Data for Environmental Monitoring and Protection: Who Can You Trust?

Most environmental problems, which had been usually thought to be local issues, tend to cross national borders and are global issues in many cases. International cooperation is inevitable to solve those problems. Global warming is one of the cases. It is not achievable to lower greenhouse gases without good networking of international cooperation. As tremendous economical burden is apparent to each country in lowering green house emissions, intergovernmental activities should be carried out with mutual trust which is built on data obtained on scientific basis.

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) has been conducting Key Comparisons to support equivalence of national measurement standards of each national metrology institutes (NMIs) to ensure world-wide uniformity of measurements and their traceability to the International System of Units (SI). The each participating NMI disseminates measurement standards to testing laboratories in the field to ensure their measurement results traceable to SI and thus make them comparable internationally. This presentation will focus on efforts paid by the International Committee of the Weights and Measures (CIPM) and NMIs to establish the global harmonization of environmental monitoring. They include key comparisons among NMIs and developments of certified reference materials. 

Recently, the CIPM and the World Meteorological Organization have agreed to work together for standardized, accurate and reliable data related to the state and the composition of atmosphere and water resources. It is one of the efforts of international harmonization based on science based measurement results in the fields of meteorology, hydrology and other related geophysical sciences. It was signed on 1 April 2010, during the WMO-BIPM Workshop on Measurement Challenges for Global Observation Systems for Climate Change Monitoring. 

The presentation will give report on the current state of the art of measurement technology used for the harmonisation of standards between metrology community and environmental monitoring sites, such as global atmosphere watch (GAW) sites. The presentation will outline scientific cooperation among international organizations for the provision of the most accurate standards which is fundamental to lower trade barriers and to promote sustainable growth of the world.