6th ICOS Germany Annual Meeting held in Braunschweig

Germany held its Annual Meeting at the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Braunschweig from 13th to 14th June 2018.

Main topics were the current status of stations’ and laboratory operability as well as collaboration and participation within joint projects and other research infrastructures. Participants included principal investigators, researchers, students and stakeholder delegates. Further discussions focussed on future strategies for greenhouse gas observations and funding opportunities.

With the construction of the stations and laboratories almost completed and the station labelling well under way there was plenty of time for scientific discussions about new data from the stations and laboratories and about the role of the ICOS infrastructure in a European and global context.
A particular focus was on the cooperation of ICOS with other international research infrastructures on environmental observations. Remote sensing observations and in situ ground based data as collected by ICOS were identified as complementary parts of a comprehensive strategy to verify GHG emission inventories, which will also need a strong inverse modelling and data assimilation component. The stakeholders encouraged the participating scientists to visualise in an easily understandable way what kind of novel information for science and policy ICOS is able to provide as soon as the infrastructure is completed and in operational mode.