Welcome to the ECV Inventory

Hello,

Welcome to the CEOS, CGMS, and WMO ECV inventory database. This page was created to help users understand this survey activity and its purpose. The links above will answer many of your questions about the ECV Inventory.

The links below provides access to the ECV records and allow Editor login for the generation of new ECV records or editing existing ECV records. For editors, please note that the questionnaire has two versions with slightly different sets of questions; one for documenting the present and historic datasets and a second for addressing the future or planned datasets.

or

EDITOR LOGIN for creating or editing ECV records

ADMINISTRATORS Login

In addition, for more information, please click on above tabs to better understand this survey activity and its purpose.

Dear Colleagues,

In January 2011, very shortly after the endorsement of the CEOS Working Group on Climate, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and WMO Space Programme hosted a workshop entitled, “Continuity and Architecture Requirements for Climate Monitoring – First Workshop on Space-based Architecture for Climate”. This workshop, attended by both policy-level and technical experts, proposed the establishment of a Writing Team, comprised of representatives from CEOS, CGMS and WMO, to develop a strategy document for an architecture for climate monitoring from space. Following this workshop, such a strategy document has been developed over the last year, and a final version will be available through the ECV Inventory webpage shortly.

This strategy document has been written by a team of people comprised of representatives from the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The intended audiences include space agencies, their political and budgetary authorities, their international coordinating mechanisms, and national and/or international programmes and organizations with climate-related mandates.

The document focuses on satellite observations for climate monitoring from space, and the need for an international architecture that ensures delivery of these observations over the timeframes required for analysis of the Earth’s climate system. The document outlines a strategy for such an architecture – a strategy that is intentionally high-level, conceptual and inclusive, so that broad consensus can be reached, and all relevant entities can identify their potential contributions. The strategy, however, is not sufficient, in and of itself, and therefore first presents a logical architecture that represents an initial step in the development of a physical architecture – an end-to-end system – capable of delivering the necessary observations for climate monitoring from space. The immediate next step is to document the current capability through a systematic and granular assessment of the production of the Thematic Climate Data Records at the level of the individual agencies – it is to this process that you are invited to contribute to by completing the questionnaire, and once completed it is this information that will provide us with the first rendition of the physical representation of the architecture.

As further background to this activity we provide some information on specific aspects of this inventory, its intentions and ambitions.

In the preparation of the strategy document, discussed above, painstaking effort was invested to ensure that the individual elements of the logical representation of the architecture were directly traceable to the relevant GCOS Guidelines (link) and GCOS Climate Monitoring Principles (http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/gcos/index.php?name=ClimateMonitoringPrinciples).

Likewise in the preparation of this questionnaire we have strived to ensure that all elements of the logical representation of the architecture are represented so that the resulting ECV-Inventory will, as a consequence, provide all of the necessary information to define the physical representation of the Architecture. We have also attempted to maintain the traceability associated with the Guidelines and GCMP for each individual question and you will see this reference following the relevant questions, where appropriate.

Also, please note that the questionnaire is in two parts; a first part documenting the present and historic datasets and a second addressing the future/planned datasets. The latter is generally a subset of the first with equivalent questions addressing the relevant components.

Furthermore, to obtain more detailed information on the GCOS requirements for your own specific datasets, there are two specific documents from GCOS you should be aware of, the GCOS Implementation Plan and the GCOS Satellite Supplement . Both of these documents represent revisions to and original set of document published 5 years earlier.

A final useful document to refer to is a letter sent by GCOS and WCRP to all Space Agencies in 2010 (found in appendix 2 of the following link . This letter included a table with a listing of international scientific bodies involved in specific domains and with competence on specific ECVs. NB: a table representing the basic terminology used in this background note as well as the questionnaire is proved in an Annex.

Individual agencies produce a wide variety of geophysical products. In order to ensure that the questionnaires are populated with relevant and compatible data, we would ask that you consider the following eligibility criteria when deciding on whether, or not, to submit a specific dataset (and investing your time in so doing).

The datasets should be conceived as a climate data record or contributing to a climate data record either in the mission planning documents or product documentation.

The focus of the questionnaire is on ECV Products/TCDRs and not FCDRs.

You should only fill out the questionnaire for a particular dataset if all of the following 3 conditions are true:

• the dataset is at the level of ECV products/TCDRs;
• the dataset is the principal data source for the generation of a particular ECV product/TCDR;
• the geographical scope of the dataset is amenable to satisfying the GCOS requirements for that ECV (NB not all data products have to have global coverage, but there should be some indication as to how the dataset contributes to global product generation - e.g. “geo-ring” products).

We expect response from individual agencies for the datasets they wish to submit by the 5th of October 2012.

At that point we will perform a basic analysis to ascertain the level of response received and present this to you at the respective CEOS and CGMS Plenaries.

Following this preliminary we will start a more detailed analysis of the data, and plan to provide and initial assessment by end of Q1 2013 and a more comprehensive analysis at the respective (CEOS & CGMS) 2013 Plenaries.

It is important to underline that, unlike the logical representation of the architecture, which is based on the GCOS Guidelines and GCMPs and therefore is expected to be fairly stable over time, the physical representation of the architecture, and therefore the ECV Inventory, will need to be updated periodically (i.e. every 2-3 years) to adequately incorporate new data records as they become available.

The group that has worked on the strategy document and the subsequent questionnaire for the ECV-Inventory has and will continue to make appropriate linkages to other international coordinating bodies (e.g. WCRP, GCOS and GEO). The intention is that the Inventory will provide a unique repository for information on climate data products from space-based observations. This should provide individual agencies, interagency organizations and other international coordinating bodies central access to the information and should limit requests to you as the data providers to provide new and updated data records.

As described above, the data obtained through this questionnaire will form the basis for the first rendition of the physical representation of the climate monitoring architecture for space-based observations. The value of having this data readily available will allow specific analyses on climate observations across all CEOS and CGMS agencies to be undertaken, including:

• Describing the current and planned monitoring capability on an ECV basis (this will allow more systematic space agency response to processes such as the response GCOS IP and reporting to UNFCCC SBSTA, both as a whole and for individual agencies or groups of agencies (i.e. nations or EU));
• The combined perspective of the logical and physical views will enable the definition of an optimum “macroscale” space system configuration and its components;
• The identification of gaps and shortfalls at ECV/product level;
• The formulation of a coordinated action plan to address such gaps and shortfalls;
• The triggering of medium-term activities needed to sustain the long-term implementation of the architecture.

Examples of more specific benefits of access to such a database at the agency level will include, a more thorough investigation of inter-calibration options/opportunities, the possibility of investigating spatial coverage as an extension of the gap analysis and identifying potential opportunities for smaller space agencies to contribute to TCDR creation, validation and assessment.

For questions regarding thus web site, please send an email to the following: help-ecv-inventory@lists.ceos.org

Of importance in the communication on climate related data records is an understanding of the terminology used. Within this box established definitions with respect to data records in general and satellite data records in particular are listed for reference:

An Essential Climate Variable (ECV) is a geophysical variable that is associated with climate variation and change as well as the impact of climate change onto Earth. GCOS has defined a set of ECVs for three spheres, atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic (GCOS-82, 2003).

An Earth System Data Record (ESDR) is defined as a unified and coherent set of observations of a given parameter of the Earth system, which is optimized to meet specific requirements in addressing science questions. These data records are critical to understanding Earth System processes, are critical to assessing variability, long-term trends and change in the Earth System, and provide input and validation means to modeling efforts. The term ESDR has been defined by NASA’s Earth Science Division and includes Climate Data Records (CDRs). Because it is not an internationally agreed or adopted definition it is not used explicitly in this document.

A Climate Data Record (CDR) is a series of observations over time that measures variables believed to be associated with climate variation and change. These changes may be small and occur over long time periods (seasonal, interannual, and decadal to centennial) compared to the short-term changes that are monitored for weather forecasting. Thus a CDR is a time series of a climate variable that tries to account for systematic errors and noise in the measurements (NRC, 2004).

The term Fundamental Climate Data Record (FCDR) denotes a well-characterized, long-term data record, usually involving a series of instruments, with potentially changing measurement approaches, but with overlaps and calibrations sufficient to allow the generation of products that are accurate and stable in both space and time to support climate applications (NRC, 2004). FCDRs are typically calibrated radiances, backscatter of active instruments, or radio occultation bending angles. FCDRs also include the ancillary data used to calibrate them. The term FCDR has been adopted by GCOS and can be considered as an international consensus definition.

The term Thematic Climate Data Record (TCDR) denotes the counterpart of the FCDR in geophysical space (NRC, 2004). It is closely connected to the ECVs but strictly covers exactly one geophysical variable where an ECV can encompass several variables. For instance the ECV cloud property includes at least five different geophysical variables where each of them constitutes an TCDR. The term TCDR has been taken up by many space agencies and can be considered as de facto standard.