Report of the First Meeting of the GCOS/CCl Task Team on Lightning Observations for Climate Applications (TTLOCA-1) - GCOS-213

The main expectations of the meeting according to the draft Terms of references of the task team were: Identify the potentials and challenges for lightning as climate variable and propose a plan on how to establish operational monitoring of lightning for climate applications; Review and update current requirements for the Essential Climate Variable (ECV) lightning; Define standards and requirements for data management and data exchange of lightning monitoring for climate applications; Propose strategy for open data access for lightning climate applications given the dominance of the private sector in lightning monitoring; Encourage space agencies and operators of ground-based systems to provide global coverage and reprocessing of existing datasets.