Terrestrial Observation Panel on Climate
(GCOS-GTOS)
GCOS SC XVIII, 2010
Han Dolman
Chair of TOPC
VU University Amsterdam
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TOPC activities
Contributing to GCOS-IP
GCOS-GTOS secretariat input
GEO carbon tasks
Developing standards and guidelines
Members involved with specific GTN’s
The Chairman liaised with WOAP on
FLUXNET and water and energy global
datasets
Terrestrial progress
• There has been significant progress in defining internationally
accepted standards for the terrestrial ECVs (move to wards ISO
standardization).
• Progress in establishing institutional support for in situ
networks has been slow,
• The objective of creating a comprehensive and well coordinated
reference network for in situ observations of the fullest possible
range of terrestrial ECVs is a continuing, yet still a largely unmet
challenge
• The establishment of several Global Terrestrial Networks (GTNs)
in a number of areas (e.g. Hydrology, Glaciers, Permafrost),
where data collection takes place largely through in situ
measurements has significantly improved the coordination and
global coverage of these observations
Terrestrial progress
Observations taken for purposes other than climate, but with
climate relevance, are often not made available,.
• Good progress has been made in guaranteeing short-term
continuity in the availability of high-resolution optical
observations from satellites,.
• The increasing commitment of space agencies to produce
fundamental climate data records from existing systems has
led to improved availability of global datasets, such as
burned area and land cover (now also glaciers with ESA
CCI).
• The analysis of historical records, both in situ and satellite
based, has been progressing slowly and needs the urgent
consideration of space agencies together with the potential
users.
Action T12
• Action: Develop Global Terrestrial Network on Soil
Moisture
• Who: Parties’ national services and research programmes,
through IGWCO, GEWEX and TOPC in collaboration with
space agencies.
• Time frame: 2012
• Performance indicator: Fully functional GTN-SM with a set
of in situ observations (possibly co-located with reference
network, cf. T3), with standard measurement protocol and
data quality and archiving procedures.
• Annual Cost Implications: 1-10M USD (40% in non-Annex-I
Parties).
Action T11
• Action: Develop a record of validated globally
gridded near surface soil moisture from satellites
• Who: Parties’ national services and research
programmes, through GEWEX and TOPC in
collaboration with space agencies.
• Time frame: 2014
• Performance indicator Availability of globally
validated soil moisture products from the early
satellites until now.
• Annual Cost Implications: 1-10M USD (10% in
non-Annex-I Parties).
Decline in global ET
Jung et al., Nature in press
In Southern Hemisphere decline in soil
moisture and evaporation
Jung et al., Nature in press
Issues
• Satellite soil moisture is top few cm only
• In situ networks
– Rutgers University (Chinese, Russian data)
– Univ. Vienna (ESA) just set up
• There is no ECV documentation on standards and
guidelines
• Progress in GEWEX land flux evaporation
estimates
• Organize small workshop with modelers,
assimilators (GEWEX) with ESA?
• While we have a number of
satellite ECV products, like
albedo, Fapar etc., their
validation is generally poor
• We need to find
a mechanism to get our set
of 35 global reference sites
(linked with Fluxnet) and
CEOS Cal-Val, similar to
GRUAN,
• Limited progress
Action T3 [IP-04 T3, T29]
• Action: Development of a subset of current LTER and FLUXNET sites
into a global reference network for ecological monitoring sites with
sustained funding perspective.
• Who: Parties’ national services and research agencies, FLUXNET
organizations, NEON, ICOS, in association with CEOS WGCV, CGMSGSICS, GTOS (TCO and TOPC)
• Time-frame: Implementation by 2010
• Performance Indicator: Plan for the development and application
of standardized protocols for the measurements of fluxes and state
variables
• Annual Cost Implications: 30-100M USD (40% in non-Annex-I
Parties).
• See also Actions A15, A27, A30.
• Reference is made to corresponding (not necessarily identical, often
follow-on) Actions in the IP-04, so they exist.
Geo Carbon Strategy
• New version IGCO report
• Coordinated by Carbon
Community of Practice
• Recommendations for
short en long term
developments
• GCOS-GTOS, IOCP
members involved,
cpmatability check with
GCOS-I_2010
• Now in its “final” form…
Delivering useful information for
management strategies
• Country-level constraints on net emissions &
ecosystem carbon stocks
• Assessments of the effectiveness of
greenhouse gas management strategies
• Evaluation of changes in biosphere or ocean
feedbacks
• Early warning of rapid greenhouse gas release
events
The System
A seamless deployment an operational monitoring system
Ecosystem & Atmospheric models are the “Software Engines” of the system
operation
Deployment cost of terrestrial & space components will depend on the “Engine
performances & scalability
0.1
Time (day)
2025
1
Phase 3
10
Phase 2
2015
Phase 1
30
100- 500
10
5
28/09/2009
2020
10-50
1 to 10
Resolution (Km)
Precision (g C m-2 y-1)
Geo carbon strategy (i)
• increase the density of in situ networks, in particular for
stations and aircraft atmospheric observations, ocean
pCO2 observing systems using Voluntary Observing Ships,
and eddy covariance terrestrial ecosystem flux
measurement networks.
• develop space measurements of global CO₂ and CH₄
distributions, to fill the gap after GOSAT and SCIAMACHY;
• develop spatial scaling techniques for pCO₂ and land flux
observations for application to wider regions, using
satellite information;
• undertake a decadal full basin survey of ocean carbon
state, together with regular inventories of forest biomass
and soil carbon pools;
Satellite GHG mission with PBL sensitivity
2002
CO2
CH4
CH4
CO2
CH4
CO
TBD
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
SCIAMACHY
2016
2018
2020
2022
CARBONSAT
GOSAT-2**
GOSAT
G/Fr Climate
Mission
OCO-2
SENTINEL 5
MicroCarb
OCO-3*
JEM-DIAL***
SENTINEL 5 P
ASCENDS
*OCO-3 instrument will be assembled and ready for integration on to a flight of opportunity as soon as 2015
**GOSAT-2 mission definition review will be in 2010, and request budget for start pre-project in 2011.
***JEM-DIAL has been studying dedicated CO2 measurement to be aboard ISS –Japan Exposure Module
Geo Carbon strategy (ii)
• improve access to a continuous supply of mid-resolution
Earth observing (satellite) data, to monitor areas of forest;
• improve access to geospatial and temporal fossil fuel
emission information, including spatial-data infrastructure;
• assemble geospatial information about use of wood and
food products, and continuously monitored dissolved and
particulate carbon, if possible with age information, for
relevant rivers;
• implement a data architecture that facilitates the
combination of different data-streams;
• establish an International Carbon Office to operate a
program to produce annually updated regional and global
carbon budgets.
Action T33
• Action: Develop globally gridded estimates of terrestrial
carbon flux from in situ observations and satellite products
and assimilation/inversions models.
• Who: Reanalysis centres, research organisations, in
association with national institutes, space agencies,
FAO/GTOS (TCO and TOPC)
• Time Frame: 2014-2019
• Performance indicator: Availability of data assimilation
systems, and global time series of maps of various
terrestrial components of carbon exchange (e.g. GPP, NEP,
NBP)
• Annual Cost Implications: 10-30M USD (Mainly by Annex-I
Parties).
TOPC and WOAP
• Are the ECV products tuned to climate
models, can they be used as input or
benchmarks?
• How can we optimize their use?
• How do we implement the GCOS guidelines?
• Set up international activity (WCRP/GCOS
supporting the evaluation of global climate
datasets
– Workshop Frascati April 2011
Biodiversity
Action T4
Initiate an ecosystem monitoring network acquiring “Essential Ecosystem Records” (see
section 3.8), by exploiting collocation opportunities with the global terrestrial reference
network (Action T3) and the network of validation sites (T29).
Who: Parties’ national services and research agencies, GTOS (Global Observation of
Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD)), TOPC, GEOBON, in association with
the UNCBD.
Time-frame: Network concept and observation approach by 2011; Implementation by
2014. Performance Indicator: Availability of essential ecosystem records, including proper
documentation, from all designated sites in the network.Annual Cost Implications: 30-100M
US$ (50% in non-Annex-I Parties).
How far do we want to go into this, is biodiversity an ECV?