The 5th edition of the IESWG meeting will be hosted at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, FMI Finland 26-28 Sep 2023.  Previous editions are linked here (for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th).

The International Earth Surface Working Group (IESWG) was established to help gather requirements specific to surface observations and to enhance both our understanding and ability to monitor the components of the Earth system including land, vegetation, snow, ice, and coastal and open waters.  The IESWG plenary sessions will be focused on preparing our recommendations and input to the CGMS WGII. Below the program.

Topics of particular focus included Earth Observations research & operational applications involving:

•     Snow, ice, and cryosphere-atmosphere interactions
•     Vegetation and land-atmosphere fluxes
•     Soil moisture, river-discharge, and water cycle

IESWG 2023 Co-Chairs: Dr. Ben Ruston (JCSDA) and Dr. Gianpaolo Balsamo (ECMWF).

Newly-elected IESWG Co-Chairs: Dr. Clara Draper (NOAA) and Dr. Gianpaolo Balsamo (ECMWF). Newly-elected Rapporteur to CGMS: Dr. Ben Ruston (JCSDA).

Program of the IESWG-5 (2023) the 5th International Earth Surface Working Group Physical Meeting at Dynamicum, Erik Palménin aukio 1, 00560 Helsinki, Finland. On-Line Meeting on MS-Teams link valid for the 3-Day meeting. IESWG 2023: Onsite participants at FMI IESWG 2023: Onsite participants at FMI IESWG Social - Dinner in Helsinki, Zetor IESWG 2023: Online participants (1) IESWG 2023: Online participants (1)
IESWG Program	Time (Helsinki local time, UTC+3)	Name (* - onsite confirmed participants)	Organization	Session	Title of Contribution
Day-1 Tuesday 26 Sep 2023	0900 - 0930	Gianpaolo Balsamo* & Ben Ruston*	ECMWF/UCAR/JCSDA	IESWG coordination	Welcome, IESWG recognised as CGMS WG.
	0930 - 1000	Ali Arslan*	FMI	IESWG host	FMI Introduction
	1000 - 1030	Xiwu Zhan	NOAA NESDIS	Land Surface Tempererature and its use in Assimilation and Model Development	Land Surface Satellite Data Products from NOAA NESDIS for Numerical Weather and Water Prediction Models and Societal Applications
	1030 - 1100				Health Break
	1100 - 1130	Abigail Waring*	University of Leicester/NCEO	Land Surface Tempererature and its use in Assimilation and Model Development	Improving Ice Surface Temperature Observations from Space: Regional Climate Trend Analyses for Aqua MODIS Ice Surface Temperatures & Progress Towards a Merged Product
	1130 - 1200	Zied Sassi*	CNRM	Land Surface Tempererature and its use in Assimilation and Model Development	Assimilation of IASI retirieved LST in the surface analysis sustem of ARPEGE global model
	1200 - 1330				Lunch
	1330 - 1400	Clara Draper*	NOOA/OAR	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Improving land-atmosphere DA coupling in NWP
	1400 - 1430	Sophie Marimbordes*	Météo-France	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Towards a 2DEnVar approach to surface analysis within AROME-France
	1430 - 1500	Camille Birman*	Météo France	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Recent and ongoing developments in surface data assimilation for NWP at Météo France
	1500 - 1530	Ewan Pinnington	ECMWF	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Towards Ensemble Land Data Assimilation at ECMWF
	1530 - 1600				Health Break
	1600 - 1630	Cristina Charlton-Perez*	Met Office	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	A review of current Met Office LSDA systems
	16:30-17:30	All	Plenary	Summary of Day 1	Recommendations drafting
Day	Time	Name	Organization	Session	Title of Contribution
Day-2 Wednesday 27 Sep 2023	0900 - 0930	Samantha Pullen*	Met Office (UK)	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Planning a new JEDI-based land surface DA system for the Met Office
	0930 - 1000	Gernot Geppert*	DWD	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Progress towards new variational surface analyses at DWD
	1000 - 1030	Patricia de Rosnay	ECMWF	Land Data Assimilation Methods, LDAS systems, and Coupled DA	Coupled land-atmosphere data assimilation at ECMWF (slides)
	1030 - 1100				Health Break
	1100 - 1130	Keiichi KONDO	Japan Meteorological Agency	Land Water Cycle Advances	Impact of microwave radiance assimilation over land using dynamic emissivity in the global NWP system of JMA
	1130 - 1200	Martin Lange	DWD	Land Water Cycle Advances	Recent modifications in global Snow observation network
	1200 - 1300*   Please note the UPDATED program				Lunch
	1300 - 1330	Pete Weston*	ECMWF	Land Water Cycle Advances	Assimilation of VOD products into the ECMWF land data assimilation system
	1330 - 1400	Indira Rani S	NCMRWF	Land Water Cycle Advances	Validation of in-situ soil parameters over India
	1400 - 1430	Li Fang	NOAA NESDIS	Land Water Cycle Advances	All-sky Evapotranspiration Data Products from Satellite Observations for Taiwan Weather Models and Agricultural Drought Monitoring
	1430 - 1500	Darren Ghent	University of Leicester	Land Surface Tempererature and its use in Assimilation and Model Development	Land Surface Temperature CCI: approaches to long-term data for climate
	1500 -1530				Health Break
	1530 - 1600	Yijian Zeng*	ITC Faculty, University of Twente	Land Water Cycle Advances	Understanding Drought Response of Ecosystems with a Soil-Plant Digital Twin
	1600 - 1630	Hui Lu	Tsinghua University	Land Water Cycle Advances	Diagnosis and improvement of land surface models based on remote sensing
	1630 - 1700	Sujay Kumar*	NASA	Land Water Cycle Advances	Non-stationarity in the global terrestrial water cycle and its interlinkages in the Anthropocene assessed by land data assimilation
	17:00-17:30	All	Plenary	Summary of Day 2	Recommendations & Action first draft
Day	Time	Name	Link		Title of Contribution
Day-3 Thursday 28 Sep 2023	0900 - 1030	All	IESWG-2023 Survey outcome for Land Data Assimilation Systems IESWG-2023 Survey outcome for new Physiography		Presentation of the survey of current Land Data Assimilation Systems (LDAS)  Preparation of the survey of new Physiography
	1100 - 1200	All + Ben/Gp	IESWG Minutes & Actions doc		Actions and Recommendation to bring forward to CGMS, election of IESWG chairs/rapporteur.
	1200				Adjourn

The International Earth Surface Working Group (IESWG) has been conducted as a hybrid meeting with 2 full days of presentations and discussions on 26-27 September 2023, and a final day on the 28 September 2023 for plenary, actions and outcomes. 22 Talks and about 50 Participants have contributed to the exciting program of the 2023 edition. Next meeting is foreseen to take place in Spring 2025 indicatively in Asia (Japan) with dates and venue to be confirmed.

Important links: The IESWG is running a Survey on Global/Regional Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) at this link https://forms.gle/KfBYH4FiA29zm1Xr9. The Presentations and discussion material for the 3-day meeting have been gathered in these folders: 

• Day-1
• Day-2
• Day-3