GEOSS Relevant AQ Projects

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

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 (.pdfs) about a number of AQ-relevant Tasks:

GEO Tasks often report work underway for various projects and purposes - typically programs that make up these Tasks do not particularly focus on GEOSS.

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 above. 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 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.