GEOSS Relevant AQ Projects

Main ESIP page >> Main AQ Work Group page

This page describes a number of Air Quality projects underway in the US, Europe, and Latin America which are contributing, directly and indirectly, to GEOSS. Note that elsewhere, we have compiled surveys of the Air Quality Data landscape from other perspectives.

GEOSS-Relevant AQ Projects

These projects underway in the US and EU are standardizing data, building networks, and creating AQ infrastructure. A number are directly relevant to one of the Work Plan Tasks below. The AQ Community of Practice needs to build upon these projects, find connections between them, and use them to build GEOSS.

MACC / Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate

MACC is a recently-initiated collaborative effort, funded by the European Commission, to monitor global distribution and long-range transport of long-lived greenhouse gases, aerosol, and reactive pollutants which degrade air quality. MACC's product lines include data records on atmospheric composition for recent years, and current data for monitoring present conditions and forecasting the distribution of key constituents for a few days ahead. (MACC is a continuation of the GEMS and PROMOTE programs under GMES, see links.)

AIRNow-International

AIRNow is the home of the US effort for informing the public about air quality conditions and forecasts. AIRNow-International (.pdf) is US EPA's program to improve AQ public information internationally. AIRNow-International is starting with a pilot partnership with Shanghai, China, where a new software package will be debuted this fall. This software, which the US program will also soon implement, is designed to make AIRNow compatible with GEOSS and other emerging AQ standards. The overall goal is to support a broad international framework of air quality public information which will support our understanding of air quality and increase demand for air quality improvements.

AQMEII / Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative

The objectives of AQMEII are to coordinate research efforts being undertaken in North America and the European Union and promote:

exchanging expert knowledge in regional air quality modelling,
identifying knowledge gaps in air quality science,
developing methodologies to evaluate uncertainty in air quality modelling
building a common strategy on model development and future research priorities,
establishing methodologies for model evaluation to increase knowledge on processes and to support the use of models for policy development
preparing coordinated research projects and inter-comparison exercises.

Air Quality Community Infrastructure developed under AIP-2

The Air Quality & Health Workgroup in the second phase of the GEO Architecture Implementation Pilot worked to develop, test, and refine the GEOSS Common Infrastructure for Air Quality data and metadata. The Workgroup also developed an Air Quality community infrastructure designed to interface with the GCI, so that AQ data products registered with GEOSS are more findable and usable for the AQ community.

Unlike the above projects, this work is not centrally managed (and there is not a central website laying out the work). Among the products / projects building from this work:

AQ uFIND, which builds upon the DataFed concept, taking advantage of the metadata standards of GEOSS which were tuned up in the AIP.
Air Quality Community Portal, which provides access to data in the GEOSS Clearinghouse(s??) with AQ-relevant context
CEOS ACC portal
HTAP Network

CEOS ACC Portal

CEOS, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, is the international group which works to coordinate civil space-borne observations of the Earth. The CEOS Atmospheric Composition Constellation aims to collect and deliver data to improve monitoring, assessment, and predictive capabilities for changes in the ozone layer, air quality, and climate forcing associated with changes in the environment through coordination of existing and future international space assets. CEOS ACC is developing a portal to:

Provide access, tools, and contextual guidance to scientists and value-adding organizations in using satellite-based atmospheric composition data, information, and services.
Connect existing infrastructure efforts to achieve interoperability and application of atmospheric composition data, information and services worldwide.
Identify the unique requirements and common (shared) features of the AC and GEOSS users to provide a value-added and complementary capability.

HTAP Data Network

TF-HTAP, the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution is an international researchers effort to develop a fuller understanding of intercontinental transport of air pollution in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers have run experiments designed to probe intercontinental source-receptor relationships using dozens of model platforms. The results of these model runs are valuable resources for studies of transport and also for model evaluation.

The HTAP Data Network will facilitate comparison and analysis of these results. The network makes the results freely available using OGC standards / protocols.

The network will be extended to include monitoring datasets from satellites and ambient networks.

Tasks Relevant to Air Quality in the GEO Work Plan

The 2009-2011 GEO Work Plan provides the agreed framework for implementing the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan (2005-2015). It is a living document that will be updated annually.

The Work Plan consists of ~115 Tasks and Sub-Tasks which describe efforts underway by GEO members (i.e., countries) and participating international organizations to build GEOSS. The whole work plan is available on the site above, or you can find more details on GEO Task Sheets about a number of AQ-relevant Tasks (these are all pdfs):

AR-09-01b: GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot AIP Phase 2 has had significant participation from the AQ community, and as part of the response, the community is building an AQ Community Infrastructure. See above.
US-09-01b: Communities of Practice Development This Task describes how GEO's User Interface Committee will develop and partner with Communities of Practice.
US-09-01a: Identifying Synergies between SBAs In this Task, analysts are identifying priority observations in SBAs, including Air Quality. A priority is to then find common needs between SBAs.
DA-09-02d: Atmospheric Model Evaluation Network Point of Contact is Terry Keating at USEPA. Closely related to the HTAP network...
HE-09-02a: Aerosol Impacts on Health & Environment This Task is led by WMO. Folks at U Arizona and U New Mexico are active in it.
HE-09-02b: Air Quality Observations, Forecasting & Public Information Point of Contact is Phil Dickerson at USEPA. Related: AIRNow-International, MACC.
HE-09-02c: Global Monitoring Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Currently this Task has no participants listed in the US!
HE-09-02d: Global Monitoring Plan for Atmospheric Mercury Related to the collaboration between USEPA, USDA, others to build MercNet.

GEO Tasks often involve/describe work underway for various projects and purposes - typically programs that make up these Tasks are not simply focused on GEOSS, but they are consistent (we hope!) with the GEOSS approach. There is a lot of overlap and similarity between the GEOSS-relevant activities described above and the Work Plan Tasks, but there are cases where the connection still has not been made and complementary activities are occurring independently. The CoP needs to find these complements and bring folks together, so that:

the Work Plan reflects this work,
projects inform the CoP,
projects help build the GEOSS and the GCI, and
projects use GEOSS and the GCI.

Other compilations

We have compiled other surveys of the air quality information landscape. These provide additional perspective on the projects described above.