In addition to recommendations on tropospheric chemistry, the workshop drew the following conclusions with respect to tropospheric aerosols: (i) tropospheric aerosols are of considerable environmental importance, both due to their direct effect on the Earth's radiation budget, as well as their indirect effect on modifying cloud radiative properties, (ii) current spaceborne sensors (AVHRR, SAGE II, and TOMS) have already provided valuable information on tropospheric aerosols, even though they were not designed for this purpose, (iii) next generation sensors (POLDER, MODIS, MISR, SAGE III, EOSP, and GLI) will provide higher quality aerosol products, (iv) lidar appears to be the only technique capable of obtaining the vertical distribution of aerosol properties, and (v) rapid development of global tropospheric aerosol models capable of interpreting the data from spaceborne sensors is essential. In both tropospheric chemistry and tropospheric aerosols, there was a clear realization for the need for additional laboratory studies to enhance the potential of spaceborne observations.
In addition to this analysis of the approach to tropospheric ozone and its implications for Chemistry-1, NASA has also: (i) focused the Earth science component of the New Millennium Program on instrument development, (ii) established a process for providing new measurements using advanced technologies e.g., Earth System Science Pathfinders, (iii) completed a significant scrub of EOSDIS plans for data downlink (command and control of spacecraft and instruments) and Level-0 and Level-1B (calibrated, geolocated) data processing, and (iv) developed a concept for the establishment of a federation of partners for the production and distribution of EOSDIS higher level data products.
All of these responses were presented to the BSD Committee on Global Change Research (CGCR) during their meeting on March 6-8. The CGCR was highly complimentary of the extraordinary effort that NASA, as well as numerous EOS investigators, has put into responding to the recommendations from their meeting last July. Of significant importance, however, is their conclusion that NASA should slow down the implementation of a federated approach for EOSDIS, paying careful attention to innumerable details of the implementation, selection, and governance of an EOSDIS federation of Earth System Information Partners. This is consistent with the Payload Panel recommendations (elsewhere in this issue) to convene a Bylaws Committee to meet, write, and dissolve, with no formal position guaranteed in the subsequent federation.
The Reshape Implementation Options Study, co-chaired by Sam Venneri (director of the Spacecraft Systems Division of NASA's Office of Space Access and Technology) and Charles Vanek (Associate Director of Flight Projects, Goddard Space Flight Center), was presented to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin on February 12 (available on World Wide Web at the Project Science Office homepage). Conclusions of this study can be summarized as follows: (i) the Reshape program approach to infusing new technology to save costs is sound, (ii) for AM-2 and beyond, an aggressive approach to inserting new technology can result in significantly reduced budgets, (iii) for PM-1 and Chemistry-1, it is unlikely that alternative approaches will achieve significantly reduced costs without incurring substantial program delays, (iv) the information system cost reductions were validated, and (v) investing the savings in technology insertion will provide dramatic payback.
Finally, an Investigators Working Group meeting is now scheduled for May 13-15 in Greenbelt, Maryland. As in the past couple of years, the primary focus of this meeting is to (i) learn of recent progress and exciting accomplishments obtained thus far by various EOS investigations, including seasonal and interannual climate-related events, global productivity and the carbon cycle, and chemistry-aerosol-climate processes, (ii) to discuss and finalize chapters of an EOS Science Implementation Plan that is being coordinated by the Science Executive Committee (SEC), and (iii) to discuss plans for calibration and validation of EOS instruments and data products. In addition, there will be a banquet to honor Dr. Charles F. Kennel who is leaving NASA, where he has served as Associate Administrator for Mission to Planet Earth for the last 2-1/2 years. On behalf of the Earth Science community, I would like to extend my best wishes for his continued success in future endeavors as Executive Vice Chancellor of UCLA.
-- Michael King
EOS Senior Project Scientist