2.2 The GEMS Users

As illustrated in Figure 1.1, the GEMS project is driven by the needs of high-level policy users, by the needs of operational regional air-quality and environmental forecasters, by the needs of the GMES service element for information on which to base services, and by the needs of the scientific community. EU policies, directives and standardisation initiatives are taken into account. To reach the envisaged operational capabilities for atmospheric dynamics and composition, the GEMS work programme foresees the integration and the pre-operational validation of:

(1)      existing research results obtained through previous initiatives of EC, ESA, and national entities,

(2)      planned research and technological development results, as they become available, within the other relevant FP6 thematic priorities, ESA, and national entities.

Details of these aspects of the proposal are provided in later chapters. Existing national or international capabilities have been taken into account to develop synergies and provide unprecedented capabilitites in global monitoring and forecasting of atmospheric dynamics and composition.

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Figure 1.1: This schematic illustrates the flow in the GEMS project of data, information products and requirements between the Earth Observation systems (lower left), the Earth -system modelling / assimilation systems (top left), the information generation systems (centre) and the Users (right) in the areas of Policy, Regional air quality and the GMES Service Element.

The GEMS consortium consists of

1.       Ten research institutes in 8 countries providing expertise in satellite and in-situ observations for assessing / validating models, expertise in developing models and assimilations of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry & aerosol, and expertise in inversion methods to estimate sources, sinks and transports.

2.       Ten regional modelling centres in 9 countries, most with operational responsibilities for  national or regional  air-quality forecasts

3.       Two  international bodies: ECMWF, a global modelling / assimilation centre, supported by 25 European  countries, with extensive experience in exploiting  satellite and in-situ data for forecast purposes, and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the EU’s Joint Research Centre

The three categories of GEMS participants have roughly equal weight in the consortium.

This IP has direct links with its users, in the following ways:

(3)      GMES Users: The project coordinator, ECMWF, is also coordinator of the HALO specific support action charged with ensuring an effective linkage between, and smooth preparations for transition to operations, of the Atmosphere, Land (GEOLAND), and Ocean (MERSEA) Integrated Projects.

(4)      City-level and regional-level air-quality users: The GEMS regional centres are a key link in the chain of delivery - they are users of the GEMS global outputs, and they have operational responsibilities to deliver forecasts to provincial and city-level air-quality authorities.

(5)      Policy Users: Members of the GEMS consortium play a leading role in providing scientific input to policy. The GEMS greenhouse team includes influential world-leading experts (P. Ciais, M. Heimann) in the carbon community. Members of the reactive gas team (e.g., L. Tarrason) have played a leading role, through EMEP, in providing policy advice to DG-ENV and to the Convention on Long-range Transport of Air Pollution. The coordinator has been invited to join the science steering group of GCOS which provides scientific input to UNFCCC.

(6)      GMES Service Element Users: The GEMS project is establishing a close collaboration and working relationship with the ESA-funded GMES Service Element (GSE) project PROMOTE (PROtocol MOniToring for the GMES Service Element on Atmospheric Composition). GEMS will build the infrastructure to generate atmospheric composition analysis based on all available observational data sets. PROMOTE will provide services on ozone monitoring and forecasts, UV monitoring and forecast, air pollution monitoring and forecast, and Climate Change monitoring and emissions.  PROMOTE will build strong links with users of such data sets and will provide a service for access to these data sets. The PROMOTE service will be based on research and development work funded by e.g. the EC Research and Technology Development programme, and will benefit directly from the atmospheric analyses provided by GEMS.  The collaboration with the ESA GSE through PROMOTE will extend the use of the analyses produced by GEMS and will provide additional contacts with the user community consisting of public authorities, governmental agencies, scientists and the general public. The partnership between GEMS and PROMOTE will be formalised in a common memorandum of understanding, to be written in the first months of the GEMS project.

(7)      Science Users: The GEMS reanalyses, built on the success of the ERA-40 reanalyses, will be a major scientific resource, freely available for scientific research world-wide. Links with the science users are in place through G. Brasseur (chair of IGBP), A. Hollingsworth (WCRP), C. Granier and K. Law (WCRP/SPARC) and many other members of the consortium