1.1 Opening and Conduct of the Meeting
Dr Josef Cihlar opened the meeting by welcoming the participants, both members and those invited to discuss specific items. He emphasised the working nature of the meeting and the need for dealing with a number of issues. He identified the following broad objectives for the meeting:
advance the implementation (and improvement) of terrestrial networks;
facilitate progress and coordination of demonstration projects;
lay the foundations for terrestrial C cycle theme definition: strategy, initial draft;
advance the definition of GTOS non-climate observation requirements;
develop guidelines for national reporting on terrestrial climate-related observations;
understand and review health-related observation requirements;
begin to write the meeting report.
1.2 Approval of the Agenda
Dr Cihlar reviewed the draft agenda distributed prior to the meeting. In view of the many issues to cover, it became necessary to have parallel breakout groups dealing with more than one topic. Thus, the agenda was re-organised to cover presentations relevant to the subsequent breakout discussions. Dr Cihlar also explained that further changes may be necessary depending on the travel schedule of some participants and other commitments, including presentations at the IUGG Conference that took place in parallel. With these changes the participants adopted the agenda (see Appendix 2).
