Polar Environment Services
During the Consolidation Phase two consortia, The Northern View and ICEMON were dedicated to providing Earth Observation (EO) derived information about the Earth’s northern region – a hemisphere from the North Pole to the southern extent of arctic sea ice and icebergs. These programs confirmed that there is a significant need for this information that is currently not being met. Therefore these two teams merge as one in a network known as Polar View to address the Polar Environment Services GSE portfolio.
The Polar View team is unprecedented and is likely the strongest and most comprehensive team in the world of polar EO experts. With the exception of participants who are exclusively end users, each Polar View Team Member will be sub-contacted by the Prime, C-CORE. Participants whose role is exclusively that of an end user are not paid, but Polar View will have non-monetary contracts with them in the form of Service Level Agreements. Polar View has participants from Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden United Kingdom and Iceland. A related extension of the contract will expand that team to include Denmark, Italy, Russia and the United States. The Polar View team brings the following strengths to this project:
- The best of the operations from two previous GSE consortia;
- A history of providing operational EO services in northern environments;
- Experience with northern policy and northern user groups;
- Expertise in EO technology and applications;
- Expertise in northern science and technology; and
- An international consortium of experts, service providers, and end users.
Services
The Polar View service portfolio has evolved to meet those key information needs of northern stakeholders that can be addressed with EO data.
The nine baseline services are:
- Iceberg monitoring
- Sea ice floe edge service
- River ice monitoring
- Glacier monitoring
- High-resolution ice charts
- Sea ice thickness charts
- Global sea ice monitoring
- Met-ice-ocean regional forecasting
- Routine oil spill monitoring (Canada only)
These services are designed to address a myriad of northern policies, as well as general policies on sustainable development, environmental protection, maintenance of traditional ways of life, and safety of life at sea as they apply to northern regions.
There are many relevant national, European and international policies. Polarview is involving 22 national users (mainly governmental), one European (EEA) and one international (International Ice Patrol).
Functionally, Polar View will be a highly integrated network of regional nodes structured somewhat like a multi-national corporation. This Baseline Polar View structure has nodes for the Baltic (land and sea ice), Europe and Russia (the Euro-Artic Node), and North America. Expansion of the service network would lead to the establishment of an Antarctic node aimed at providing navigational support to scientific missions and commercial shipping.
User Feedback & Involvement
There are many relevant national, European and international policies. The Polar View delivers a wide range of services to policy makers, public bodies, and non-governmental organizations who formulate, implement and evaluate public policies relating to the environment and security in the north at local, national, regional, international and global levels. The project not only provides end-users with the information they require, but also enables them to become key players in the move from present generation EO satellites to future systems that will deliver vital information on global environmental and security issues.
The primary growth engine will be expanding geographically and attracting new users. The goal for the first year of Polar View operation is to increase the number of “targeted users” and to expand the geographic coverage into three new areas. A new area is obviously a region where the service isn’t presently being provided, but this expansion must also lead to new end users.
Future Visions
The long-term objectives of Polar View are to:
- Provide a suite of EO related services and products to governmental users;
- Provide additional EO related services and products to industrial users;
- Engage a wide spectrum of end users in recognizing the value of the service and products; and
- Generate revenues from the provision of services to sustain Polar View
Complementary projects – EC/National
Although Polar View is an international network, it will have the appearance, function and convenience a single entity with user friendly services e.g. website with access to the entire network, a dedicated telephone operator to direct callers to the appropriate component of the network.
Polar View will have formal alliances and partnerships with other groups such as: Domain Experts, Value Adding Companies, Other agencies and consortia and Complementary initiatives such as:
- EUROPOLAR
- Other GSE consortia
- CEON
- OSI - SAF
- GRIP (Government Research Initiatives Program);
- I-STOP (Integrated Satellite Tracking of Pollutors);
- Polar Epsilon (Canadian Defense Initiative for Northern Monitoring)
- International Polar Year
- GEOSS
The Northern Dimension in the external and cross-border policies of the European Union focuses on the EU’s relations with North-west Russia, the Baltic Sea region and Arctic Sea region. The Northern Dimension addresses the specific challenges and opportunities in those regions and aims to strengthen cooperation between the EU and its member states, the northern countries associated with the EU (Norway and Iceland) and the Russian Federation. The Northern Dimension is intended to promote security and stability in the region, as well as helping build a safe, clean and accessible environment. As part of the development of policies in this region, five key areas of focus have been identified:
- Economy, business and infrastructure (including transport safety and energy)
- Human resources, education, culture, scientific research and health
- The environment, nuclear safety, and natural resources
- Cross-border cooperation and regional development
- Justice and home affairs
The Commission has a Northern Dimension Action Plan, the 2nd of which was adopted at the European Council in Brussels in October 2003. The next main event under this policy line will be the meeting of Ministers which is planned to be held in the UK under its Presidency during August 2005.
The Northern Dimension does not benefit from any ring-fenced budgets but coordinates existing budget lines (such as TACIS and TENs). The Polar view services are of specific relevance to several of the ND priorities, including transport safety, energy and the environment. The objective in the short term will be to raise the profile of Polar View with the Northern Dimension staff in DG External Relations and to investigate the potential for support towards long term sustainable funding.
The EU Framework Programme provides underpinning funding for research and development. The Aeronautics and Space programme contains specific actions on GMES aimed at supporting research infrastructure and improving capabilities in specific environmental fields. The majority of the funds in the 6th FP have now been committed through integrated projects in Land, Atmosphere and Ocean domains. The latter project, MERSEA involves several potential Polar View partners who will ensure that maximum synergy is derived from the execution of Polar View and FP6 activities. It should be remembered however, that the Framework programme funds research, and not long term operational service delivery. Thus our focus for future sustainability will not be on continuous funding from the Framework programme.
