Launch of Global Aerosol-Cloud-Precipitation Observation Network (GAOnet) was declared at ANSO Atmospheric Observation Network Side Meeting which was held by Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM), one of HFIPS institutes, during the first annual meeting of the Atmospheric Environmental Remote Sensing Society (AERSS) with a goal to network a global atmospheric observation sites for climate change and environment research.
Based on the current observational sites previously set up in Asia and Asia-Europe junction area, the GAOnet is to expand its observation scope to South America and Indian Ocean islands. The plan-to-build observational network is a global distributed ground-based sites obtaining synergistic data of atmospheric parameters, like aerosol extinction coefficient vertical distribution, cloud cover, height and type, and precipitation by automatic optical instruments to offer scientific support for climate change and environment studies.
ANSO is a non-profit, non-governmental international scientific organization founded in 2018 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 36 other international science and education institutions from around the world. In fact, the current observational sites were built under the support of ANSO collaborative research program and has so far the capability to cover a large area of across 90 degrees longitude and 25 degrees latitude at the Asia and Asia-Europe junction. The observation was realized jointly by five sites, namely, Hefei, Beijing, Tomsk, Moscow and Minsk, equipped with AIOFM homemade instruments all of which are powerful tools with much smaller size, lighter weight, and easy-maintenance to observe atmospheric parameters in an automatic and long duration manner.
The AIOFM researchers won’t stop where they were. In fact, they want to advance their work further. So, we will have a broader one.
During the latest AERSS first annual meeting, they held the side meeting calling for ramping up the current observational network to make it go further and broader, especially from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern.
To further verify the idea, an intensive and extensive discussion based on series of academic report concerning current sites operation, technology and instruments applied globally in atmospheric observation led all experts attending the side meeting to a consensus of building a broader observation network by adding more ground-based sites in Southern Hemisphere. GAOnet committee was also founded to steer the establishment.
To address the environment-related issues globally, especially to target at Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations, international collaboration is in need. Besides GAOnet, during the first annual meeting of AERSS, Declaration on Data and Application Cooperation Based on BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation (Wuhan Declaration) was reached advocating collaboration in providing data support for agriculture, ecological conservation and disaster reduction in involving countries.
Sky view camera at the Beijing Observational site (Image by the team)
Group photo at the ANSO Atmospheric Observation Network Side Meeting (Image by the team)