A SUMMIT in Washington DC this weekend could change the way scientific information about our planet is collected. Hosting ministers from 25 countries, including all the G8 nations, as well as top scientists from space agencies and meteorological offices, the meeting aims to develop a strategy to catalogue Earth observations and spot any gaps in them.
At present, geographical and climate data that streams in from thousands of satellites and monitoring stations is poorly coordinated by the countries and organisations that collect it. No one organisation knows how many observing systems there are, or what data they are gathering.
This means we are missing a valuable opportunity to understand how different systems work at a global level, says Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington DC and organiser of the summit. 鈥淲e have an urgent need to understand what is going on with our Earth鈥檚 system,鈥� he says, especially as the population increases.
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Historically, meteorologists have led the way towards globally coordinated observations. Weather systems migrate across oceans and continents, and financial returns from forecasting have encouraged investment in international cooperation. Advance warning of the weather changes that accompany El Ni帽o, for instance, allows farmers in the US to plan for extra rainfall and Australians to prepare for drought. Yet other areas of science lag far behind in this respect.
Five years ago, 14 organisations in different fields of Earth observation formed a partnership called Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) to address the problem. But progress has been hampered by a lack of political and financial support. Jeff Tschirley, a programme director at IGOS, complains that terrestrial observations 鈥� images of the Earth itself rather than data on the atmosphere 鈥� are in a mess. There is no global inventory of observations, for example.
There is also little agreement between countries on standards. And to make matters worse, research measurements are funded independently of routine observations, meaning that many data sources dry up as soon as research projects finish.
Yet the economic returns from terrestrial observations could be as great as those from weather forecasts. For instance, one of the projects that Tschirley oversees will measure the global flux of carbon 鈥� crucial for checking countries鈥� compliance with the Kyoto protocol. Policy decisions based on observations like these have trillion-dollar consequences, says Lautenbacher.
The working group proposed at the conference will have a year to come up with a plan for improving the collection of observations. But political awareness should also help solve some of the problems, and IGOS members hope that the summit marks a change in attitude. David Williams, a representative from EUMETSAT, the organisation that controls Europe鈥檚 weather satellites, says: 鈥淭he meeting is being opened by Colin Powell, and if you can get him to turn up and talk about the environment you are doing well.鈥�