The Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate Meeting at Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf, 16-18 March, 2015 TOPC meeting in Ispra earlier this year – some highlights are given in the following VG’s. I chose to show several ECV’s with time series (parameter vs time) which makes the main point of observing variability and change over time. Most of our “change” measurements today are based on satellite records. These data sets need to be archived and registered (DO record) which is coordinated by GCOS.

Dr Jean-Francois Cretaux Membership List as of March 2015   NAME ORIGIN, COUNTRY SPECIALTY/ EXPERTISE Prof. Konrad STEFFEN Swiss Federal Research Institute, Switzerland  Ice Sheets Dr Ulrich LOOSER GRDC, Germany River discharge Dr Jean-Francois Cretaux Centre National d’’Études Spatial (LEGOS/CNES), France Climate  Prof. Shaun Quegan University of Sheffield, UK Carbon  Dr Kevin Tansey University of Leicester, UK Fire disturbance Dr Michel VERSTRAETE South African National Space Agency, South Africa Land surface processes, remote sensing Prof. Valery VUGLINSKY State Hydrological Institute of Roshydromet, Russia Lakes Prof. Wolfgang WAGNER Vienna University of Technology, Austria Soil moisture Dr Michael ZEMP University of Zurich, Switzerland Glaciers Current membership group. In future, we envision a rotation of members with 4-year appointments, and the possibility for one extension.

16 Essential Climate Variables ECV’s Biological/Ecological (6) Land cover FAPAR Leaf area index Above ground biomass Soil carbon Fire disturbance   Hydrological (5) River discharge Water use Ground water Lakes Soil moisture Cryospheric (4) Snow cover Glaciers and ice caps Ice sheets Permafrost Surface Properties (1) Albedo The summary of the EVC’s discussed in TOPC – the terrestrial parameters. One exception is the albedo which has not a fixed home

Future Challenges How to connect the different ECV’s, defining a common integrator (i.e. data set, common goal: i.e., climate variability) Accuracy requirements for time series of 10+ years, what is the trend or the variability that needs to be detected? Finding “homes” for ECV’s like ice sheets, albedo, and more Financing workshops to gather community around cross-cutting ECV’s and the definition of new ECV’s Re-activate the GTOS partnership/support – or find new supporting partners

Cryosphere and Oceans Existing ECVs Overlapping ECVs Missing ECVs Snow cover Glaciers and ice caps Ice sheets Permafrost Missing ECVs Ice shelves and ice tongues (T & O) Snow & ice albedo (T & O & A) Land-surface temperature (T & O) Land-surface radiation budget Soil temperature Lake and river ice Fingerprint of “abrupt” climate change Overlapping ECVs Sea Level (O & T ) Surface temperature (T & O) Albedo (T & O & A) Surface radiation budget (A & T & O) Are the existing ECVs adequate? How to improve coverage of the climate variables?