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ESA Climate Change Initiative or The ESA EarthWatch Programme Element on

ESA Climate Change Initiative or The ESA EarthWatch Programme Element on Global Monitoring of Essential Climate Variables. ESA Climate Change Initiative. New ESA programme approved by ESA member states at the November 2008 Ministerial Council meeting Objective

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ESA Climate Change Initiative or The ESA EarthWatch Programme Element on

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  1. ESA Climate Change Initiative or The ESA EarthWatch Programme Element on Global Monitoring of Essential Climate Variables

  2. ESA Climate Change Initiative New ESA programme approved by ESA member states at the November 2008 Ministerial Council meeting Objective “To realize the full potential of the long-term global Earth Observation archives that ESA together with its Member states have established over the last thirty years, as a significant and timely contribution to the ECV databases required by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its essential feature will be to implement a coherent and continuous suite of actions that encompasses all steps necessary for the systematic generation of relevant Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), and ensures their regular updating on timescales corresponding to the increasingly urgent needs of the international climate change community.”

  3. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Programme declaration targets 21 ECVs with an associated budget of €170m • At the Nov 2008 ministerial, 15 member states subscribed a total of €75m. • Necessary to prioritise mainly by reducing the number of ECVs initially addressed. • Prioritisation done on 29th April 2009, during the first meeting of the Climate Science Advisory Body (GCOS, IPCC, WCRP, JCOMM, GTOS, ECMWF, ESAC), and following an agreed set of prioritisation criteria.

  4. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Which ECVs were selected from the initial proposal of 21? • Sea level • Sea Surface Temperature • Sea Ice • Ocean Colour • Ozone • Cloud • Aerosol • Greenhouse Gases • Land Cover • Glaciers and Ice Caps • Fire Disturbance

  5. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Implementation Plan • Six year programme in three somewhat parallel phases (2009-2015) targeting the GCOS ECVs (see GCOS-107). • Phase 1: Scientific User Consultation and Detailed Specs • User consultation to define ECV products • Algorithm development • Intercomparison and validation • Definition of processing system • Projects to be led by science community • Initial 3 year contract, followed by lower level of activity to support cyclical updating of the ECV products

  6. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Phase 2: Systems Development and Data Products Generation • Respond to specifications established in Phase 1 • Processor development and ECV production • Science teams involved to ensure integrtiy of algorithms implemented and validation work • Phase 3: Assessment, Assimilation and Feedback • Exploitation of ECV products for climate modelling • Develop tools and techniques to support data assimilation and model verification • Will provide feedback to drive development of ECV products in successive cycles of re-processing • Carried out by end users, i.e. the climate and modelling communities • .

  7. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Scope of First CCI Actions: • The CSAB advised that the programme should be open to allow the science community to propose their own approaches, including end-to-end projects (i.e. generating long-time series of ECV products) during the first contracts issued. • The first CCI activities will be implemented via a series of parallel contracts. Each will focus on one or two ECVs, and will address key R&D issues directly pertinent to the GCOS requirements. • Detailed definition of ECV satellite data products, in cooperation with other contributing CEOS Agencies • Algorithm developments to approach (challenging) GCOS performance requirements (notably for stability) for ECVs • R&D to address any known performance improvements needed in Level 1B • Prototyping of software and global data products • Independent evaluation and validation of competing algorithms (encouraging innovative approaches) • Assessment and validation of data products by specialized climate research and modelling communities

  8. ESA Climate Change Initiative • Each (up to €2.5 million) contract will: • Respond explicitly to GCOS requirements for specific ECVs • Pursue scientific advances, innovation and international excellence • Bring together several leading research groups expert in EO data analysis along with relevant specialized modelling groups (evaluation and feedback) • Go as far as possible – in a research context – to generate consistent, long-term global data sets, improved with respect to those presently available • Adhere to the GCOS guidelines for generation global satellite data products • Prepare the basis (specifications and data) for the next-stage CCI contracts that will implement operational production systems, and perform large-scale long-term data product generation in a more operationally sustainable context, i.e. preparing for future operational implementation (by someone!?!)

  9. ESA Climate Change Initiative Invitation to Tender to be issued early in Q4 2009 See: http://emits.esa.int

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