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DigitalGlobe, a global content provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, announced that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has extended its contract with DigitalGlobe to enable a “Rapid Delivery of Online Geospatial-Intelligence” (RDOG). DigitalGlobe is providing NGA with unclassified imagery-derived products and services in support of NGA’s mission to develop imagery and map-based intelligence solutions for U.S. national defense, homeland security and safety of navigation.


“When RDOG was announced, it was an innovative, new world imagery solution which provided unparalleled support to the war-fighter by combining DigitalGlobe’s imagery and web services solutions,” said David Robinson, DigitalGlobe’s senior director of U.S. National Security Programs. “Over the past year, the RDOG program has exceeded expectations and has proven to be extremely beneficial when responding to recent world events. We are honored to continue our relationship with the NGA to offer innovative imagery solutions in support of the war-fighter.”

RDOG was first announced in June 2009 and continues to solidify the web capabilities that DigitalGlobe has offered for the last 5 years. DigitalGlobe’s standard web services enable rapid dissemination of the latest NextView-licensed imagery of specified areas to the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) within 24 hours of collection. The imagery has been used to respond to humanitarian efforts related to the crises in Haiti and Chile as well as military exercises around the globe.

DigitalGlobe was the original RDOG supplier and the service is now an NGA standard. In the first year of the program, DigitalGlobe expanded RDOG’s capabilities to include offline deliverables in addition to the online deliverables. This capability extends RDOG’s viability into areas without internet connectivity – a situation often faced by users.

Internet: www.digitalglobe.com

Internap’s Performance IP™ premier connectivity and Managed Hosting ensure real-time access to DigitalGlobe’s earth imagery

Internap Network Services Corporation, a provider of end-to-end internet business products and services, announced that DigitalGlobe, a content provider of high-resolution earth imagery, is using Internap’s Managed Hosting and route-optimized Performance IP network to power DigitalGlobe’s web services offering. This solution enables rapid web access to DigitalGlobe’s collection of earth imagery delivered through three content distribution nodes in Colorado, Hong Kong and London.

DigitalGlobe’s constellation of industry-leading commercial high-resolution satellites and aerial network allows it to collect more than 500 million square kilometers of earth imagery every year. Leveraging Internap’s solutions, DigitalGlobe’s content can be integrated and embedded into geospatial applications for defense and intelligence used by civil governments and commercial customers across desktops, portals, intranets and mobile devices around the world. DigitalGlobe’s web services enable near real-time access to daily imagery collections required for advanced imagery based applications and provides developers the flexibility and robust feature set necessary to bring a real-world view into geospatial applications.

DigitalGlobe selected Internap based on its worldwide reach and technical expertise. Internap’s tailored solution enables the movement of large amounts of imagery data within seconds of transmission, significantly improving the speed of delivery across its route-optimized IP transit services to create next-generation data delivery. Working with Internap, DigitalGlobe is able to host massive amounts of geo-located data in Internap’s data centers to offer customers the ability to rapidly search and select purchased images and have these delivered “on demand,” with the highest level of network responsiveness and application performance transparency. Utilizing Internap’s Managed Hosting services eliminates the need for customers to download terabytes of data to their own data storage facilities and are effectively creating a flexible outsource model for increasing IT infrastructure requirements.

“DigitalGlobe is committed to continuing to lead the innovation within the geospatial industry to ensure our customers have the content they need, delivered easily and efficiently. Our relationship with Internap helped create a unique, game-changing global distribution solution that enables us to transfer huge amounts of data anywhere on the planet in seconds – an industry standard that no other provider can duplicate,” said Scott Hicar, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at DigitalGlobe. “The strength of Internap’s services in key global markets made it an obvious choice in our efforts to reduce latency. Together with Internap’s solutions, we are confident our customers, no matter where they are, will receive content – and thus valuable information and insight – more quickly and efficiently than previously possible.”

Internap’s integrated solutions leverage its patented Managed Internet Route Optimizer™ (MIRO) network optimization technology, which selects the best path for internet traffic by analyzing network characteristics like latency, packet loss and route stability. MIRO is backed by a 100 percent performance service level agreement. Internap’s Managed Hosting portfolio includes managed servers and managed storage along with data protection service, virtualization products, managed network products and advanced monitoring with 24/7 live customer support. With this service, customers retain control over the software applications and content on their server while Internap controls and manages the server hardware, operating system, space, power and bandwidth to provide the flexibility necessary for customers to deliver mission-critical business applications across the globe.

“As more and more organizations such as DigitalGlobe automate and advance their core business differentiators, the quality of the underlying network and integrated solutions that support these applications becomes paramount to business performance,” said Peter Evans, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Internap. “Internap is in the unique position of helping enterprises deliver on the promise of these emerging network environments to support their evolving value proposition with the unmatched combination of high-performance IP route optimization and Managed Hosting capabilities.”

Internet: www.digitalglobe.com

Fugro-Geoteam AS has signed a contract with TGS-Nopec Geophysical Company ASA to acquire 3D survey(s) in West Africa.

The projects will take approximately 7 months to acquire and Fugro will deploy its C-Class vessel Geo Caribbean to ensure efficient production on the large seismic spread programs.

The next planned C-Class vessel, the M/V Geo Coral will be delivered to Fugro in August 2010.

Internet: www.fugro.com

(30 June 2010) Today, a focus at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium is on the innovative SMOS mission, which recently became operational. Early results are proving very encouraging with its first observations due to be released in early July.

ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was launched in November to gather data on moisture in the surface layers of soil and salt in the surface of the oceans. SMOS will improve our understanding of the water cycle and help advance weather and climate studies.

SMOS has completed an intense programme of calibration and commissioning and, in May, it formally began its operational life delivering data.

Although it is still early days, scientists and users are very impressed with the first snapshots of ‘brightness temperature’ – the microwave radiation emitted from Earth’s surface.

ESA’s Mission Manager, Susanne Mecklenburg said, “We still have some way to go before the full soil moisture and ocean salinity data products are available, but the brightness temperature data we have been working on for the past months clearly demonstrate what this advanced mission has to offer.

The satellite carries an innovative sensor to image brightness temperature. As key observables, these images are used as input to derive global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity. Given the success of the mission so far, the maps are expected to be available by the autumn.

To test the usefulness of SMOS data for numerical weather prediction, data are also being delivered, within three hours of sensing, to meteorological centres such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

In a few months, global maps of soil moisture with an accuracy of 4% and 50 km resolution – the same as being able to detect a teaspoon of water in a handful of soil – will be available, and maps of ocean salinity down to 0.1 ‘practical salinity units’ – equivalent to a gram of salt in 10 litres of water – averaged over 10 to 30 days and areas of 200 × 200 km.

While users await the full results, the mission’s usefulness is already being shown: in early May, SMOS picked up clear differences in soil moisture as heavy rains hit Tennessee and Kentucky, USA, and the subsequent drying period.

Yann Kerr from the Centre d’Etudes Spatials de la Biosphere said, “The brightness temperature data currently being delivered by SMOS are better than expected.”

“The user community is very much looking forward to the full products that will not only advance our understanding of Earth processes, but also have many practical applications for water management, weather forecasting, and flood and drought prediction.”

The data for ocean salinity are also encouraging. Nicolas Reul from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea commented that, “We are now generating composites of sea-surface salinity maps from SMOS data.”

“Measurements taken in situ from floats show that SMOS data are to within 0.5 psu globally, and 0.4 psu in the tropics – even though the data has not gone through full processing.”

While there are still a few months to go before SMOS delivers full soil moisture and ocean salinity products, which will be available free of charge for all users, the current release of brightness temperature data provides a taster of what is to come.

Source

The first global gravity model based on GOCE satellite data has been presented at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium. ESA launched GOCE in March 2009 to map Earth’s gravity with unprecedented accuracy and resolution.

The model, based on only two months of data, from November and December 2009, shows the excellent capability of the satellite to map tiny variations in Earth’s gravity.

GOCE is delivering where it promised: in the fine spatial scales,” GOCE Mission Manager Rune Floberghagen said.

“We have already been able to identify significant improvements in the high-resolution ‘geoid’, and the gravity model will improve as more data become available.”

The geoid is the shape of an imaginary global ocean dictated by gravity in the absence of tides and currents. It is a crucial reference for accurately measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change.

Chairman of the GOCE Mission Advisory Group and Head of the Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy at the Technische Universität München, Prof. Reiner Rummel, said: “The computed global gravity field looks very promising. We can already see that important new information will be obtained for large areas of South America, Africa, Himalaya, South-East Asia and Antarctica.”

“Over continents, and in particular in regions poorly mapped with terrestrial or airborne techniques, we can already conclude that GOCE is changing our understanding of the gravity field,” Dr Floberghagen added.

“Over major parts of the oceans, the situation is even clearer, as the marine gravity field at high spatial resolution is for the first time independently determined by an instrument of such quality.”

New GOCE models are already yielding a wealth of new information that is useful for many domains of geosciences. GOCE’s final gravity map and geoid will be instrumental in advancing science and applications in a broad range of disciplines, ranging from geodesy, geophysics and surveying to oceanography and sea-level research.

“With each two-month cycle of data, the gravity model will become more detailed and accurate. I am convinced that the data will be of great interest to various disciplines of Earth sciences,” Prof. Rummel said.

Excellent technical achievement

In order to achieve its very challenging mission objectives, the satellite was designed to orbit at a very low altitude, where the gravitational variations are stronger closer to Earth.

Since mid-September 2009, GOCE has been in its gravity-mapping orbit at a mere 254.9 km mean altitude – the lowest orbit sustained over a long period by any Earth observation satellite.

The residual air at this low altitude causes the orbit of a standard satellite to decay very rapidly. GOCE, however, continuously nullifies the drag in real time by firing an ion thruster using xenon gas.

It ensures the gravity sensors are flying as though they are in pure freefall, so they pick up only gravity readings and not the disturbing effects from other forces.

To obtain clean gravity readings, there can be no disturbances from moving parts, so the entire satellite is a single extremely sensitive measuring device.

“The gravity measuring system is functioning extremely well. The system is actively compensating for the effects of atmospheric drag and delivering a continuous set of clean gravity readings,” Dr Floberghagen said.

“This in itself is an excellent technical achievement. GOCE has proven to be a nearly perfect satellite for measuring gravity from space.”

In May, ESA made available the first set of gravity gradients and ‘high-low satellite-to-satellite tracking’. These data are available to scientific and non-commercial users – and much more will come in the following months.

Source

GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, is envisioned to be a global public infrastructure that generates comprehensive, near-real-time environmental data, information and analyses for a wide range of users. The general assumption regarding GEOSS is that the benefits to society by far outweigh the costs.

However, this notion is being increasingly challenged, and it is becoming necessary to provide rational, quantified and persuasive arguments to justify investment of what are often public funds. In particular, the identification of clear benefits is crucial to ensure long term sustained GEOSS operations. Not surprisingly, it is the estimation of many of these benefits which has proven difficult in the past.

Numerous studies have been undertaken to describe and measure the Value of Information (VOI). They typically employ a wide variety of methods and generally find a large range of benefits, from quite small to very large, in part owing to differences in methodologies (Macauley, 2006). The state of the art in understanding the VOI reflects general agreement on how to model an individual’s or a government’s decision and some useful implications about the value of information: when it is most and least valuable, its relationship to subjective prior opinions, and the decision maker’s ability to take action in light of the information (Macauley, 2006).

To date, however, there have been few integrated assessments of the economic, social and environmental benefits of Global Earth Observation (EO). In an effort to address these issues, the European Commission sponsored project “Global Earth Observation – Benefit Estimation: Now, Next and Emerging” (GEOBENE) developed methodologies and analytical tools to assess the societal benefit areas (SBAs) of GEO in the domains of: Disasters, Health, Energy, Climate, Water, Weather, Ecosystems, Agriculture and Biodiversity. Thus it is the aim of this article to present several of these overarching methodologies as a contribution to the ongoing effort to improve GEOSS. The article concludes with a look to the future via the EuroGEOSS Project.

GEOSS Benefit Assessment

The GEOBENE Project resulted in a variety of tools and methodologies developed for GEOSS benefit assessment which address the various SBAs within GEOSS, along with GEOSS as a whole. These ranged in scope from studies on biodiversity and emerging diseases, optimal vaccination timing and robust energy portfolios through to weather observation for forest fires and wetland conservation. From the large variety of applications resulting from GEOBENE, four overarching methods warrant further explanation here because of their cross-sectoral applicability, not only at the SBA level, but also to assess interoperability among areas, and GEOSS as a whole. These include: the benefit chain concept; Bayesian decision theory; a real options framework; and systems dynamics modeling and are described below.

Benefit Chain Concept

In the course of the GEOBENE Project, a conceptual framework for assessing the benefits of GEOSS via the ‘benefit chain’ concept was developed (Fritz et al., 2008). The basic notion is that an incremental improvement in the observing system (including its data collection, interpretation and information sharing aspects) will result in an improvement in the quality of decisions based on that information. This will lead, in turn, to beneficial societal outcomes, which have a value. As further elaborated in Jantke et al., (2009), the approximation of benefit improvements requires mapping the decision implications for each data quality to the data set of highest quality. Otherwise, the benefit comparison between societal outcomes under alternative data qualities will be biased.

Image of a table showing Comparison of two cropland datasets – one where enough land exists, the other not.The incremental value of improved data must also be judged against the incremental cost of the improved observation system. Since in many cases there will be large uncertainties in the estimation of both the costs and the benefits, and it may not be possible to express one or both of them in comparable monetary terms, the ‘benefit chain’ concept describes how order-of-magnitude approaches and a qualitative understanding of the shape of the cost and benefit curves can help guide rational investment decisions in Earth Observation systems (Fritz et al., 2008).

The example of improved data for biodiversity conservation planning illustrates how the benefit chain concept can be applied in a case where the benefits are non-marketable. This case study demonstrates the benefits of replacing commonly available coarse scale global data (the non GEOSS scenario) with finer scale data used in conservation decision making. These finer scale data are comparable with those expected from GEOSS and can thus be used to estimate the potential benefits of GEOSS data. The coarse scale data led to a 9% overestimate of priority areas identified by the finer national scale data and a 10% underestimate in other areas. A simple proxy to convert these differences into benefit estimates would be the cost consequences of these over or underestimates. Based on this approach, it appears that the benefits of moving from global to national data are large and provide significant savings. Work is in progress to determine at which level these benefits begin to saturate (Fritz et al., 2008).

Bayesian decision theory

A method that explicitly considers the extent to which decision-makers actually use Global Earth Observation for decision-making is Bayesian decision theory. The approach is particularly attractive as it links the value of information to the perceived accuracy of the information system. Bouma et al., (2009) used Bayesian decision theory to study the added value of Global Earth Observation for preventing potentially harmful algal blooms in the North Sea.

Using expert elicitation to assess decision-makers perceptions of the accuracy of the GEO-based algal bloom early warning system, the analysis indicated that the value (i.e. avoided damage) of an early warning system would be 74,000 €/week. Since the costs of establishing and maintaining such an early warning system amount to 50,000 €/week, investing in satellite observation for preventing potentially harmful algal blooms seems to be an economically efficient investment to make. Increasing the accuracy of the information system substantially increases the value of information – the value of perfect information, for example, being estimated at 370,000 €/week (Bouma et al., 2009).

Real Options Framework

Many VOI problems can be addressed in a real options framework, which takes into account investment irreversibility, uncertainty and the flexibility to react when new information arrives. Such a framework is proposed here, and applied to a satellite mission case study, considered to bring about new scientific information potentially leading to lower damage from natural disasters (Fuss et al., 2008).

Satellites are a key source of Earth observation designed to obtain information for improved decision making. Satellite missions are, however, expensive undertakings involving large sunk costs in the face of uncertain benefits. In terms of avoiding damages from natural disasters through, for example, better weather forecasts, early warning or better-informed rescue missions, the benefits are high, but also difficult to quantify. Using real options to optimize the timing of the launch of a satellite enables us to derive the value that such information conveys, when it can be used to reduce the extent of the damage from disasters and their consequences. This technique could be applied towards the NASA Decadal Survey, which provides scientific priorities indirectly through a time sequencing of recommended missions.

Key findings show that large volatility of the benefits from avoided damage or damage mitigation increases the option value, thus leading to postponement of the satellite mission. While rational to wait in the face of uncertainty, higher volatility also implies higher spikes in damages, representing high-impact disasters – hence it is important to ex ante assess the benefits that could be obtained through EO. For example, a larger value of the trend parameter has been shown to trigger an earlier launch – thus if prior benefit assessment can establish that the trend can be expected to be relatively high, an EO system could be installed earlier (Fuss et al., 2008).

Systems Dynamics Modeling

The approaches described above are typically applied to one SBA or sector, or a specific country or region, conducting a thorough analysis of GEO’s benefits only in that area. In order to illustrate the propagation of GEO benefits across all nine SBAs and to capture the global perspective of such issues as greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, system dynamics modeling and simulation methodology was used to develop the FeliX (Full of Economic-Environment Linkages and Integration dX/dt) model (Rydzak et al., 2010).

The FeliX model provides a systems perspective, where the underlying social, economic, and environmental components of the Earth system are interconnected and constitute a complex dynamic system. A change in one area results in changes in other areas – for instance, use of food crops as a source of energy may increase food prices and deforestation rates through land use change. Being a dynamic model it captures change of certain phenomena (e.g. depletion of natural resources, carbon dioxide emissions) or impact of certain policies (e.g. afforestation, emission reductions) over time. Constructed as such, the model allows for analysis of particular policies, actions and interventions in both the short and long term.

The FeliX model was initially calibrated to historical data for the 20th century, constituting a simplified representation of the Earth system. The Business as Usual run for the 21st century was constructed based on projections of historical data. Additionally, a total of six GEO scenarios were constructed: Energy, Disaster, Health, Climate, Agriculture and Water. The Base Run scenario is then compared to the GEO scenarios, the difference indicating the potential impact of GEO across the SBAs. For example, the agriculture GEO scenario demonstrates the ability of the agricultural sector to meet global food demand beyond 2070, compared to the Base Run which shows severe shortfalls. Results demonstrate the significant impacts of combined GEO scenarios over the Base Run in several sectors, namely a significant decrease in CO2 emissions, increased savings of water resources, limitations to deforestation and decreasing amounts of agricultural land required.

New Developments

Building in part upon the successful achievements of GEOBENE, the European Commission is supporting a new project titled EuroGEOSS. Where GEOBENE focused on the societal benefits of GEO within individual SBAs, EuroGEOSS is tasked with implementing methodologies to assess the added value of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and interoperability in three SBAs, specifically developing, linking, and making globally available the European information systems addressing forests, drought, and biodiversity. EuroGEOSS therefore focuses primarily on the VOI for integrated assessment, which is critical to support environmental decision-making and policy assessment.

The economic importance of integrated assessment can be gauged by a recent survey of practitioners in Europe undertaking Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs). This survey indicates that the current barriers to the discovery, access, and use of the environmental and geographic data necessary to undertake EIAs and SEAs account for an added cost of € 150-200 million per annum in the EU alone, along with reports of lower quality, i.e. greater uncertainty on the environmental impacts of the projects proposed (Craglia et al., 2010). The development of SDIs and of interoperable systems of systems in the GEOSS context can remove these barriers, and therefore provide significant economic benefits, in addition to the all important increased understanding of the complex relationships between environmental processes and human agency. With the implementation of INSPIRE requiring the development of SDIs at multiple levels across Europe, and the development of GEOSS at the global level, it is important to develop a portfolio of studies providing evidence of the benefits of these investments.

As a first step in this process, a database to collect SDI-related benefit assessment research has been established. This builds upon a similar online bibliography established for GEOBENE. The objective is to collect literature which demonstrates measuring benefits qualitatively or quantitatively in relation to SDI, INSPIRE and/or GEOSS. In particular, studies from different approaches which illustrate the potential of SDIs and also the use of standards compliant architectures will be archived. The goal is that this site will evolve into a public domain database of all SDI/INSPIRE/GEOSS related benefit studies. This online bibliography will be used as a platform from which to develop new applications for GEOSS benefit assessment.

A second step towards the evaluation of the benefits of a Global System of Systems is being developed in the context of EuroGEOSS by means of a set of surveys aimed at investigating the current needs and requirements of users of data and information systems belonging to different thematic areas: the comparison between these needs and the actual achievements of the project, in terms of data finding, accessing and integrating, of data and models’ sharing, of interoperability and costs, will give the opportunity to gather evidence on the benefits that the partners of the project and their users will have gained thanks to the efforts made.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Community’s Framework Programme (FP6/FP7) via the Projects GEOBENE (No. 037063) and EuroGEOSS (No. 226487).

Reference List

Bouma, J.A., van der Woerd, H.J., Kuik, O.J., 2009. Assessing the value of information for water quality management in the North Sea. Journal of Environmental Management, 90(2)1280-1288.

Craglia, M., Pavanello, L., Smith, R.S., 2010. The Use of Spatial Data for the Preparation of Environmental Reports in Europe. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, EUR24327 EN – 2010. 45 pp.

Fritz, S., Scholes, R.J., Obersteiner, M., Bouma, J., Reyers, B., 2008. A Conceptual Framework for Assessing the Benefits of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems. IEEE Systems Journal, 2(3)338 – 348.

Fuss, S., Szolgayova, J., Obersteiner, M., 2008. A real options approach to satellite mission planning. Space Policy, 24(4)199-207 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              24(4)199-207      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Havlik, P., Schneider, U. A., Schmid, E., Bottcher, H., Fritz, S., Skalsky, R., Aoki, K., De Cara, S., Kindermann, G., Kraxner, F., Leduc, S., McCallum, I., Mosnier, A., Sauer, T., Obersteiner, M., 2010. Global land-use implications of first and second generation biofuel targets. Energy Policy, (In Press).

Jantke, K., Schleupner, C., Schneider, U.A., 2010. Benefits of increased data resolution for European conservation planning. Research Unit Sustainability and Global Change, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, 14 pp.
Macauley, M.K., 2006. The value of information: Measuring the contribution of space-derived earth science data to resource management. Space Policy, 22(4):274-282.

Rydzak, F., Obersteiner, M., Kraxner, F., 2010. Impact of Global Earth Observation – Systemic view across GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas. International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research, Vol 5.

By McCallum et al., posted on July 12th, 2010 in Earth Observation, Economy, Featured Article, GEOSS/ICEO News
I. McCallum1, S. Fritz1, N. Khabarov1, S. Fuss1, J. Szolgayova1, F. Rydzak1, P. Havlik1, F. Kraxner1, M. Obersteiner1, K. Aoki1, C. Schill2, M. Quinten2, C. Heumesser3, J. Bouma4, B. Reyers5, U. Schneider6, F. Pignatelli7, L. Pavanello7, M. T. Borzacchiello7, M. Craglia7
1 FOR, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
2 FELIS, University of Freiburg, Germany
3 ISED, BOKU University, Austria
4 IVM, VU University, Netherlands
5 CSIR, South Africa
6 UNIHH, Germany
7 IES, Joint Research Centre, Italy

Source EARTHZINE

Publications


Catalogue of FP7 projects 2007 – 2010

This 325-page document includes all the projects which have so far been funded under the Environment (including climate change) theme in FP7 (2007-2010), presenting them according to key research areas.

fp7_catalogue.pdf

European Research Framework Programme – Research on Climate Change

This publication gathers the abstracts of European research projects on climate change and related to climate change which have been completed recently or are ongoing under the Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes for research. This document aims at providing a relevant overview of research activities on climate change funded by the European Community to participants to the third World Climate Conference held in Geneva in August 2009 and to the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Source

The 70th Council meeting of EUMETSAT (the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) took place on 21-22 June 2010 in Rome, Italy.

Among other issues, the Council discussed the role of EUMETSAT in the European Space Policy and in GMES through the adoption of a dedicated resolution. This resolution emphasises the need to recognise that user-governed entities, such as EUMETSAT, play an important role in structuring space activities, particularly when these activities address operational services, like in the case of GMES. EUMETSAT Member States agreed on a definition of the activities that can be carried out by user-governed entities and proposed that, in the case of GMES, EUMETSAT is involved from the federation of user requirements at European level up to and including the operations of the related satellites.

The above mentioned activities would come in support of the European Commission. In the case of GMES the Commission is responsible for the interaction with user communities to specify European space systems in support of European policies. EUMETSAT could be thus the European entity supporting the EU for the GMES activities related to operational oceanography, atmospheric composition monitoring and climate monitoring.

“More information at:“http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/News/Press_Releases/718683?l=en

Source GMES.info

With experts and scientists discussing space and continued scientific developments at a recent conference at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the conversation had less to do with interstellar travel and distant galaxies, and more to do monitoring strategies and systems to better understand the impacts humans are having on the world.

At the July 1 “Let’s Embrace Space” conference at the European Union/Belgium joint pavilion, the EU brought in several scientific experts and researchers from Europe and China to discuss the programs both regions are developing to better understand Earth, including the use of satellites and orbital sensors to monitor climate change, air quality, ocean mapping and disaster areas, as well as the steps Europe and China are taking to advance scientific research in those fields.

“I am amazed at the level of cooperation between Europe and China at the technical level. We are also only at the beginning of cooperation,” said Chris de Cooker, head of the European Space Administration’s international relations department. “We have better data, and we are helping each other with data. Another part to this is being able to analyze previous data so we can learn from it, and can be more up front with forecasting.”

In addition, de Cooker noted the continued growth of the ESA program, which is currently comprised of 18 European countries, and the push it is making to fully integrate all European nations into the scientific organization.

Several panelists also spoke on China’s Dragon Program, a scientific research program now in its second phase, which includes stimulating scientific exchange, symposiums and published studies between China and Europe.

“I benefit from international cooperation not just for scientific knowledge but also in terms of my own growth,” said Peng Zhang, a member of the National Satellite Meteorological Center in China. “There are certain fields of study in China with very few scientists. The Dragon Program provides us with a good platform to know the European scientists in a given field. We do benefit from European scientists, and with these agreements we not only benefit from technology, but also the funding to continue our research.”

Peng’s discussion noted China’s efforts to effectively monitor air pollutants in the country, and the current proposals being made to broaden existing ground level monitoring and air quality assessments in China.

Other panelists included Reinhard Schulte-Braucks, head of space research and development for the European Commission, who reviewed current Earth monitoring systems in place for European countries, Gao Zhihai, National Remote Sensing Center in China, who discussed Chinese satellites related to climate observation, He Ming-Xia, honorary director of Ocean Remote Sensing Institute in China, who reviewed the observatory systems in place around China for monitoring oceans, Philippe Ciais of Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et I’Environnement, and Piao Shilong, professor at Peking University, who jointly presented an overview of research related to carbon cycles around the world, and Tobias Skovbjerg Gras, a member of the space research communication for the European Commission.

Source

The GMES Space Component (GSC) Data Access system is the interface for accessing the Earth Observation products from the GMES Space Component.

The system overall space capacity relies on several EO missions contributing to GMES, and it is continuously evolving, with new missions becoming available along time and others ending and/or being replaced.

The GMES Space Component Data Access (GSCDA) provides a comprehensive and coordinated access to all GMES space data, allowing the capacity:
-To link transparently the different EO Data Providers and the various GMES Service Providers using coordinating functions;
-To create synergy and sustainability across the various contributing missions;
-To facilitate the data access for the services and aim at long-term data reliability beyond single missions.

The GSCDA data and services are accessible in the form of DataSets, which are pre-defined collections of coherent mono- and multi-mission product. The complete list of foreseen DataSets is available in the Data Access Portfolio (click here to download the version 1.0 of the document). These DataSets have been derived from the requirements of the GMES Service Projects, and after trading-off with the overall system capacity.

The Data Access Portfolio defines the Datasets that are going to be made available to the GMES Service Projects until September 2010 and is based on the agreements reached with the GMES Contributing Missions. Available missions/sensors/product types as well as data access mechanism and delivery timeliness are desribed for each Dataset.

The GSC-Data Access project is managed by the European Space Agency as an integral part of the GMES Space Component Programme.

The project has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no 223001.

Requests and suggestions for improvements to the presentation of information can be submitted via the ContactUs form to gmesdata@eo.esa.int for evaluation.
GMES Space Component Data Access:http://gmesdata.esa.int/web/gsc/home