Over the last 10 years significant efforts have been made to establish an Integrated Global Carbon Observing System (IGCO) to provide insight into the behaviour of the carbon cycle and its interaction with climate, the water cycle and nutrient cycles. Following the 2nd Carbon from Space workshop in Oxford and the publication of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Carbon Strategy (Ciais et al., 2010, 2014), the space agencies, coordinated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), have published a response setting out the high level requirements needed to contribute observations from Space to the Integrated Global Carbon Observing System (CEOS, 2014). This document, aims to address the establishment of appropriate and effective institutional arrangements for realisation of the space component of the IGCO in the context of complementary (non-satellite) observations, modelling and supporting climate observations. It also identifies the activities and infrastructure required to make effective use of satellite observations and provides a framework for monitoring, reporting and communicating progress towards implementation of the space component of IGCO.



To explore mechanisms for implementation of the CEOS and GEO recommendations, in collaboration with the Global Carbon Project, the European Space Agency (ESA) is convening the 3rd Carbon form Space workshop bringing together the EO, climate and Earth system science communities addressing the carbon cycle to define a concrete work plan of research and development activities to guide ESA and other space agencies and institutions to respond to the requirements for observations and their exploitation in the time frame 2017-2021.