Observations and Information
- Conduct a distributed cyber(e)-infrastructure to collect, manage, publish and share polar
research results and implement multi-disciplinary interoperability following a Brokering
approach, supporting SCAR data policy and in accordance with European and
international standards, including GEO/GEOSS, INSPIRE.
- Fully aware of all the cryosphere projects applied for at 20 of INTERACT's 44 research
stations, with the INTERACT’s infrastructure project which base in northern Europe,
Russia, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland, and to build
capacity for research and monitoring in the European Arctic and beyond, and is offering
access to numerous research stations through the Transnational Access program.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 5
- Provide the parameter data product and tools/systems/modelsto the GEO DataCORE.
- Implement the information services for Cold Regions, for example, the CryoClim
cryospheric climate monitoring.
- Provide the polar station observation and satellite data coordination through appropriate
national, regional and global systems and centres.
- Promote the integration with integrated atmospheric and climatic observation and
modeling data from a network of high-altitude mountain stations in the Alps, HimalayaKarakoram, Rwenzori and Andes in the framework of the Ev-K2-CNR SHARE program
and the national Italian project NextData.

sCoordination and Programs
- Build a polar data catalogue through integrated observation and modelling data from the
broad range of “International Polar Year” research activities.
- As a component of the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) portal, establish a Cryosphere
Constellation of Portals by linking existing and proposed portals of cryospheric
information.
- Support the development of sustained and coordinated pan‐Arctic observing and data
sharing systems that serve societal needs. Improve the networking among existing
observing systems and sites to create pan‐Arctic observing networks. Promote the
implementation of the Sustainable Arctic Observation Network (SAON).
- Integrate the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) in GEOSS and
building the CryoClim cryospheric climate monitoring service.
- Implementation the Third Pole Environment program and Mountain ecosystem
observations.
- And other individuals (with GEO volunteer mechanism) who are interested in this Cold
Region efforts.
The main participants (with a list of 68 people) are
- Canada, China, Denmark, EC, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain,
UK, USA, SAON, ICIMOD, WMO
- CliC/WCRP, PSTG/WMO, SOOS/SCAR, CAFF, IASC and AMAP for information
- Other Task Contribution from Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Water and Climate SBAs
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 6
3.
Strategy plan and coordination regimes for GEO Cold Region
The GEO Cold Region builds on the GEOSS Broker system and work with the exiting efforts,
fully leverage the GEOSS Common Interface (GCI) infrastructure,
Fig 2. Provisional Interface (GEO Broker) for GEO Cold Region efforts
 The recent strategy action plans for GEO Cold Region monitoring are to
- To form the Terms of Reference (ToR) for GEO Cold Region activities
- To create a Coordination Mechanism with the three poles concept for one Global Cold
Region observation network/broker
- To clarify the linkage with the other GEOSS buildings tasks and to solidify the
contribution to the whole GEOSS building locally and globally.
- To identify Cold Region gaps and priorities for satellite, in-situ observation systems.
- To foster Capacity and Infrastructure building
- To strengthen the importance of the whole Cold Region, especially its three-pole
coordination, bring it to the GEO X Plenary and Ministerial Summit.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 7
Fig 3. Provisional Coordination Regime and Composition of GEO Cold Region
 The GEO Cold Region Coordination regimes are to,
- Institutionally, to build on the exiting efforts all over the world
- Cutting Cross the multidisciplinary domains: Cryosphere, Ecology, Biology,
Environmental sciences, Hydrology, and Climatology.
- Hierarchy architecture: Observation Implementation (infrastructure), Coordination
(system building) and GEO Cold Region (system of systems), and Capacity Building.
- Response to the efforts from the GEO Members and POs,
- Address the GEOSS 2015 strategy aim and beyond (Post 2015).
- Fully take advantage of the exiting efforts and GEO volunteer mechanism, which
encourage more individual experts and activities involved in global efforts.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 8
 Basically, a GEO Cold Region Task would be a combination of,
- Global Cryosphere Observation (GEO Cold Region and Water)
- Cold Region Ecosystems and Biodiversity Observations (EC-01, BI-01, and GEO Cold
Region)
- Information Service for Cold Region (GEO Cold Region, Infrastructure, WA-01-C3)
- Global Change-Cold Region perspective (EC-01, SB-01 and others)
4.
Actions plan in the year of 2013
Based on the output of the previous meeting, its vision and mission, the GEO Cold Region
development face some challenging and opportunity, the provisional plan for this year are
- Calls for Integration and Participation for Cold Region Monitoring
- Webex meeting for this movement (before April)
- Encourage the national Cold Region meeting
- Reconstruction of GEO Cold Region Group (Before WP Symposium)
- Kick off meeting for GEO Cold Region (WP Symposium, 4~6, Jun, 2013
- Report to ExCom meeting (July, 2013, TBC)
- GEO X Plenary/Ministerial Summit (Geneva, this year, annual), 13-17, Jan, 2014
- Collaboration with other initiatives, - joint activities with SAON to enhance the Arctic
Observation activities
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 9
Appendix 1:
GEO and GEOSS
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is an intergovernmental organization, which has 88
Government Members and European Commission, in addition, 67 intergovernmental,
international, and regional organizations with a mandate in Earth observation or related issues
have been recognized as Participating Organizations, coordinating efforts to build a Global
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
GEO was launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development and by the G8 (Group of Eight) leading industrialized countries. These high-level
meetings recognized that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the growing
potential of Earth observations to support decision making in an increasingly complex and
environmentally stressed world.
GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and international organizations. It provides a
framework within which these partners can develop new projects and coordinate their strategies
and investments.GEO is constructing GEOSS on the basis of a 10-Year Implementation Plan
for the period 2005 to 2015. The Plan defines a vision statement for GEOSS, its purpose and
scope, expected benefits, and the nine “Societal Benefit Areas” of disasters, health, energy,
climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture and biodiversity.
The Vision for GEOSS “is to realize a future wherein decisions and actions for the
benefit of humankind are informed via coordinated, comprehensive and sustained
Earth observations and information”.
GEOSS will yield a broad range of societal benefits, notably:









Reducing loss of life and property from natural and human-induced disasters;
Understanding environmental factors affecting human health and well-being,
Improving the management of energy resources,
Understanding, assessing, predicting, mitigating, and adapting to climate variability and
change,
Improving water resource management through better understanding of the water cycle,
Improving weather information, forecasting and warning,
Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems,
Supporting sustainable agriculture and combating desertification, and
Understanding, monitoring and conserving biodiversity.
GEO Governance
GEO is governed by a Plenary consisting of all Members and Participating Organizations. It is
the GEO's primary decision-making body. The GEO Plenary meets at least once annually at the
level of senior officials and periodically at the ministerial level. The Plenary held its first
meeting in May 2005 in Geneva. Members take decisions at the Plenary by consensus.
An Executive Committee oversees GEO activities when the Plenary is not in session. The
Committee consists of 13 representatives elected from the five GEO regions, including three
each from the Americas and Europe, four from Asia, two from Africa, and one from the
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 10
Commonwealth of Independent States. The Committee is also responsible for guiding the
Secretariat. The GEO Members elect four Co-Chairs who preside over both the Plenary and the
Executive Committee.
How GEOSS？
Work Plan 2012-2015
To achieve this vision, GEO Members and Participating Organisations are contributing
resources from their respective Earth monitoring systems to GEOSS and interlinking these
systems so that they work better together. They are developing common practices and
standards to make it possible to pool information, and they are promoting the full and open
sharing and dissemination of their data, metadata and products.
The 2012-2015 Work Plan reflects the conclusions of the GEO Plenary (VII and VIII), Beijing
Ministerial Declaration, and Mid-Term, Second, and Third Evaluations of GEOSS. It is
structured tobuild a user-driven GEOSS and therefore engage users, especially those in
developing countries. GEO Work Plan has a 3-Part Structure (Infrastructure, Institutions and
Development, and Social Benefit Areas), including 26 Tasks.
Post-2015 Working Group
The Post-2015 Working Group will assess options and scenarios for the next phase of GEOSS
implementation, including the scope of activities, institutional arrangements, internal governance
and resourcing of GEO. The Working Group will consider the findings of the Mid-Term Evaluation
that was presented to the GEO-VII Plenary. It will produce recommendations under the guidance of the
Plenary that will be forwarded to the GEO-X Plenary and 2013 Ministerial Summit for decisions.
Why Participate?
The GEO Work Plan provides a flexible action-oriented framework for developing new
projectswithin and across areas, and coordinating strategies and investments. Benefits and
opportunitiesinclude inter-alia: fostering networking and partnerships (new contacts and
collaborations); launchingregional and/or global initiatives (e.g. GEOBON, GEOGLAM);
providing access to data (makingmore data available); enlarging user-bases (users grow in
numbers and diversity); developing andmaintaining capacity (participants build on
complementarity); increasing visibility and high-levelsupport (e.g. through the GEO Website,
Newsletter, Plenary, Ministerial); and leveraging funding foractivities (funding mechanisms value
contributions to GEOSS implementation, like the European 7thFramework Programme).
Update
Every year, the GEO Secretariat prepares an update of the 2012-2015 Work Plan based
onconsultations with GEO Members and Participating Organizations and recommendations
from the three Implementation Boards. These recommendations derive from the actual work of
the Implementation Boards to (i) assess Strategic Target completion progress; (ii) actively
coordinateactivities across Tasks; and (iii) advise on Task issues of technical and non-technical
nature. The update process allows for adjustments and introduction of new activities. The Work
Plan update issubmitted to the GEO Plenary for acceptance as a living document.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 11
Appendix 2:
Minutes for the First Work Meeting (Coffee Breaking)
WA-01-C3: Information Serves for Cold Region
(Bonn, Gemany)
29, Aug, 2012
Attendees: Ellsworth LeDrew (PoC, Canada), DorisKlein (Germany), Barbara Ryan, Douglas
Cripe, YubaoQiu (GEO Secreatariat)
Miutes was drafted by YubaoQiu (GEO Secretariat)
1, Background introduction for CA-01-C3
Ellsworth LeDrew introduced the background and the main content of WA-01-C3 (also the
challenging to get things done) , said that GEO is a networking for these contributions, and
tries to get those people together to provide the information Services for cold region.
There has been an effort to create a Community of Practice (CoP) by Jeff Key as legacy of
IGOS-P. Basically it gathers up the people who are interested in the global cryosphere
watch, and group these Scientists, Users and Outreach together, and those people who need
the Cryosphere data and benefits to the management decisions or weather forecast, but it
could be far beyond that, bringing other people as well.
Ellsworth showed GEO does not provide anything in terms of funding, but what we could offer is
networking with scientists who are interested in.
Doris introduced the DLR efforts in remote sensing application. The Earth Observation in DLR
focuses on the space application (two institutes are working on the remote sensing), there is
several thing are going on, and one receiving station is cooperated with Chile, which received
Terra SAR and ERS data from last year. Some people work on the glaciers things (mass
balance). There is another meeting in September, where Doris would possiblydiscuss GEO
there, and it might be very interest for them, and it would drive more people to join in and to
share data for cold region. Ellsworth certainlyencourages that.
DLR also gets some projects on Greenland working on the glaciers, and over north of Canada.
The C3’s role within GEO is to foster and encourage these networks to be involved, keep the
data as part of the GEO architecture (for example, Radarsat-1 and -2 from Canada).
2,Webex Meeting of Networking for CA-01-C3
Ellsworth mentioned the last version document for Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) (send to
Doris, this morning), and give an idea about GCW, which is a WMO program, focusing in all
thing of Cryosphere. GCW is strongly linked to C3 and is one partnership in it. Ellsworth show
his interest to the continue dialog about this from Doris, and program one Webex meeting with
this entire people in the mail list, try to get the Japan, China more involved, which is a good
avenue or network go into other countries as well. Doris would discuss with her colleagues in
DLR about this Webex meeting, and Ellsworth try to set up one doodle pool to get time schedule
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 12
in September, then start planning for that, and to discuss what we are doing here is to have a
community to talk each other, find out what we interest are, what we may be going. There is no
pre-forward schedule agenda for this.
3, Thoughts on the web-based pages about CA-01-C3
Doris mentioned what the really interest is to setup a map to dot these people’s contribution
(what they are doing, and contribution with some key words) over it, that is an good idea to get
the network of the these people and resource together, where people would go to find several
useful things. There are several groupsworking in the data management in different countries,
and we are trying to link them, that are really the objectives, and got interoperability standards.
Cold Region can do that.
With regards to the CoP for Cryosphere, it is no idea to get time for the PoC of CoP to develop
now, as IGOS-P initiative, while on the other hand, this is the opportunity to redevelop it.
The most important thing is that the people do not know what happen in GEO-Cold Region
(community), which is the C3’s work. The C3 gets these people interested in forming a network
group, who service the CoP up again, as say it couldget a webpage together with places and
people to identify what they are doing and a facebook pages as part of it. So that it gets some
formal communication.
As per the contributor in the list of Cold Region component, Dr.Manfred Gottwald (DLR), it was
fine that Doris help to talk with him about the Webex meeting. DLR could be very important to
provide some clue on the cold Region because of the core role in PSTG group.
4, Some thoughts about the Cold Region
Barbara said that, in the last week, the telecon for the PSTG memberswere talking about the
polar regional research. In the conversation, the polar space task group, within the GEO
framework, goes back to the IGOS-Cryosphere theme, somehow this cold region, which is now
one component, could be a good visibility of the task level. Now, if something would be
changed from “component” level to “task” level, the time about the technique review is one issue
for revision for the work plan, for some reason, it would be an IGOS like scope, then some
cross cutting task like Ocean.
From the information in PSTG telecom, there is anopportunities to leverage the existing efforts,
but not create something new groups.
[Finalized on 11Sept. 2012]
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 13
Appendix 3:
WA-01-C3: Information Services for Cold Region
1st Teleconference
14:00- 16:00UTC, 18 September 2012
Attendees (19)
Ellsworth Ledrew(UW, Canada),Einar-Arne Herland, VigdisLonar Barth (NSC, Norway), Jenny
Baeseman (CliC), Jiancheng Shi(Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, China), Jun She
(DMI, Denmark),Marco Tedesco (CUNY,Canada), ØysteinGodøy (NMI, Norway),Rick
Lawford(MSU, USA), RuggeroCasacchia(CNR, Italy), Terry Callaghan(INTERACT),Tetsuo
Ohata,YabukiHironori(JAMSTEC, Japan),Xiao Cheng(BNU, China), Yves Crevier(CSA,
Canada), Barbara Ryan ,Douglas Cripe, EspenVoldenand YubaoQiu(GEO Secretariat).
Miutes was drafted by YubaoQiu (GEO Secretariat)
1. Welcome and Introductions for each participant and area of interests
The teleconference was chaired by Ellsworth LeDrew (UW, Canada).
The agenda was without any changes.
Ellsworth LeDrew chaired the meeting, first of all, he welcomed Barbara Ryan, who’s the new
GEO Secretariat Director, and then asked the attendees to introduce themselves and their
interest.
After a very short introduction about her GEO Secretariat Director status (from July 1 st), Barbara
showed that she would introduce herself and say some words on this GEO Cold Region and
this group after all the members’self-introduction.
Tetsuo Ohata, firstly, introduced himself, he is working for JAMSTEC in Tokyo, Japan, he
works on the cold regions, especially in the Arctic and high mountain area, he specializes in
clod region climatology, and have some data for the Arctic issues.
Jun She from DMI introduced that he is the researchdirector at Centre of Ocean and Ice, has
worked in the Arctic for 15 years.
Marco Tedesco from CUNY (Canada) introduced that he is the PI of NASA AMSR-E (AMSR2)
project on the snow, and he also works on the surface (mass) monitoring of Greenland and
Antarctica through the remote sensing and regional climate models, including the field work.
Xiao Cheng from BNU introduced that his interest is the polar remote sensing (two Polar areas),
and his group have finished the remote sensing map of Antarctica (land) and Arctic sea ice, he
show his strong interest in the GEO platform.
VigdisLonar Barth works in Norway Space Agency in the Arctic Observation System, she is
interested in the Arctic Region.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 14
Einar-Arne Herland (is one of VigdisBarth’s colleagues) showed that he would introduce the
Integration of Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS)into GEOSS, which has
been operational for many years now, all the data are available from SIOS. Dag
AndersMoldestad was not in this Webex meeting, would be informed by this telecon result.
ØysteinGodøy is from Norwegian Meteorological Institute working in the polar data
management, and involving in the IPY data management, also in the WMO Global Cryosphere
Watch (GCW).
RuggeroCasacchia is from Italy, works in CNR, the National Research Council (Polar Network),
and his department is in charge to coordinate the scientific program to be developed in
Antarctica and is responsible for the management of the scientific infrastructure “Dirigibile Italia”
at Ny-Ålesund.
Terry Callaghan is working in three countries (Sweden, UK and Russia), he worked in the
Arctic for 45 years in ecology andgeneral environment science, and leads a network of 45
stations around Arctic Countries, which is called INTERACT, together with thousands of
scientists in the monitoring research around the world.
Richard Lawford works as associate dean in the MSU, USA, and also has a part time contract
with JAXA, he is leading the Water SBAs in GEO work plan, and is very interested in the
information coming for this Cold Region in the water task, and to learn how to transfer this cold
region information to other component in Water task.
Yves Crevier from Canadian Space Agency, he is responsible for the polar within the Earth
Observation group, he was also involved in the IPY Space Task Group (established by WMO
under IPY Observation Component), he is now presenting the Polar Space Task Group (PSTG),
providing the coordination across the space agencies to provide and distribute the fundamental
dataset, that contributes and supports the sciences activities, and his interest in this group is
mainly to better connect the user communities with the space task group.
Ellsworth LeDrew said that he is a university professor in the University of Waterloo in Canada,
he has been working in this field for 42 years, his main interest is atmosphere and cryosphere in
the Arctic basin, although in last 15 years, working the data management for the Arctic, he has
created the directory of polar data catalog, which is being a component of IPY, and also work in
other data initiative, particularly in Canada, he was also the co-chair User Interface Community
within in GEO, focus on the user engagement and data management to ensure that the user
can find the data that they need. He introduce that this cold region is a new task and would
introduce this later. One of things that might be thinking about is the Community of Practice
(CoP), which is a group of people of working together on the common interest in a
muchunstructured manner.
Jenny Baeseman from CliC, who is the director of CliC, joined the Webex, and she want to
know how to explore this GEO cold region in the coordination of all the exiting efforts without
duplication.
Jiancheng Shi from China, who is the scientist and the Director of State Key Lab of Remote
Sciences, works in the seasonal snow cover with optical and microwave sensors. He was in
University of California, Santa Barbara. He said he was in this Webex meeting for information.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 15
YubaoQiu from GEO Secretariat introduced his work in support in this cold region group, data
sharing work group and Ecosystem SBAs.
EspenVoldenfrom GEO Secretariat is working in support the Climate SBAs and Infrastructure.
Douglas Cripe from GEO Secretariat is working in support in the Water SBAs and Post 2015
work group.
ElssworhLeDrewreturns to the Director of GEO, Barbara Ryan to speak the points of view from
GEO side about Cold Region.
Barbara Ryan, who is the director of GEO Secretariat, said some thematic history in 2007 when
she chaired the CEOS. The CEOS strategy decision on space function about the IGOS-P
between 2007 and 2008, Cryosphere no exception, did a great job in bringing together the
people working in that thematic areas, established the requirement and need for the entire
community, put together the responses from the observation system perspective, not only the
space observation, but also the in-situ observation as well, and then spin off to GEO because
GEO also focus on the space observation and the in-situ observations, whatever the name
of this cold region group (task, component or CoP), while under GEO, we provides the
sustainable observation system around the Polar Regions (Arctica and Antarctica) and the
Third Pole, and get people for those who are with energy for those particular issues. The
second thing is that there are some ongoing efforts that should has to be leveraged, GEO may
have a good overarching framework to bring those in-situ and space-based observation to the
table cross all of the Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs), now the Cold Region is one of the
component in the Water task. GEO want to leverage the existing efforts, and she thought that
GEO has to leverage these particular communities, like WMO GCW, and IPY STG (PSTG) and
SAON, and also the Antarctica observations. It was suggested to get something like IGOS-P or
the existing coordinationmechanism. She could envision that as we go forward to the next major
revision in the Work Plan that the Cryosphere focus may want to come in much like the ocean
and forest focus did, guessed that GEO term would call this the GEO Cross Cutting Task,
which touches all the society benefit areas (SBAs). So in this Webex meeting, we get
aopportunityreenergizing the Cryosphere theme and all these good job with space and in-situ
observation, leveraging the existing the coordination mechanisms, which could be the Arctic,
Antarctic and the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateaus), and some coordination across all the Cold
Regions, then this community could proposed something a little bit bigger than that of a
component. She also mentioned that CEOS is now to be the space arm of GEO, and has
strategy interest in the Cold Region and Disasters, which would be chaired by CSA next year.
This could be some mechanism to cold region there.
2. Background to project (Ellsworth LeDrew)
Einar-Arne Herland from NSC pointed out the title for this component is something about
observation under water task, while, he noted that their work is far beyond Water, although
water is the essential part, they are addressing the Earth System Science, GEO are indeed
looking at fairly beyond water. Ellsworth LeDrew commented on that the GEO sometimes tried
to find some focus on Cryosphere Watch, while GEO did not do the duplicate for that in WMO
initiated, so whatwe got from these work plan in the website provide some basement for us to
discuss for this moment, so the point what we want to make today is to try to facilitate the
information service, the main purpose today is to get many possible people together to refresh
those to be representative of the Cryosphere communities, that is SAON, GCW, PSTG, and
also some from India, and Africa, make it wide range as possible. Some of the background from
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 16
IGSO-P tried to create the Community of Cryosphere at the beginning, while now it is time to
make it more integrated. Barbara Ryan emphasized the GEO Secretariat to commit to support
these efforts to leverage these exiting efforts already there, and provide more visibility for them
in GEO Common Interface (GEO Data-Core). Another point added by Ellsworth is to get the
people with common interest to collaborate, for example the Communities of Practice, and some
science oriented, not just the business plan.
Ellsworth LeDrew said that there are already some objectives in this work plan from SAON,
GCW and other initiatives, the living document in component sheet is mainly from Ellsworth
himself, while this webex is a start point for this and the result would be reported to all
individualsindluding those who are not in this meeting now (30+), so that we are moving ahead.
GEO has the work plan symposium in spring. One of the objectives is to get face to face to get
some mile shone and some plan for that to move forward. Ellsworth LeDrew mentioned that this
is not an administrated group, while he would like to see this group more science and policy
issues oriented, so get likage to SAON, SCAR and GCW, and many other groups.
Ellsworth LeDrew asked that how these individuals to support this component, and requirement
over the next several years.
Terry Callaghan asked that what added value is for that SAON has arranged several tasks.
Ellsworth mentioned the GEO port would provide some data interoperability standards,
principles, policy for the users who know GEOSS to access the data if SAON data register in
the GEO data portal, gathering data information together, registered within the GEOSS
framework, which would be accessible to other SBAs people. SAON might be linked to ASDI,
GCW, SCAR and the IPY access dataset. This integration will be more available and
approachable to the practical users. Barbara said that the data broker, interoperabilityis very
important, and mentioned the WMO WIs system and GEO Data Portal are now interoperable,
that is to say anyone connect to GEO Portal can discovery the WIS data Automatically, and vice
versa. She envision that this kind of interoperability could be made in SAON, which would cover
the Arctic, but because GEO focus more on the global efforts, GEO also work with those in
Antarctica and also those in the third poles, Himalaya. What GEO do is to leverage those
existing efforts and coordinate them, and GCW may do the similar thing while not all of the
people in the Ecosystem and Biodiversity SBAs may not know, and have not the chance to work
with GCW, and hopefully GEO Cold Region may make efforts to reenergize the IGOS-P theme.
Terry Callaghan mentioned the IAC is also one of the important communities in cold region. IAC
is working with SCAR, and would be one the players. Ellsworth LeDrewintroduced that David
Hik would work follow this Webex meeting to ensure this linkage made.
3. Specific themes to be added (All moderated by Ells)
Ellsworth LeDrew opened the door to those who want to comments in future from your won
point of view, and in doing this, please just draft some words and send it out, and we can
distribute to everybody else, especially some text and summary from different sides, may
include some URL and portal sites (no more than one paragraph is quite enough), and we could
get some words together, and tell others to see what is your idea about this component or task.
Einar-Arne Herlandasked the status about the comments to the GEO work plan from Norway in
the last winter, but there are not in the work plan. So how is this process
forward?EllseworthLeDrew showed we (PoC and GEO Sec) would keep this to be part of it.
GEO Sec will affiliate these contributions in the right place after Webex meeting.
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 17
Rick Lawford encouraged the broading the cryosphere activities which is a good integrator to
involve the activities (communities) that has not been involved in the Global Cryosphere Watch.
Those communities are very important to have a fully integrated system. He said that for the
forward way, cold region should not loss the connection we may have within the water, but
broad it to be integrative part, because the warm regions of water need to understand the cold
region status. Ellsworth LeDrew reported the CoP meeting in Bonn about the CoP crossing
many tasks in the work plan, and thought that the way for cold region would be the Community
of Practice and then how we can get people participates. Rick Lawford and Barbara Ryan agree
to make this cold region with strategy aim in work plan like CoP, while the task is more tangible.
Terry Callaghan mentioned the challenges for the integration of Arctica, Antarctica and the third
poles, and database of databases (metadata) and also the services, which are some possible
efforts GEO would do. GEOSS focus on the observations and try to find out the situation there,
and not the downstream of information extraction, modeling and synergies and information for
decision maker, and then the participants and members do their research, for example WCRP,
ECMWF. Another thing is that GEO does not have money to support the network of
measurement, try to tag the member’s countries to build a GEOSS within their own funding.
Ellsworth LeDrewemphasize the GEO’s function on the user engagement and how they use and
what they can find from this effort in GEO, which is address some issue in the poverty countries
where they have no money to maintain the monitoring network or space data. GEOSS want to
do is to link these data.
After these phone call, GEO Secretariat to make a one slide to show the data broker and how
GEO work with these data from different communities, and send it to the people to those who in
the phone call.
[Action 1-1] GEO Secretariat to make a one slide to show the data broker conception and
how GEO work with these data from different communities.
Rick Lawford said that the modeling data is also very important and one of the most important
dataset.
RuggeroCasacchia would give information to this group about Italy polar activities. Ellsworth
LeDrew said about the FTP sites and Cold Region list. Babara Ryan suggested feeling free to
connect Francesco in GEO Sec.
[Action 1-2] RuggeroCasacchia would give information to this group about Italy polar
activities.
TerryCallaghansaid theconsultation program about the infrastructure requirement, whose vision
might go to 2020, in term of theEuropean willing to contribute to GEO,it is suggested to contact
with them and it is a good opportunity toimpress on the EU, and the due is 27, Oct., 2012.
[Action 1-3] Barbara Ryan said GEO Secretariat would send the Terry’s contact
information to EC GEO principal point of contact (Alan Edwards).
[Action 1-4]Terry Callaghan would send the consultation document invitingpeople to
submit the ideas to GEO Secretariat. GEO secretariat could distribute to whole group,
especially those who in the EC country in this group.
4. Summaries and AOB
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 18
[Action 1-5] Rick Lawford would send the brochure about the communities of practice to
all these group members to make more clearly that what the community of practice is.
Ellsworth LeDrew launched the last call to all attendees, and asked everybody including those
who are not here to submit one paragraph about what they would like to see to this component.
And how they would like to see forward.
Ellsworth LeDrew would send an email to all with specific requests for these asking the interest
in developing a community of practice, that is beyond a component and reporting, not only the
data, but the science information.
[Action 1-6] Ask everybody including those who are not here to submit one paragraph
about what they would like to see to this component. And how they would like to see
forward.
Italy, represented by Vito Vitale (from CNR-Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate),
INTERACT (Secretariat) and Tetsuo Ohatawill be in the SAON meeting.
5. Next Meeting
Webex meeting:
About the Next telecom could base on what people havesubmitted and Ellsworth would provide
some more guidance and the Webex will be in about two month.
Face to face meeting:
Ellsworth LeDrew suggested having a face to face meeting associating with the GEO tasking
meeting next spring time.
Welcome input everybody else.
[Finalized on 10 Nov. 2012]
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 19
Appendix 4:
Beijing Side Meeting Minutes
for
GEO Cold Region (WA-01-C3)
9:15 - 11:30 (UTC+8), 26 October, 2012
Venue Location: A504, IRSA, China
Attendees:Allan Howard(Canada), Bingfang Wu (China), ClaudiaKuenzer (Germany), Fan
Zhang (China), Huabing Huang (China), Jiancheng Shi (China),Lijuan Shi (China),
RichardLawford (USA), XiaoyinGuo (CMA), YubaoQiu (GEO Secretariat)
Miutes was drafted by YubaoQiu (GEO Secretariat)
Prof.Bingfang Wu, the organizer and chairman for the “GEOSS Agriculture& Water Beijing
Workshop” welcome all the attendees at the first beginning, and then Prof.Jiancheng Shi began
to chair the meeting. J.C Shi is from the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science with
the backgroundofmicrowave remote sensing of snow and glacier.
There were five presentations and oral introduction in the meeting,
- Introduction to GEO/GEOSS and GEO Cold Region (YubaoQiu, GEO Sec)
- A Project on Chinese Cryosphere Satellite Monitoring System on Land Components (J.C
Shi, IRSA, CAS, China)
- The Third Pole Environment Program (Fan Zhan, ITP, CAS, China)
- Cold Region products at the Earth Observation Center, EOC, of the German Aerospace
Center, DLR (ClaudiaKuenzer, EOC/DLR, Germany)
- Remote Sensing of Glacier in Himalaya and FY3 Satellite Dataset (Discussion,
XiaoyinGuo, CMA, China)
- Remote sensing of bi-polar regions in BNU (Huabing Huang, representative of BNU,
Xiao Cheng, Lead in WA-01-C3, China)
In the presentations, the main points are:
- The conception on global three poles, cross-continents interaction, data broker and
information services for GEO Cold Region. GEO Secretariat introduced the GEO
perspective in the developing of the information service for cold region based on the
coordination and data broker upon all other implementation plan, such GCW, SAON,
INTERACT, and other individual, national and international database concerning the
cold region, the open and inclusive characteristic of GEO facilitate the involvement of the
individuals.
- J.C Shi made an introduction on the scientific mapping output on the Seasonal snow
cover, Snow Water Equivalence, and Frozen/thaw with the updated method and
tools.The mapping results over China area were explored with the validated algorithm.
- Fan Zhang said that the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions were formally
proposed as the Third Pole by Nature in 2008, and the formed the Third Pole
Environment (TPE) program, which has been endorsed by the UNESCO-SCOPEUNEP in 2011, aiming to address the the unique interactions among the atmosphere,
EC-PORS-IV/INF 22, p. 20
-
-
cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and lithosphere.Now, based on the TPE program,
they organized TPE annual workshops, special sessions at international conferences,
trained programs, published TPE workshop reports and newsletters, updated the TPE
website.
ClaudiaKuenzer made anintroduction to her home institute, EOC/DLR, and presented
the snow cover mapping work and analysis from optical remote sensing over European,
Center Asia and Tibetan areas.
CMA, XiaoyinGuo introduced their glacier mapping and data application from FY-3
satellite
Huabing Huang, on behave of Dr. Xiao Cheng, who is the component lead in WA-01-C3,
reported their achievement and result on the application of the polar remote sensing Remote sensing of bi-polar regions. The satellite data information from polar region were
used to remote sensing of northern sea route for 5th Chinese Arctic Expedition, and the
Antarctic ice shelf and ice sheet dynamic.
As concluded by the cold region from China, it was proposed that the Third Pole concept with
individual components (products): snow cover, glacier, and satellite dataset application is the
promising direction for the way forward under GEO, the polar remote sensing applications are
the important supplement to the word efforts.
GEO secreatariat had a strong discussion on the value-added of GEOSS and GEO in
supporting the research work and application of different contributors, and programmes, GEO
featured that it is not a funding agency with the volunteer mechanism.
The group effort model was proposed to enhance the cooperation in scientific exchange and
inter-validation of products for the first step in near future, and some possible actions are,
- Prof. J.C Shi will discuss with TPE mentor in China for the concrete influence of GEO
Cold Region later
- About the glacier, J.C Shi would have some opportunities to talk with the database
builder from CAS, possible building the whole effort in China to GEOSS.
- The scientific cooperation is the first step for the later action, especially the snow cover
over Tibetan or China area
- EOC of DLR plans to bundle it‘s competences (snow cover, glaciers, mointain
environments, sea ice) to contribute to the field of ‚cold regions‘. An EOC internal
meeting will be held shortly; before the end of 2012.
- Meeting of GEO and EOC of DLR will be initiated shortly, probably second half of
January 2013, or February.
- Especially Group ‚Land Surface Dynamics‘ hopes to actively contribute to ‚cold
regions‘ endevour, to strengthen international collaboration in this field. Group‘s policy:
once data products are published in SCI journals they are shared with the intl.
community.
- GEO secreatariat will share some prsentaion in the GEO Cold Region Group.
- GEO secreatariat facilitate host and provide the wenbex platform in the future discussion.
[Finalized on6 Nov. 2012]