Architecting next 30 years of climate monitoring from space with instructive examples from NPOESS and GCOS plus new rule-based decision tools - suggesting and promoting global collaborative paths forward. (Part V)

摘要

Collecting the earth's critical climate signatures over the next 30 years is an obvious priority for many world governments and international organizations. Implementing a solution requires bridging from today's scientific missions to 'operational' constellations that are adequate to support the future demands of decision makers, scientific investigators and global users for trusted data. In earlier authored efforts, time was spent parsing out 'operational' constellation components (lite review below). This paper will focus on contrasting architectural alternatives from historically different perspectives. First, the heavily securitized NPOESS architecture, while undone by requirements growth and collaborations that were not sustained; but an instructive (ambitious) constellation construct to learn from with its targeted collection of environmental parameters (starting in 1994). Second, examining the requirements of earth climate observations identified by GCOS (2006) in ECV's (essential climate variables) measured from space-based sensors with global coverage and sufficient quality to ensure the needs of major global & international organizations (UNFCCC & IPCC). Third, how the application of a rule-based decision engine thesis (2012)~([17]) can improve the architectural trades of earth observation satellite systems, allowing comparison(s) to existing architectures and gaining insights for recommendations to global architectures (assessing the value of alternatives and effectively exploring the trade space) and would offer the global community. These converged architecture discussions are instructive based on the time when they occurred, and their refinement of environmental & climate variables and associated trade space(s). The examples of required environment parameters, leads into essential climate variables and becomes a critical part the knowledge domain space for a new rule based decision architecting tool that can iterate an optimized best value constellation solution as its goal. The process of discovering new architectural alternatives reinforces the necessity for international collaborative efforts and elicits identification by and responses from key stakeholders.