READINESS OF ICOS FOR NECESSITIES
OF INTEGRATED GLOBAL OBSERVATIONS
Werner L Kutsch
ICOS ERIC Director General
and RINGO Project Coordinator

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
• funded under H2020-EU.1.4.1.1. (Developing new world-class
research infrastructures)
• EU contribution € 4 719 680 (plus Swiss co-funding)
• 28 beneficiaries plus 11 linked third parties
• Large geographical coverage
• Distribution of resources well balanced between the parts of
ICOS as a distributed research infrastructure
• 9 countries that intend to join ICOS have also been
considered
Readiness of ICOS for Necessities
of integrated Global Observations (RINGO)

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
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EU
Support
ESFRI
Process
2014201220102008 2018201620062004
ESFRI
Roadmap
Proposal
Landmark Project
Preparatory Phase
Project
ESFRI
Landmark
Evaluation
Community
building
(IP, I3, IA)
Infrastructure
development
Community building Preparation Operational
Governance
Stakeholder
Interim Committee
General Assembly
I
I
I
I
I
ESFRI
Impact
Evaluation
ERIC
Standardisation
Data infrastructure
Construction
The life cycle of a (distributed) Research
Infrastructure

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Five work packages
• WP1 Increasing the impact of ICOS
• WP2 Enhancing ICOS membership and sustainability
• WP3 Technical developments
• WP4 Improving Data
• WP5 Towards a Global Carbon and GHG observation
Readiness of ICOS for Necessities
of integrated Global Observations (RINGO)

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
RINGO paved the way for ICOS
into its second fundig phase
• strategy-based
• logic
• task-oriented
• transparent
• community-agreed

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP1 Increasing the impact of ICOS
The mission of ICOS
The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a distributed
research infrastructure operating standardized, high-precision, and
long-term observations, facilitating research to understand the
carbon cycle, providing necessary information on greenhouse gases.
ICOS-based knowledge supports policy- and decision-making to
combat climate change and its impacts. ICOS is the European pillar
of a global GHG observation system.
It promotes technological developments and demonstrations
related to GHGs by the linking of research, education and
innovation.

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Strategic goals, core activities and
impact
Core activity: observations

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Impact is improved by optimizing the
observations
ICOS RI readiness to provide information on fossil fuel emissions
There are three main aims for regular flask sampling:
1. Use flask value for comparison with trace gas components
measured in situ at the station (CO2, CH4, CO, (N2O)). This
comparison shall provide an ongoing quality control of the in
situ measurements.
2. Obtain data of components not measured continuously at
the station, such as SF6 or H2, but also stable isotopes of CO2 or
O2/N2: Here we aim at monitoring their large‐scale representative
concentration levels to allow estimating their continental fluxes
with help of inverse modelling.
3. Analysis of 14
C in CO2 to allow determining the atmospheric
fossil fuel CO2 component (ffCO2) and with help of these
observations and inverse modelling to estimate the continental
fossil fuel CO2 source strength.

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
We developed an ICOS flask sampling strategy with a tiered
approach to be implemented in the next years:
• Tier 1: Simple time triggered flask sampling strategy
• Tier 2: Direct, station internal, coupling of in‐situ analyzer and flask
sampler to allow for in‐situ triggered sampling of 14
C flasks to meet
aim 3
• Tier 3: Triggering of the flask sampler via prognostic GHG data e.g.
based on CAMS forecast.
Impact is improved by optimizing the
observations
ICOS RI readiness to provide information on fossil fuel emissions

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
86. Hammer, Samuel: Monitoring ffCO₂ emission hotspots using atmospheric ¹⁴CO₂ measurements
Impact is improved by optimizing the
observations

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
79. Miro Demol: Terrestrial laser scanning, the future of forest mensuration at ICOS
Impact is improved by optimizing the
observations

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Impact is improved by complementing the
observations RINGO provided a comprehensive concept to
integrate TCCON into ICOS

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP2 Enhancing ICOS membership and
sustainability
There are gaps in the ICOS ‘landscape’
• Geographical coverage should be improved
• 9 countries interested in joining ICOS
participate in RINGO
• 3 countries have recently stated that they
will join in short time
• Training was provided to operators of
stations and scientists
• Funding schemes (e.g. regional funds) were
explained to governments and funding
organisations.

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP3 Technical developments
93. Moreaux, Virginie: Can we see it? How in situ observation networks
may detect environmental impacts on ecosystem biogeochemistry
130. Stacey Felgate: Pan-European monitoring of land-ocean-atmosphere
carbon fluxes along the aquatic continuum
138. Huilin Chen: Comparisons of AirCore vertical profiles of greenhouse
gases from an intensive RINGO campaign at Sodankylä, Finland
352. Moreaux, Virginie: Early detection of the effects of a changing
environment on ecosystems
353. Rehder, Gregor: Making Atmopheric measurements onboard SOOPs

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP4 Improving data
• Developing metadata for ICOS RI
• Making legacy data available
• many ICOS stations have been been
operational for many years
• no standardized protocols
• no common QA/QC
• significant inter-station biases
• no standardized data processing
Re-processing of legacy data to close to ICOS
standard.
Compilation of ATM data by Michel Ramonet 
Presentation by Dario Papale on Eddy Covariance data

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP4 Improving data
383
402
426
CO2
Concentration
(ppm)

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
WP5 Towards a Global Carbon and GHG
observation system
„International Global Greenhouse
Gas Reference Network
(IGGGRN)“
„Global cooperation is key for
sustained ocean observations“
„We need an ocean carbon
moonshot!“
„Carbon-climate feedbacks at
terrestrial ecosystems need to be
observed systematically“
We need standardized, sustained
global reference networks for
systematic carbon and greenhouse
gas observations,
ideally coordinated by GCOS.

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Essential Climate Variables
ICOS feeds the
value chains
(Bakker)

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Global Climate Indicators
Where are
terrestrial
ecosystems?

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Suggestion towards GCOS (TOPC)
There should be a ECV „Terrestrial CO2 fluxes“ as stand-alone Biosphere ECV (not as a sub-
category of Anthropogenic greenhouse gas fluxes in the human dimension)
Rationale
Land sink is mainly a natural (biospheric) process that is very vulnerable to climate change and
human land management..
Standardized observations conducted by large and sustainable research infrastructures and
who also support the integration within FLUXNET.

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
ICOS, Chinaflux, Ameriflux
TERN/Ozflux Japanflux, NEON,
KoFlux… are independent RIs with
own possibilities to download data
Cooperation agreement between Ris
 data citation
 standardisation
 quality assurance / quality
checks
 technical developments
 capacity building for new
networks and sites
Agreement contains a part that we
together support FLUXNET and
provide resources
Independent stations are welcome
Fluxnet provides a global data set for
users
1
2
3
4
5
6
„Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure“ (GERI)
Towards the Ecosystem component
of a Global GHG Reference Network

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Papale (2020) https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2020-211
The FLUXNET shuttle

This project has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 730944.
Conclusions
• Support by Infrastructure Program in FP7 and H2020
has been very helpful for the development of ICOS
• Broad participation throughout the entire ICOS RI has
supported the community building
• Technical developments strengthened the innovation
and further development
• RINGO indeed improved the readiness of ICOS
• More is coming (SEACRIFOG, CoCO2) but also
‘Pilot Application in Urban Landscapes’ (PAUL)

Questions
Welcome!