In 2003 the 1st International GPM Ground Validation Meeting was hosted by the Radio Communications Research Unit, CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at The Cosener's House in Abingdon, UK. The meeting included a scientific visit to CCLRC’s Chilbolton Observatory  in Hampshire, and was a great success thanks to those who attended.

All the presentations in pdf format can be found on the 'Programme' page.

A little over two years ago, the International GPM community held its first Planning Workshop at the University of Maryland in the Washington D.C. area.  Since then, the GPM community has grown ever stronger, most recently evidenced by the large and enthusiastic turnout for the 3rd International GPM Planning Workshop held at ESA's ESTEC facility in Noordwijk, Netherlands, in late June this year.  At this workshop, we completed the final definition phase of the internationally-organized GPM constellation mission.

Since the first workshop, the main GPM mission space element partners (NASA, NASDA, and ESA) have been in the process of completing mission formulation studies and in some cases have begun to procure space hardware and ground system elements for the upcoming mission -- which commences around 2008 time frame.  In addition, these organizations plus additional confirmed and potential partners/participants have begun planning for their specialized ground validation (GV) research projects.  

The first GPM International GV Research Programme Planning Meeting  plans to explore ways in which we can create a collaborative international GV programme that both takes advantage of the individual strengths of the separate projects, plus integrates various common GV elements that will better serve the interests of the international scientific community

As an international mission, GPM's domain of interest cuts across all climate zones, and covers both continents and oceans.  In order to develop a well-organized and integrated ground validation research program plus the accompanying global GV site network, we are requesting your attendance at this first Planning Meeting.  This first meeting will serve as a scientific forum to exchange information across the spectrum of interested participants, to define the scope of the integrated GV Research Programme, to examine conceptual and/or planned GV site templates, and to identify a preliminary and basic set of requirements for the integrated GV measurement and products programme.

The programme committee have developed an invitation list and are now developing the agenda and logistics for the workshop.  Although this is a "by-invitation only" meeting, the Programme Committee intends to be flexible if needed participants that we have overlooked are brought to our attention.  [Please note, we do not wish the meeting attendance to exceed 60 people.]

Programme Committee: 

1. John Goddard           CCLRC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
2. Carron Wilson           CCLRC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
3. Paul Hwang               NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
4. Alberto Mugnai         CNR/ISAC in Italy,
5. Kenji Nakamura        Nagoya University, Japan
6. Eric Smith                  NASA Project Scientist for GPM Mission, USA


If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact Carron Wilson or Dr Paul Hwang, or if need be, other members of the Programme Committee. 

These pages are maintained by Carron Wilson, any queries E-mail: C.L.Wilson@rl.ac.uk