Joint COSMIC Tenth Data Users' Workshop and IROWG-6 Meeting

Since the launch of the COSMIC constellation in April 2006, nine COSMIC Data Users’ Workshops have been held for the purpose of highlighting accomplishments in the areas of RO research such as data processing, algorithm developments and science studies for weather, climate, and ionosphere applications. The 10^th COSMIC Data Users’ Workshop follows in this tradition, and aims to provide a forum for scientific discussions between the RO community and the weather, climate, and space weather communities. These discussions are crucial for maximizing the scientific opportunities provided by past, present, and future RO missions. A dialogue between the RO data provider and the data users is also important to ensure optimal use of these data for both research and operational applications.

The COSMIC-2 mission will provide a revolutionary increase in the number of atmospheric and ionospheric observations that will greatly benefit the research and operational communities. Workshop participants will be able to learn more about the status of the COSMIC-2 mission, including the data processing, data products, and scientific opportunities provided by COSMIC-2 data. Several of the topics will focus specifically on creating a bridge from the current COSMIC mission to new RO missions and will facilitate a connection between the RO community and the broader science communities.

The 10^th COSMIC Data Users' Workshop will be held jointly with the Sixth Workshop of the International Radio Occultation Working Group (IROWG-6). The IROWG-6 meetings are open to RO data users and data providers, and intend to facilitate the exchange of scientific and operational information between governmental and commercial RO data providers, the research community, and the user community.

Topical areas to be discussed during the workshop include:

• Status of RO data processing and data availability
• GPS RO retrieval improvements in the lower troposphere and upper stratosphere
• Data assimilation into numerical models - Impact studies from NCEP, ECMWF, UKMO, and other leading weather centers
• NWP model verification and improvement using RO data - improvement of micro-physical processes and parameterizations of planetary boundary layer, cloud/convection schemes, and gravity wave activity
• Climate studies with RO data - climate trend detection, climate model verification and improvement
• Ionosphere and space weather research and applications – climatology, variability, scintillation, data assimilation, and model verification
• Precise orbit determination and excess atmospheric phase processing - algorithm improvements and validation studies
• Comparisons with other sensors - including other RO missions (CHAMP, SAC-C, GRACE, TerraSAR-X, METOP/GRAS)
• Plans for future validation experiments, campaigns, or other projects in the neutral atmosphere and ionosphere
• Future occultation missions, including status updates on the COSMIC-2 mission
• Other remote sensing techniques such as GNSS reflectometry and scatterometry