The Climate Issue
Generally the requirements of the Global Observing Systems for observations are defined by scientific or technical panels with the appropriate expertise. This has been done in GTOS for the climate change issue by the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC).
The GTOS Non_Climate Issues
In addition to its climate work TOPC has prepared an initial evaluation of the GTOS observational needs for the non-climate issues. It should be noted that many of the variables that are important for climate can be equally important for these other GTOS issues related to changes in land quality, freshwater resources availability, pollution and toxicity, and loss of biodiversity.
GTNet and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (TEMS)
The development of the GT-net (a network of terrestrial ecosystem monitoring networks) and of the second version of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Monitoring Sites (TEMS) meta data database are proceeding under the guidance of the TOPC. These projects build on existing ecosystem networks and will provide significant information on user requirements and on what variables are being collected both nationally and internationally. This information will be valuable as a starting point for the scientific panels that will complete definition of the non-climate observing needs of GTOS in the future.
The Technical Programs
The technical programs include the following.
