RINGO has supported the strategic goal of scientific readiness in manifold ways. It provided e.g. scientific-technical concepts for requirements of a fossil fuel observation system, for the monitoring of land-ocean carbon fluxes at pan-European scale, for standardized biomass observations in ICOS by means of ground LIDAR. These concept developments (mainly in WP1 and WP3) required in a first step thorough scientific analyses or additional experiments. The resulting scientific progress has strengthened the science within and around ICOS but has an impact beyond ICOS: it is the base for societal action to mitigate climate change. The fossil fuel observation system – as one example – has proven its reliability based on the scientific experiments made in RINGO and can now be applied in city observatories and become part of the monitoring and verification support system envisaged by the European Union.
The technological readiness is the next step in the innovation of the ICOS value chain leading finally to data and services for climate action. Once the scientific background has been thoroughly explored, the development of technical solutions for standardised, high-precision observations become next challenges for the implementation (mainly in WP3 and partly in WP1). Technical handbooks or measurement protocols e.g. for ICOS flask sampling, for high accuracy in situ vertical profile measurements, for ATC-conform atmospheric measurements of CO2 (and CH4) on Ships of Opportunity (SOOP) lines, for non-CO2 eddy covariance measurements have been provided by RINGO. They will strengthen the quality of ICOS data products.
The ICOS data life cycle needs readiness for optimizing the internal data flow and the distribution of the data according to the FAIR principles. The ICOS-internal data flow has been facing a challenge that is probably occurring in many distributed research infrastructures that have been developed out of long existing scientific communities: each domain has its own sophisticated metadata and data collection system that all have developed over the latest decennia and contain precious experience and expertise. In order to integrate them they need to agree on exchange mechanisms and the internal standards to exchange and harmonise this metadata at the central repository: the ICOS data type-registry and unified meta-database, where it is integrated as rich metadata into the ontology based triple store and exposed to the users through machine to machine and user interfaces (WP 4). Overall, RINGO strengthened the internal cooperation between Thematic Centres and Carbon Portal and increased the quality and efficiency of ICOS-internal data flows. It increased the findability and scientific usage of ICOS data and with that the overall FAIRness of ICOS data.
RINGO has taken up the challenge of ICOS being a distributed research infrastructure producing knowledge of GHG and for that needing good geographical coverage by station networks that are well distributed over the area of interest on one hand and being an administrative entity where a membership by countries in ICOS ERIC is a prerequisite for EU countries for integrating their stations into the ICOS Networks on the other. The work towards geographical readiness (mainly in WP2) comprised nine candidate countries potentially joining ICOS and with that increase the spatial coverage. The ICOS Handbook became an important tool to introduce ICOS to national stakeholder. One of the countries (Spain) joined ICOS by 1. January 2021. Several other countries may follow during the next two years. In addition, RINGO supported strategies for associate stations outside the EU/the ICOS member countries to the network.
RINGO supported many ICOS activities at the international level (Mainly in WP5). The ICOS Ocean and Ecosystem Thematic Centres fostered important steps in the further implementation of the global data bases GLODAP and SOCAT (Ocean) and FLUXNET (Ecosystem).
Organisational readiness has not explicitly mentioned in the proposal. Nevertheless, RINGO paved the way for ICOS into its long-term sustainability. Based on these efforts, it was possible to present a five-year action plan for the second commitment period (2020 -2024) to the General Assembly in May 2019. In November 2019 the General Assembly decided a funding scheme for the period 2020 – 2024. All members and observers renewed their commitment for ICOS.
