CEOS NEWSLETTER No.12


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CONTENTS

Report on the 12th CEOS Plenary at Bangalore

Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, ISRO
Mr. Mukund Rao, ISRO

The 12th Plenary Meeting of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) was held in Bangalore during November 10-12, 1998. The Plenary was inaugurated at a glittering Inaugural Session, which started off with a welcome dance, Swagatham, in honour of the CEOS delegates.


    The symbolic inaugural lamp was lit by the Chief Guest, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Minister of Human Resource Development and Science & Technology, Government of India and the other dignitaries, including Dr K Kasturirangan, Chairman, ISRO and CEOS Chair; Dr Jean-Louis Fellous, previous CEOS Chair; Dr Tillmann Mohr, Incoming CEOS Chair; Dr Brian Embleton, SIT Chair and Mr K R Sridhara Murthy, Director, EOS, ISRO. The Plenary was attended by 74 representatives of 38 space and user agencies.
    The Plenary had on its agenda important issues of coordinating the Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) and planning for its further development and implementation. IGOS aims to harmonise the space component and in-situ component of the observation requirements towards meeting the specific requirements of users for global applications and environment monitoring. IGOS also aims at developing a global database of required parameters for applications - which in turn will get utilised for monitoring the changes in the earth's environment.
    IGOS, earlier being coordinated by CEOS, has now developed into a Partnership amongst Sponsors of the Global Observing Systems (ICSU, FAO, UNEP, UNESCO-IOC, WMO); Global (Climate / Ocean / Terrestrial) Observing Systems (GCOS, GOOS, GTOS) Program Offices; Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS; comprising member space agencies contributing to an IGOS); International Group of Funding Agencies (IGFA); International Geosphere - Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Program Office and World Climate Research Programme
(WCRP) Program Office.
    At the 12th Plenary, CEOS formally endorsed its participation in the IGOS Partnership and prepared its own
strategy for the development of the space component in support of IGOS. Similarly, Global (Climate/Ocean/
Terrestrial) Observing Systems would address the in-situ component strategy in support of IGOS. Hopefully, the two
strategies, when integrated, would provide, in an evolutionary manner, assured commitments of observation -leading
to establishment of global databases of essential parameters as required by users.
    The Plenary also endorsed that the Strategic Implementation Team (SIT) should continue, under the
Chairmanship of Mr. Robert Winokur of NOAA, for developing the space component strategy. The SIT would
work out the strategy for evaluating the IGOS projects and also guide them for development under the framework of
the IGOS Partnership. The SIT has been charged to address these issues and report at the 13th CEOS Plenary.
The Plenary also reviewed the status of the 6 proto-type projects identified for definition of the IGOS concept - Long
term continuity of Ozone Measurements; Upper Air Measurements; Global Ocean Data Assimilation
Experiment (GODAE); Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC); Long term ocean biology measurements and
Disaster Management Support. Specific observation requirement analysis have been conducted by these projects
and now CEOS would evaluate the space-based strategies required to meet those requirements. Hopefully, CEOS
agencies would assimilate these requirements into their mission plans and thus ensure a committed observation
(to be continued on Page 2)
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