Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Cold Regions Work Plan Item WA-01-C3

1. EC Panel of Experts on Polar Observations, Research and Services Group on Earth Observations (GEO)Cold Regions Work Plan Item WA-01-C3 Barbara J. Ryan Secretariat Director Lanzhou, China 13 March 2013

2. GEO --The Group on Earth Observations Earth Observation Summit U.S. Department of State Washington D.C. 31 July 2003

3. Created in 2005, to develop a coordinated and sustained Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to enhance decision making in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) GEO today: 89 Members 67 Participating Organizations

4. Improve and Coordinate Observation Systems Advance Broad Open Data Policies/Practices Foster Increased Use of EO Data and Information Build Capacity GEO Objectives

5. A Global, Coordinated, Comprehensive and Sustained System of Observing Systems

6. Space-based Assets

7. In-situ Systems

8. Uncertainty over continuity of observations Large spatial and temporal gaps in specific data sets Limited access to data and associated benefits in developing world Inadequate data integration and interoperability Lack of relevant processing systems to transform data into useful information Inadequate user involvement Eroding or little technical infrastructure in many parts of the world GEOSS Targeted Gaps

9. GEO Cold Region Effort As part of the Water SBA, the “Cold Region” is an observation target area which relates strongly to frozen water in its various forms -- Cryosphere (and therefore relates to GCW). But, many of the issues are also relevant to other SBAs – Biodiversity, Climate, Disasters, Ecosystems, Energy, Health and Weather, and therefore many of the 26 Tasks in the Work Plan.

10. WA-01-C3: Information Service for Cold Region • General Description: • Archive, manage, and provide access to in-situ and remotely-sensed data for monitoring the Cryosphere through appropriate national, regional and global systems and centres. • Ecosystem and Biodiversity linkages

11. GEO Cold Region The Cryospheric Components Three Poles – cross continents Includes snow, sea ice, lake and river ice, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground, and solid precipitation

12. Observations and Information • Implement 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 INSPIRE. • Reference the cryosphere projects at 20 of INTERACT's 44 research stations, with INTERACT’s infrastructure(northern Europe, Russia, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland), and build capacity for research and monitoring in the European Arctic and beyond. • Provide the data products to the GEO DataCORE and Implement the information service for Cold Regions. • Link with satellite datacoordination efforts through appropriate national, regional and global systems and centres. • Promote the integration of atmospheric and climatic observation and modeling data from a network of high-altitude mountain stations in the Alps, Himalaya-Karakoram, Rwenzori and Andes in the framework of the Ev-K2-CNR SHARE programand the national Italian project NextData.

13. Coordination with other Programs • 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. • Help build a polar data cataloguethrough integrated observation and modelling data from the broad range of “International Polar Year” research activities. • Support the development of sustained and coordinated pan‐Arctic observing and data sharing systems. Improve the networking of existing observing systems and sites to create a pan‐Arctic observing network. Promote the implementation of the Sustainable Arctic Observation Network (SAON). • Link the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) in GEOSS and support the CryoClim cryospheric climate monitoring service. • Advance implementation of the Third PoleEnvironment program and Mountain ecosystem observations. • And other individuals (with GEO volunteer mechanism) who are interested in Cold Regions.

14. The Group - WA-01-C3: Information services for GEO Cold Region 34 International Program Member Country efforts PO efforts – CEOS/WMO/ GEO SBAs Research Teams Individuals … Cryosphere Ecosystem Biodiversity Water Climate Agriculture … 68

15. Cold Regions Monitoring (Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Norway, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, USA, ICIMOD, IEEE, WCRP, WMO) * CryoClim climate monitoring service* Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System* Sea-ice ECV for Arctic/ Antarctic snow-cover * Focus on Tibetan Plateau* Glacier dynamics mapping

16. The Coordination Regime and Composition of GEO Cold Region • A GEO Cold Region Task could be a combination of: • Global Cryosphere Observation (WA-01) • Cold Region Ecosystems and Biodiversity Observations (EC-01, BI-01) • Information Service for Cold Region (Infrastructure, Data sharing, WA-01-C3) • Global Change-Cold Region perspective (EC-01, SB-01 and Climate)

17. GEOSS Implementation requires:Data Sharing Principles Full and Open Exchange of Data Data and Products at Minimum Time delay and Minimum Cost Free of Charge or Cost of Reproduction

18. Interoperability Brokers

19. Resource Growth Introduction of the Brokering approach

20. Landsat Internet Data Distribution • Data delivered to 186 countries • User shift to multi-year scenes at same location • Exceeded 9 million scenes to date 6M 5M 4M Scenes Selected 3M FY 2009 FY 2011 FY 2008 2M Based on per day 1M Daily Average = 53 scenes for best year of sales (2001) Daily Average ≅5,700 scenes of web-enabled data delivered 20

21. http://www.earthobservations.org bryan@geosec.org yqiu@geosec.org GEO Cold Region: COLD-REGION@list.geosec.org