ICOS, Integrated Carbon Observing System, a Research Infrastructure to Integrate Greenhouse Gas observations in Europe
Résumé
The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a European Research infrastructure. ICOS’s mission is to collect data for monitoring greenhouse gas fluxes over Europe and adjacent regions, and to provide the long-term observations required to quantify and to predict the behavior of the carbon cycle. ICOS builds upon the measurement networks and expertise developed under many European and national projects by a research community of more that 2000 researchers and students. ICOS received initial funding for the period 2008-2013 for the preparation of a Research Infrastructure hat will be operational in 2014 and run during the next 20 years a data collection for essential GHG variables including. The presentation of ICOS will focus 1) on the mechanisms that have enabled the agencies / networks / governments to produce work products (data products, modeling products, and sensor acquired or human acquired measurements), and 2) on strategies to enable all identified user families, to take those products into assessments and analyses of European time varying maps GHG fluxes, including information on the attribution of these fluxes to underlying human and natural drivers and policy relevant information to improve GHG inventories at regional to national scale. These mechanisms take the form of adherence to technical standards (data, measurements, calibration/validation, modelling protocols), data policies, and governance mechanisms, which may prove complex when many different research councils and ministries are involved, as in the case of the ICOS preparation.