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CONTENTSREPORT ON THE 11TH CEOS PLENARY
News From the Working Group on Information Systems and Services
CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation ---This page
IGOS Strategic Implementation Team - Progress Report
The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment
The Upper Air Measurements
Long-Term Continuity of Ozone Measurements
Ocean Biology
Global Observation of Forest Cover
Disaster Management Support
The Global Terrestrial Observing System
ISRO takes over CEOS Chair for 1998
CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation
Alan Belward WGCV Chair, EC Mary James WGCV Technical SecretaryHighlights of the 13th WGCV Meeting
The 13th meeting of the CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV), hosted by Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, was held 3-5 September in Shanghai, China. In addition to routine working group business, key activities included reports from the subgroups, discussions of the Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS), progress reports on the WGCV three-year action plan, reports on accuracy and traceability from national standards laboratories and a special session on remote sensing activities in China. Complete minutes of the meeting are available on-line from the WGCV www site (http://www.eos.co.uk/ceos-wgcv).
- Calibration and Validation in IGOS
Participants in WGCV13 spent considerable time discussing issues related to the need for calibration and validation in the IGOS pilot projects, and the response of WGCV to that need. It was noted that there is a need for calibration and/or validation within each of the IGOS projects, though this need varies considerably, depending on the maturity of the project. There exists within some of the projects calibration/validation expertise, however WGCV are able to act as a focal point for co-ordination and to provide technical support to pilot projects to help Identify cal/val needs. The WGCV has also offered to provide experts for technical review of requirements as identified by the IGOS Analysis Group (AG).
Following WGCV13, plans were formalised for an adhoc meeting to specifically address cal/val issues associated with the IGOS Pilot Projects. This meeting will be hosted by the EC at JRC Ispra on March 23rd -24th . The meeting objective is to help identify and clarify IGOS Pilot Projects' detailed cal/val requirements, and identify the implications these have for organisations participating in an IGOS. Further information is available from the WGCV Chairman, Dr Alan Belward (mail alan.bel-ward@jrc.it, fax +39 332 789536).
Action Plan and Subgroup Activities
The work of the WGCV is carried out through the activities of the members and subgroups. Significant progress was reported on all key points of the WGCV three-year work plan including co-ordination and communication activities, education and outreach, and pilot projects. Highlights of recent work by the subgroups, as reported at WGCV13, can be summarised as follows.
Infrared Visible and Optical Subgroup (IVOS): Running two pilot projects: Radiance intercomparison focusing on the North African Desert site; SST validation and inter-comparison focusing on Townsville.
Microwave Sensors Subgroup (MSSG): Continue drafting essential features in microwave radiometer calibra-tion/characterisation identifying the fundamental elements of microwave radiometer calibration and details of the potential accuracy, permissible biases.
SAR Subgroup (SARSG): Organised several workshops addressing SAR calibration and validation issues; Meeting 4-6 Feb '97 in St Hubert, Canada, Wind and Wave Validation workshop. 3-5 June '97, ESTEC, SAR Workshop 3 to 6 February 1998, ESTEC.
Terrain Mapping Subgroup (TM): Executing tests of ERS Tandem data and IRS 1C data, continue to develop and test methods for DEM generation from all sources, consider special requirements of high resolution data, and proposing a central data base of reference data to be set up with on line access.
WGCV 14 will be hosted by NASDA in Japan July 21st-23rd 1998.
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major barriers identified of 'synchronisation' and 'not invented here' issues within member agency programmes.
These objectives will be pursued within a Strategy for User Involvement, Outreach and Adoption which was developed at the last WGISS meeting in Bangalore in October 1997, and which includes:
-a redefined outreach role for the WGISS Vice Chair for User Interests and not implementing the WGISS User Panel WGISS Vice-Chair for Users
-re-emphasising the key role of demonstration projects involving users as the 'building blocks' of WGISS activity, including new projects which promote adoption of key WGISS results - including links to the IGOS activity where practical;
-production and dissemination of a rationalised portfolio of WGISS 'products' as the basis for communicating our outputs to other groups and to decision-makers in our own agencies' programmes.
-a programme of focused and direct outreach activities to external groups, including user groups, standards bodies, and relevant industry organisations involved in similar work.
-development of a new CEOS Information Infrastructure - linking various existing resources such as the Infosys, Database, IDN, WG/SG home pages etc.
WGISS work will emphasise support to the IGOS activity wherever possible. We are already developing plans for an Ocean Colour CIP demonstrator system as a pilot service to provide single search access of global ocean colour dataset holdings across CEOS agencies. Other projects are also at the definition stage. I believe that such practical 'IGOS services and datasets' based on CEOS developments can be realised by WGISS in the short and medium term
Practical action and realising benefits of our effort are the key themes for my Chairmanship of WGISS and I look forward to actively serving the interests of CEOS agencies over the coming 2 years.
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