Air Quality Meeting during GEO-VI Plenary

Main ESIP page >> Main AQ Work Group page

On 18 November 2009, during the GEO-VI Plenary in Washington DC, USEPA and partners convened a meeting on Air Quality and GEOSS. During the meeting we discussed:

• Air Quality Projects that contribute to GEOSS. A large, diverse group of projects are underway which strive to use earth observations to provide decision support for air quality management. Many of these projects are related to Tasks in the GEO Work Plan. In some cases similar and/or complementary projects are underway in different locations.

• The emerging GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) and the Air Quality Community Infrastructure, which is designed to interface with the GCI, so that AQ data products registered with GEOSS are more findable and usable for the AQ community.

• The role and priorities of a GEO Air Quality Community of Practice. GEO looks to Communities of Practice to identify / prioritize needed observations and for general feedback from the wider community. An AQ CoP could also help coordinate, manage, and complete tasks and organize new tasks in the GEO Work Plan. A CoP could also be particularly useful for tasks that build upon the GCI and the AQ Community Infrastructure. Finally, an AQ CoP would provide a clear point-of-entry for air quality practitioners into GEO and GEOSS.

During the discussion, the conveners of the meeting (Keating and McCabe, USEPA) proposed to contact GEO's User Interface Committee on behalf of the meeting participants, reporting that the consensus of the meeting is that a GEO Air Quality Community of Practice would be a useful, and that they are ready to form such a group. The letter will ask GEO to recognize the CoP, link to its webpage (which ESIP has agreed to host), and help spread the word / recruit for the CoP.

Agenda & Talks

Click on the Subject of the talks to see presentations (some are several MB and might take a while to load).

Time	Subject	Presenter	Institution
8:30 - 8:50	Overview / Goals / AQ Vision for GEOSS (.pdf)	D McCabe & T Keating	US EPA
	Air Quality Forecasting & Public Information
8:50 - 9:05	MACC (.ppt)	D Marbouty	ECMWF
9:05 - 9:20	AIRNow-International (.pdf)	S Jackson	US EPA
9:20 - 9:35	SERVIR-Air	E Cherrington	CATHALAC
9:35 - 9:50	WMO Sand & Dust Storm WAS (.pdf)	C Pérez García-Pando	Columbia U
9:50 - 10:05	WMO GURME Program (.pdf)	S Gong	Environment Canada
10:05 - 10:30	Break
	Air Quality Model Evaluation
10:30 - 10:45	HTAP and AMEN (.ppt)	T Keating	USEPA
10:45 - 11:00	AQMEII (.pdf)	S Galmarini	JRC
	Integrating AQ Satellite Observations
11:00 - 11:15	NASA perspective (.pdf)	D Neil	NASA
11:15 - 11:30	NOAA perspective (.ppt)	S Kondragunta	NOAA
	IT Infrastructure: GEOSS Common Infrastructure, Portals, Community Infrastructure
11:30 - 11:50	GCI, portals, Air Quality Community Infrastructure (.ppt)	S Falke	Northrop / Wash U
11:50 - 12:15	Discussion: Infrastructure	T Keating	US EPA
12:15 - 13:30	Lunch
	Discussion, Next Steps
13:30 - 13:45	Viewpoints on Communities of Practice
13:45 - 14:45	Discussion: Priorities, Roles Moving Forward	L Friedl	NASA
14:45 - 15:00	Next Steps	T Keating	US EPA
15:00	Adjourn

Please feel free to comment on the goals and agenda, or make suggestions directly by editing these pages. Comments can be directed to David McCabe at EPA.

Format and Approach

Presentations

Presentations will be quite short – most speakers will be limited to 10 minutes with a few minutes left over for questions for each speaker. Presentations should focus on these questions:

• What data or service does the Project produce? Or, what decision/action does the project support?
• Who are the Project's intended target audience / users?
• How does the Project deliver data / services? How can GEOSS help with that delivery?
• What particular data sharing issues face the AQ community? What activity or recommendations does the AQ community have to help GEO with its data sharing principles?

Presenters should assume the audience has a basic familiarity with rationales (e.g., AQ standards, regulations, human health) for AQ monitoring to understand and improve air quality. Presenters should not devote time to the specific rationales that motivate their project.

Discussion

We will devote a substantial amount of time to discussion. Goals for this discussion include:

• Identify opportunities for collaboration, coordination, and further discussion between similar Projects/Programs occurring in different locations or organizations.
  • Identify how these Projects/Programs are contributing to GEOSS, opportunities for GEOSS to benefit more from these Projects/Programs, and opportunities for GEOSS to help Projects/Programs.
    • Registering data services in the GCI
    • Describing work underway in the GEO Work Plan
  • Identify gaps. What work is underway that needs to be connected to GEOSS? What gaps are not being addressed at all?
• Discuss the infrastructure described (goals, approach, implementation). Is it what is needed?
  • Define, or identify how to find, best practices for contributing data to GEOSS. Many datasets (including AQ data) are currently registered in ways that do not allow the infrastructure to use that data in a full way.
• There has been discussion of the possible formation / formalization of a GEO Air Quality Community of Practice. The projects/programs represented at this meeting might form the core of such a CoP, reaching out to other colleagues and projects/programs to participate. Part the discussion time will examine this opportunity, including basic logistics, identifying possible points-of-contact, and discussing next steps for the group.

Logistics

The meeting will be held in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington DC, in the Continental C Room. You will need your passport, a (US) State-issued drivers license, or a US Government ID to enter the building (and you will have to go through metal detectors if you do not have a US government ID). The meeting will be open to the public, but please register if you plan to attend in person and contact David McCabe if you are plan to participate remotely. See the GEO Plenary page for information about lodging, etc.

The GEO Plenary exhibits will also be open to the public, in the Reagan Building, on November 17 - 18. USGEO / Agencies (NOAA, EPA, NASA...) will exhibit there, as will agencies from overseas, ESIP, and other international organizations.

The GEO Plenary itself, which is on November 17 - 18, is only open to official delegates from GEO member countries, participating organizations, and recognized observers.

Remote Logistics

You can listen and watch the meeting over the phone and online.

To Join the Webinar (Visual Only)

1. At the time of the Webinar, go to www.joinwebinar.com
2. Enter your email address and Webinar ID: 900-398-811. Click “Continue.”
3. Enter your name and click "Join Webinar in Progress."
4. If prompted, click "Run." It may take a minute to download the Webinar software.

Note: The software will download automatically when you join the Webinar. However, if your computer system requires permission to download software, please download it ahead of time from here.

To Join the Conference Call (Audio)

• Attendee access code from all locations is 212 931 60
• Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 866-469-3239
• Call-in toll number (US/Canada): 1-650-429-3300
• Call-in toll number (US/Canada)*: 1-408-856-9570 (*Only use if above numbers don't work)
• Call-in numbers for other countries
• Toll-free dialing restrictions

Links

• GEO Plenary Meeting pages
• GEO-VI Activities of Interest to AQ
• ESIP Air Quality Work Group
• GEO AQ Community of Practice: Role, Mission, Objectives
  • GEO AQ Community of Practice: Resources
• GEOSS Relevant AQ Projects (page assembled by ESIP AQ work group describing many projects. Please update!)