Sixth Meeting of the Steering Committee
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Sixth Meeting of the Steering Committee Saturday, October 7, 2006 | |
GGOS has organized Retreats in spring 2004, 2005, and 2006 in Nice, Potsdam, and Munich, respectively. Main focus of these retreats was on GGOS internal organization and structure, and external organizational relations. Moreover, in 2006, a GGOS Workshop takes place in October in Munich, Germany with a main focus on the GGOS2020 Strategy process. The GGOS EC sees the need to continue the sequence of spring Retreats in order to further discuss the internal organization and work of GGOS. There also is a need to progress with the GGOS2020 work after the resulting documents most likely will have been adopted during the IUGG meeting in July 2007. Therefore, it is proposed to organize a 2007 GGOS Workshop in late autumn 2007. Potentially, this might be followed by a 2008 GGOS Workshop in autumn 2008.
Considering that the previous retreats and the 2006 Workshop all took/take place in Europe, the GGOS Steering Committee might consider to convene the 2007 spring Retreat in North America.
The proposals for GGOS organization and implementation provided in Chapter 9 of the GGOS2020 document are also expected to lead to some discussion, which should be accommodated at the Retreat.
C.K. Shum has kindly offered to host the Retreat, which tentatively should take place in February or March 2007, at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
There are quite a number of other options, but in many places (e.g. Lake Tahoe), February/March will have similar cold and (for some) unpleasant weather conditions as potentially in Columbus.
Alternatively, a co-location of the retreat with a Water Cycle and GRACE Workshop planned for February 2007 in Irvine could be considered. This workshop could bring some of the SC members from Europe to North America, anyway.
The 2007 AGU Spring meeting, which is held on 22-25 May 2007, in Acapulco, Mexico, appears to be too close to the IUGG meeting, and too late in relation to the schedule of the GGOS2020 process. Moreover, co-locating a retreat with a major scientific meeting may divert interests to competing events.
The Third IGOS-P Geohazards workshop is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 6 November to Thursday, 8 November 2007, at ESRIN, Frascati, Italy. The workshop will start on Tuesday after lunch. On Friday, 9 November, the GARS and IGOS-P Joint Steering Committee (JSC) will have a business meeting. A preliminary program for the Workshop is available and can provided on request. The first two half days will be plenary meetings, then there will be three parallel working group meetings (one focusing on the observing system, where GGOS should be well represented), and finally, on Thursday, another plenary meeting.
A proposal to co-locate the 2007 GGOS Workshop with this IGOS-P Geohazards Workshop has been discussed at two meetings of the JSC. The JSC was very pleased to hear that GGOS might consider a co-location of a 2007 GGOS Workshop with the IGOS-P Workshop. A GGOS Workshop on Monday (full day) and Tuesday up to lunch was considered very synergetic, since it would allow IGOS-P participants to be at the GGOS Workshop, and also GGOS activists to be at the IGOS-P workshop. It would be desireable, to focus the GGOS Workshop particularly on geohazards during the Tuesday morning sessions. This could imply that the integration of GNSS and InSAR, which appears very relevant for geohazards, would be addressed,
In the meantime, ESA has confirmed that the GGOS Workshop can be hosted at ESRIN, and rooms for the potential GGOS workshop have been reserved. ESA and the JSC are now awaiting the decision of the GGOS Steering Committee so that the events can be announced in November 2006.
Assuming that the GGOS2020 Strategy process produces some substantial results by IUGG in July 2007, then a workshop in autumn 2007 could focus on steps towards implementation. Assuming further that GGOS2020 will recommend certain satellite missions, then a space agency is certainly the right place for a workshop. It is likely that the workshop would attract ESA participation on high level. Moreover, GEO will be represented at the IGOS-P Workshop, and the co-location might actually lead to some GEO representation at the GGOS Workshop, too.
If co-location of the GGOS Workshops with other dedicate events of related communities is considered beneficial for both GGOS and the other communities, then in 2008 the WEGENER meeting might offer an opportunity along this line. The 2008 WEGENER meeting is planned to take place in Algier, with potential dates in June or September 2008. A potential 2008 GGOS Workshop to be co-located with this WEGENER meeting and thus link these two communities better. Moreover, having a GGOS Workshop in Africa would be a clear message from GGOS with respect to it global nature.