The UK Space Agency hosted a workshop in London, UK, from 9 to 11 September 2019. The aim of this international workshop was to bring together experts from space agencies, industry, academia, and policy makers, to quantify the benefits and consequential specifications of a space-based climate observing system along with a roadmap to implementation.

Recent years have seen an increasing urgency from international coordinating bodies such as CEOS, WMO-GSICS, GCOS, climate researchers, and policy makers to establish a space-based climate observing system capable of unambiguously monitoring indicators of change in the Earth's climate, as needed for international mitigation strategies such as the 2015 Paris climate accord. Such an observing system requires the combined and coordinated efforts of the world's space agencies.

Workshop discussion topics included:

• Potential scientific and economic benefits,
• The state-of-the-art in establishing traceability in orbit: current technologies, methods, and missions (e.g. CLARREO and its Pathfinder, TRUTHS, and Chinese and Indian counterparts)
• New observation and climate-sensitivity detection capabilities and concepts

Visit the workshop website to learn more about the event.