OVERSEAS VISIT REPORT

CEOS WGCV-16
India - February 2000

Ian Barton, CSIRO Marine

Itinerary

21-22 February Hobart – Bangalore
23-25 February CEOS-WGCV-16 Meeting
26-27 February Bangalore - Hobart

Meeting Report

An agenda of the meeting is attached.

The full minutes of the meeting will be available in due course and posted on the WGCV WWW site. The Australian report to the Working Group Meeting is now available at the same site. (http://wgcv.ceos.org).

Notes recorded during the meeting are attached below. Items of direct interest to Australian institutes are recorded here.

Pertinent Points

  1. Yves-Louis Desnos from ESA/ESRIN has nominated to take over the Chair of the WGCV from later in the year.
  2. Establishment of a new sub-group on land product validation has been delayed until interactions with the current IVOS sub-group are established. Alan Belward is to host a meeting at JRC Ispra in May to more clearly define the roles of the two sub-groups. Suggestions at the meeting included the replacement of IVOS with this new group, the merging of the two sub-groups, and to have a sub-group on calibration (IVOS) and a sub-group on validation (the new sub-group).
  3. The discussions on traceability resulted in the formation of a small team to produce a draft report by July 1. This would then be passed to the full WGCV membership for comment and additions. The idea is to have a near-final report by the next meeting so that a final report would be finished by Plenary (November 2000)
  4. Contact was made with A Shukla and he said he would contact Ross Mitchell to discuss collaboration on land test sites.
  5. I had a long discussion with B. Gohil and we agreed to collaborate in a comparison of water vapour estimates from different satellite instruments. He has undertaken a comparison of SSMI and MSMR water vapour estimates and this could be expanded to test ATSR-derived WV.
  6. The next SAR sub-group meeting will be in Japan early in 2001.

Summary

Further details of the meeting are available on request. The support of the CSIRO EOC to attend this meeting is acknowledged.

CEOS WGCV 16

Indian Space Research Organisation Headquarters
23 - 26 February 2000

Agenda

Wednesday, 23 February 2000

Morning

Registration from 09.30 am

  1. Welcome from the Indian Space Research Organisation
  2. WGCV Chair’s report (Alan Belward)
    1. Report from 13th Plenary
    2. IGOS update and status report
    3. Action items from WGCV 15
  3. Reports from Subgroups
    1. SAR Calibration (Yves-Louis Desnos)
    2. Microwave Sensors (Elena Lobl)
    3. Infrared and Visible Optical Sensors (Christopher Mutlow)
    4. Terrain Mapping (Ian Dowman)
    5. Validation of Land Surface Parameters (tbd)

    Afternoon

  4. Report from WGISS: activities and services (Alan Belward)
  5. WGCV Action Plan Review
    1. Communication with the Community
    2. CEOS Communication
    3. Test Site Dossier
    4. Community Education and Outreach
    5. Validation Pilot Projects
  6. Future WGCV Chair

    Thursday 24 February 2000

    Morning

  7. Technical Tours: Visit to ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) and Regional Remote Sensing Service Centre (RRSSC)

    Afternoon

  8. Special Session: Traceability
    1. Setting the scene: What do we mean by traceability? (Nigel Fox)
    2. Evidence of need: Views of the CEOS Members (Round-table discussion: the views of all CEOS Members represented in WGCV are welcomed and expected)
    3. Evidence of need: Perceptions of the National Standards Institutes (NIST, NPL,.)
    4. Discussion of identification of common issues and practical steps forward (Alan Belward to chair)
    5. Discussion of possible elements of a strategy: Methods of demonstrating traceability; best practice; organisational structure and community support (Alan Belward to chair)
    6. Possible report structure and actions (Alan Belward to chair)

    Friday 26 February 2000

    Morning

  9. Eleven presentations from ISRO scientists. See Notes below for names and topics

    Afternoon

  10. Country Reports not previously distributed
  11. Summary
    1. Summary
    2. Review of action items
    3. Recommendations and reporting to Plenary
  12. Date and place of next meeting
  13. Close of meeting

WGCV#16 Notes ISRO HQ 23-25 February 2000

23 February

1000 - Welcome by Mr K R Sridhara Murthy ISRO

1010 – Mr V Jayaraman Welcome

1015 - Response by Alan Belward

1020 - Report on CEOS Plenary IGOS-P now on a firm base

1105 - Action items

1115 - Reports from Sub-Groups

Recommendations - heaps

Targets and processes – international standards
Coordination
Archived data should be made available
Permanent validation site required
CEOS standards for image compression
Calibration problems with archived data sets. Tools should be made available with the data
Tools to predict useful baseline info 3 days ahead
Encourage Fundamental Studies
Establishment of task force for POL-INSAR image techniques
Agencies to develop Phase Preserving Processed Products for SCANSAR modes of future and present systems.
Use of standardised radar cross-section models
SAR image ambiguity requirement needs to be properly assessed
Low-frequency SAR usefulness and feasibility needs to be documented
Low-frequency SAR – demonstrate capabilities and compatibilities
3 recommendations on speckle filtering
ENVISAT ASAR to select optimal channels
ENVISAT ASAR to cover global land twice each year – to allow interferometry
Use of rain forest for relative and absolute reference
Data formats to be clearly promulgated

Suggestions for future CEOS WGCV SAR Sub-group meetings

No overlapping sessions
Tutorial sessions of 20 minutes to identify current problems
Poster presenters allowed 5 minutes for advertising
More time for round-table discussions
CEOS Bookshelf should be expanded CEOS meetings

Next SAR Sub-group meetings

NASDA 2001, DLR 2002, CSA 2003 (TBC)

1230 - Other Sub-Groups

1400 - Three-Year Work Plan

END OF DAY ONE

24 February

0830 -Technical tours to ISRO Satellite Center and Bangalore RRSSC

1300 - End of tours

1400 - Special Session: Traceability

1710 - END OF DAY TWO

25 February

1000 - ISRO Presentations

  1. Overview of ISRO Program and Plans (V. Jayaraman)
  2. Remote Sensing Applications (D. Dhadwal)
  3. Crop monitoring – acreage and yield estimates (D. Dhadwal)
  4. Ocean applications (V. Agarwal)
  5. Ocean colour (B. Chauhan)
  6. Snow/Ice cover (A. Kulkarni)
  7. Aerosol characterisation (M. Mohan)
  8. MSMR data validation (B. Gohil)
  9. ISRO Cal/Val sites (A Shukla)
  10. IRS-1C and IRS-1D comparisons (S. Kumar)
  11. Microwave sensor cal/val (Ms Misra)

Notes 1. B Gohil presented inter-comparisons between MSMR and SSMI for water vapour estimates over the ocean. He will be willing to provide some data to test the ATSR water vapour estimates.

  1. Ross Mitchell (CAR) had asked me to look out for A. Shukla to reaffirm interest in their use of cal sites. I suggested that he look at Ross’ WWW site on CalWatch. Shukla will contact Ross next week.

1400 - Country reports. These are all on the CEOS WGCV WWW site. The only presentation was a brief report from Norway. This report would also be on the WWW site.

1430 - Wrap-up Session

Review of Action Items: The list of action items was reviewed and agreed.

Recommendations: These would be finalised at WGCV#17 which would be held just before the CEOS Plenary in November.

Confirmation of New Chair. The meeting confirmed that Y-L Desnos would be put forward as the new Chair for a period of not less than 3 years. This appointment is subject to the necessary approval by CEOS Plenary.

Next Meeting: To be hosted by NISR and NASA and held in Gaithesburg, near Washington DC in the week 23-27 October 2000. It was expected that several sub-groups would also hold meetings during that week. Note that these dates are a change from the previous week due to a clash with the ESA ENVISAT Symposium to be held 16-20 October, 2000.

1500 - Meeting closed

Attendees: