1. STG/GIIPSY Data Processing Implementation Plan K. Jezek

2. Data Processing Strategy In the spirit of the IPY data acquisition phase, data processing strategy utilizes the shared resources of the international space agencies to effectively and economically process the voluminous and diverse data set. Accomplishable if the agencies can focus on specific and well defined themes. Objective is to identify the most important and unique data products from the IPY data set. Selection criteria include that the products have high scientific value, be applicable for use by policy makers and be generally exciting to the public.

3. Advantages of the Coordinated Strategy Focusing on products can help resolve some of the issues associated with releasing 'raw' data that might have commercial licensing restrictions. Distributed processing spreads the financial load across the partners. Immediate focus on distributing the most important products directly to the user/modeling community.

4. Elements of the Strategy 1.Identify the key science objectives and the associated data products (GIIPSY) 2.Seek concurrence on the plan from the STG members who will be responsible for securing resources for processing their own contributed data sets (STG members). 3.Data fusion into seamless products including development of data fusion protocols and procedures for assuring data product quality. Must include the capability for any interested members of the science community to understand all algorithms and to perform validation activities (STG and GIIPSY).

5. Steps towards IPY Product Suite STG 1 endorsed set of high level objectives SAR objectives endorsed at SAR Wkshp 1 STG endorsed the data strategy at STG-4. At SAR Workshop 3 we seek: – Science concurrence on SAR product list that follows from SAR objectives – Science concurrence on product specifications – Preliminary agreement by agencies on division of labor and a coordination plan possibly to include developing a common data base of ancillary information (DEMS, gcps, vgcps, etc). – Preliminary milestone chart leading to product delivery prior to Oslo Meeting

6. Draft SAR Data Products/Specifications

7. Other issues Local vs. distributed archives for the IPY products Product documentation Status of optical product suite