CARGO-ACT — Cooperation and AgReements enhancing Global interOperability for Aerosol, Cloud and Trace gas research infrastructures

The goal of CARGO-ACT is to deliver a clear roadmap for sustainable global cooperation between key ground-based aerosol, cloud and trace gas research infrastructures, each having invested in infrastructure and services to support their observing networks with a long-term perspective, with a view to consolidating into a sustainable global research infrastructure in the future. There is a strong desire for global integration from the research community, including weather, climate, and air quality monitoring and modelling, and in particular from space agencies, since global networks of ground-based observations are an essential component complementing Earth Observation from space, providing calibration and validation of the remote sensing information collected by current and future satellite missions. The integration of the current ground-based networks, which may have different interests and priorities, requires cooperation and agreements at the global level, including engagement with relevant stakeholders. Their service provision is not limited to data services, but includes access to the measurement facilities, reference instruments, reference standards and laboratories, all of which are topics to be assessed in CARGO-ACT. The specific objectives of CARGO-ACT are to, develop sustainable partnerships and decision making processes with relevant partners, demonstrate the benefits of converging interoperability and standards to stakeholders and the global research community, establish the mechanisms for providing international access to distributed research infrastructures and develop a roadmap for upscaling towards an integrated global research infrastructure for aerosol, cloud and trace gases.