COordination action Carbon Observation System

1. COordination action Carbon Observation System Coordination and support actions (Coordinating) Work programme topics addressed: Earth Observation and assessment tools for sustainable development 6.4.1. Earth and ocean observation systems and monitoring methods for the environment and sustainable development area 6.4.1.1. Integration of European activities within GEO, ENV 2007. 4.1.1.1. Monitoring of the carbon cycle at global level Evaluated with 15 out of 15 points Negotiation start expected soon

2. Rationale • Our knowledge of the Earth system, although advanced in certain areas, is far from complete. • Efforts to observe and understand the Earth system today are generally based on a series of separate observation systems and programs. These must be better coordinated, to be able to provide timely, high quality, sustained, global information – based on compatible standards - as a basis for future sound decisions and actions (GEOSS, 10 year implementation plan). • In particular, the challenge of understanding and managing the global carbon cycle can only be met through such a coordinated set of international activities – research, observations, and assessment.

3. Rationale • Components of a carbon observing system already exist in Europe, the United States, Japan, and parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Several independent research groups and national programs are currently taking the burden of running the ecological and atmospheric observatories. • As a result, measuring sites are numerous, but records are not continuous and measurements can be shut down without notice, instrumentation is not always traceable on a uniform scale, and measurements protocols are sometimes non-existing or are not precisely followed. A similar situation exists for the oceans, where the observations are even more scattered. • Developing new common methodologies, standards, data management systems and protocols will increase the cost-efficiency of European (and global) carbon observations by avoiding duplication, facilitating data sharing, and bring the European effort up to the level of our global partners.

4. Objectives COCOS • Assess the status, and update where required, the essential carbon cycle variables of the IGCO list of core variables, • Improve the interoperability of a priori data sets that are used in global scale inversion studies through through joint activities between ecosystem and ocean bottom-up observation communities, • Perform integrated regional-scale multiple constraint assessments of the land and ocean carbon balance through the use of harmonized data sets, • Identify, narrow down uncertainties and decrease differences in emerging global data sets that are aimed at providing constraints on the vulnerability of the global carbon cycle, i.e fire, carbon in frozen soils

5. Objectives COCOS 5. Contribute to the implementation and improvement of the global observing systems by organizing a large international conference to demonstrate the status and way ahead of global carbon observations in light of monitoring requirements for GEO and the implementation of future climate change mitigation commitments, 6. Through executing these objectives, demonstrate and strengthen European leadership in designing and operating systematic long-term carbon observations in critical regions of the globe.

6. Organization • the coordination action is organized around two main lines: • improve the exchange of data sets between separate projects and • use datasets together with other continental and basin scale projects and programs.

7. WP6 EU contribution to a global C-observing system Global application (Users, Policy & GEO) WP4 Filling gaps on land WP5 Filling gaps on ocean WP3 Regional carbon budgets Regional up-scaling WP2 Efficient use of data Data use and interoperability WP1 Enhancing interoperability Data identification Land Coast Ocean Flow of work

8. Enhancing interoperability of existing networks in land and ocean • To design concrete procedures for enabling the different carbon cycle research programs and projects (land, ocean, atmosphere; international/national) to exchange information and data seamlessly. • To provide methods for enabling the different carbon cycle research programs and projects to easily use both the information and data, which have been exchanged.

9. Efficient use of data in models and data assimilation • Identify uncertainties in a piori settings of fluxes for inversions • Develop new a priori error correlations based on flux observations over land by establishing error bounds for carbon fluxes over land from bottom up data • Establish atmospheric data representation/correlation errors structure for high spatial resolution test cases. • Coordinate, within the existing international TRANSCOM project, a model intercomparison of simulations of the column-integrated CO2 fields to provide an error bounds on these fields.

10. Integration of multiple data sources for regional carbon budgets • To develop an optimal approach to construct regional carbon budgets and identify regions and basins • To review existing estimates of regional carbon budgets on land • To combine ocean water column data, estimate of carbon storage, , transport and air-sea fluxes for specific ocean regions • To examine how data and models can be best combined to provide regional carbon budgets • To analyse differences between the regional carbon budgets of different land and ocean regions • To provide bottom-up regional constraints for global carbon assessments

11. Filling in gaps in data of vulnerable global carbon pools and fluxes on land • To harmonize emerging datasets of and quantify carbon emissions on fire and deforestation • To harmonize global datasets of and quantify tropical soil carbon and frozen high latitude carbon • To quantify the contribution of carbon export from rivers into the global ocean

12. Filling in gaps in data of vulnerable global carbon pools and fluxes in the ocean • To establish approaches for assessing variations in gross carbon export fluxes through improved linkage of inverse methods, sediment trap data, satellite ocean color data products and in-situ data for ocean DIC, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen. • To identify and link data sources suited to identification of changes in anthropogenic carbon sinks due to changes in ocean circulation and stratification.

13. The European contribution to a global observing system for Carbon • To contribute to the implementation and improvement of the global observing systems. • To demonstrate and strengthen the European leadership in designing and operating systematic long-term carbon observations in critical regions of the globe. • To organize a large international conference: Global C observations for GEO and UNFCCC.

14. Meetings en your involvement in COCOS

15. Meetings en your involvement in COCOS

16. COCOS Scientific Project Office (VUA) COCOS Support Office (FAO) COCOS Executive Board (Coordinator+ WP leaders) COCOS International Agencies & Observational Programs Advisory Board (GCP, GEO, GCOS, GTOS, JAXA, NASA) COCOS International Science Advisory Board Management structure

17. Partners 1 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, VUA Netherlands 2 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, MPI-BGC Germany 3 University of Bergen, UiB Norway 4 University of Tuscia, UNITUS Italy 5 University of Kiel, IfM-GEOMAR Germany 6 University of Liege, ULg Belgium 7Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment -CEA, LSCE France 8Alfred Wegner Institute , AWI Germany 9 University of East Anglia, UEA UK 10 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO Italy 11 IOC-UNESCO France