Europe watches as the world goes by

Date: 03/03/05

The signing of a ten-year agreement to implement a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to co-ordinate ground and Space-based environmental systems was one of the highlights of the recent Earth and Space Week in Brussels.

Top-level delegates from more than 60 governments, 40 international organisations and all of the major Space agencies, as well as representatives from the Space industry and Earth observation scientists discussed how environmental monitoring and remote sensing could provide a better understanding of our planet and how it is changing.

Just twenty years ago, civilian observation of Earth was almost non-existent. Before it was launched in 1986, the French Spot remote sensing satellite was considered useless by many Space experts. They were proven wrong within weeks when the Spacecraft delivered the first high resolution pictures of the damaged Chernobyl nuclear plant before the disaster was officially acknowledged by Soviet authorities.

Within a few years, a handful of satellites have changed the way we see our planet, mapping the 'hole' in the ozone layer, assessing the meltdown of the ice caps, unveiling the secret dynamics of oceans and the concentration of pollutants in the air we breathe. They monitor the availability of clear water in remote areas, the extension of urban areas and the behaviour of tectonic faults.

Earth observation has become a political issue and one which will be addressed by the second joint initiative planned between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union - after the Galileo global positioning system. Proposed in 2001 and supposed to become operational by 2008, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project will set up a comprehensive network to inter-operate both dedicated European satellites and pre-existing national systems and to disseminate the data to a variety of users, including governments.

GMES is not really about building new satellites. It is more like restructuring the existing assets to improve their usability and efficiency.

It is clear that the follow-on to existing environmental monitoring systems will have to be undertaken by GMES. Once, this was seen as a blessing because it brought a diversification of financing sources. But now GMES is a major subject of concern for the science and industry community.

Technologies and technical assets to implement GMES already exist. The only remaining hurdles to overcome are organisational: who will pay for it and who will operate it? The latter question is more complex than for Galileo and the option of a single operator is likely to be ruled out rapidly. The question of budget is tricky too, as GMES will be implemented on behalf of two different departments of the European Commission. It should start under funding from the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development (2007-13) to be decided in June and will later pass to the enterprise directorate-general under Günter Verheugen.

In December, the ESA's ministerial council will also discuss its share of GMES funding in 2007-13, presumably depending on what the Commission will have proposed earlier.

It is still too early to estimate how much will be made available but the industry has already given its estimate: about €3 billion over seven years to implement the whole GMES proposal. Under the current budgetary pressure felt both by the Commission and ESA, a firm commitment to such an amount is unlikely. The date of GMES's kick-off will probably have to slip while people negotiate. Such a delay could have disastrous consequences.

The Earth's environment is an extremely complex system with intricate relations between many factors, such as wind profiles, solar radiation balance, water salinity, aerosol and chemical concentrations, sea surface temperatures, soil moisture and vegetal cover. To understand the Earth's environment you need to monitor all of these factors over a very long period of time, collecting a large amount of data to set up models and then to feed them. For the science community, continuity of measurements is paramount. For each sensor, a minimum six-month overlap is needed to ensure the coherence of data. Otherwise, previously collected data are useless.

Today, Europe's scientists rely mostly on the Envisat observatory, an eight -tonne platform carrying multiple sensors, which took 12 years and €2bn to develop. Designed for a five-year lifespan, turned three on 1 March. Its replacement is planned under GMES but each delay increases the risks that the data collected by Envisat and its predecessors will eventually become useless.

The situation is similar for other existing scientific and pre-operational systems for which no operational follow-on has yet been decided.

The issue is more strategic than it might seem. Some scientists are already opposed to new lengthy developments by industry and advocate a plan B to launch interim systems with copies of the existing sensors, which could provide continuity of data but might harm the continuity of R&D competence in the industry. Another option would make Europe rely on foreign systems, although these are sometimes operated by governments whose agendas do not match European interests. According to US President George W. Bush's team, global warming does not exist as long as it has not been firmly assessed by observation over several decades.

Technically, as long as Europe cannot collect the proper data to oppose such statements, the Americans will be right.

• Stephan Barensky is a freelance journalist and Space consultant.

Major analysis feature on space-based monitoring and navigation systems.

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