1. Action No.ActionResponsibleDue Date 37.12 VLab Co-chairs to discuss with VLab sponsoring agencies the funding of the Technical Support Officer (TSO) position from 2010 onwards. Status: INPE paid the TSO´s salary from November 2009 to January 2010 NOAA / CIRA committed funding of the TSO for 2010 Volker, LuizCGMS-38 37.14 WMO to continue dialogue with ISRO regarding the establishment of a CoE and the co-sponsoring of the CoE in Oman. Status January 10: CoE in Oman sent a letter to IMD on 26 Dec 2009 WMO, Space Program CGMS-38 37.15 VLab Co-chairs and WMO to seek an agreement between CGMS, COMET and WMO with a view of using ESRC as a resource library for the VLab. Status: VLMG members have been invited to register and test the functionalities of the ESRC until June 2010 (ref. Action VLMG5.03) Volker, Luiz, Jerome CGMS-38 37.16 The Co-chairs, in consultation with the WMO Space Programme and other relevant WMO Departments, to prepare a roadmap towards widening the scope of VLab activities to serve the needs of emerging scientific communities in the developing countries. This roadmap will be reviewed by VLMG and presented to CGMS-38 for approval. Status: Communication process started with the WMO Research Department (L. Barrie) Volker, Luiz, Jerome CGMS-38 Widening the Scope of the VLab At CGMS-37 the Vlab got the following actions:

2. At VLMG-3 the Group stated: In considering the future growth and direction of the VLab the Co-Chair suggested that the group should take account of the nine GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) in their future plans. It was felt already at that time that the Vlab can contribute to almost all of the SBAs, which are: · Agriculture · Biodiversity (??) · Climate · Disasters · Ecosystems · Energy · Health · Water · Weather Widening the Scope of the VLab

3. The Vlab Strategy states: Widening the Scope of the VLab Building upon the currently available expertise within the VL network, training activities should first focus upon the following topics: (i)Satellite Remote Sensing (ii) Meteorology (iii) Climate (iv) Hydrometeorological and other natural disasters Where satellite observations are of benefit, and there is a user requirement, then the focus of Vlab activities could be widened to support training related to: (v) Ocean applications (vi) Land applications (vii) Hydrology and water management (viii) Atmospheric chemistry, air quality (ix) Environmental quality Applications and Service based training will increasingly involve the use of satellite data in combination with other data sets such as weather radar, NWP, lightning, precipitation, land information, etc., and may well be carried out in partnership with other Institutes where the relevant expertise exists.

4. During last year some of the Vlab partners have started to develop a training course for ‘Marine Forecasters. This was initiated by Stan Wilson (NOAA) and supported by EUMETSAT. A first training event took place in Oostende (Belgium) in December 2009 at the premises of the "International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange" (IODE) of the "Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission" (IOC) of UNESCO. Following this event another one is in the planning stage for March 2011. This time NOAA, EUMETSAT and CPTEC/INPE are the partners. Again IODE will participate, either in the event in Brazil or as a backup host. This activity shows that partners of the Vlab frame network have joined to embark on training another related community. This can serve as a model to open the Vlab for additional training activities using the same approach and methodology as for the core training. Widening the Scope of the VLab

5. During last year some discussions have taken place between EUMETSAT and the Spanish Met. Service AEMET to investigate how EUMETSAT can help in the training activities for the WMO dust Monitoring project SDS-WAS (www.wmo.int/sdswas) where they are the host for the "NODE for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe"www.wmo.int/sdswas The Asian node for SDS-WAS is hosted by CMA in Beijing. JMA is also a contributor. In the meantime the Met. Service of Oman has expressed an interest to support the SDS-WAS project as a training entity as well. Oman being already a Centre of Excellence in the Vlab can play a strong support role for SDS-WAS. The co-operation in support of SDS-WAS is also offering a good opportunity to get the research community close to the Vlab training approach. On the WMO side three directorates are involved with this (Space Program, Research and development and Training). Widening the Scope of the VLab

6. In 2009 a joint training activity on Land Surface Applications had been jointly held between CPTEC/INPT and EUMETSAT in Brazil with involvement of experts from the EUMETSAT Land Surface Application Facility (SAF). The same course was re-delivered later in the same year (November 2009) in Mozambique for Portuguese Speaking Countries in Africa. It is considered to translate the material into French and re-deliver the course again in West Africa (Niamey ??) in 2011. Including a special chapter on dust training. Widening the Scope of the VLab