EOSS is a European regional contribution to GLOSS. It is supported by the European Commission, under the COST programme. The agreement implementing this action was signed in Brussels in September 1996, and the programme is intended in the first instance to run for four years.
The project is intended to serve an umbrella function, allowing different European sea-level activities to be coordinated, and to promote the exchange of sea level and related data. The COST action is supported by Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. Representatives from Poland have also attended Management meetings as observers
The project is divided into five 'work packages'. Each work package has a committee of experts to implement the project goals, and these committees report to a central management committee consisting of the work package leaders and national sea level representatives. The management committee meets half yearly.
Work package 1 is concerned with height reference systems, and the fixing of tide gauge benchmarks. The work package leader is Bernd Richter from the Bundesamt für Kartografie und Geodäsie, Frankfurt. This committee is promoting the geodetic levelling of tide gauge benchmarks, primarily using GPS, and is looking into requirements for metadata to improve the accuracy of the GPS data, as well as techniques for handling 'gappy' data and data from sites with interference. Currently at least 10 tide gauges around Europe have permanent GPS systems installed. The aim is to have two receivers for each site (one at an inland reference station), and to record environmental data (at least air temperature and pressure). This data should be transmitted routinely and processed as standard EUREF stations.The European tide gauge network is to be defined in Work package 2. This is managed by Carlos Van Cauwenberghe of Afdeling Waterwegen Kust-Hydrografie, Ostend. The aim of this workpackage is to define sub-networks of the European tide gauges for the various applications defined under EOSS. This includes selection of gauges for the installation of permanent GPS, where data quality and sea level record length is an issue. For storm surge modelling (workpackage 4) a denser network may be defined, while for sea surface topography studies, for example using satellite altimetry (Work package 3), offshore gauges will be of more use.
The sea surface topography group is led by Ejo Schrama of the Faculty of Geodetic Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The aim of this group is to look at the possibility of applying satellite altimetry techniques to the smaller scales found on the continental shelf seas. Work package 4 is involved with the development of tidal models and storm surge warning systems. Interest in contributing to this package has been expressed by researchers at POL (UK), the Rijkswaterstaat (Netherlands) and the Spanish sea level authorities, who are currently developing their storm surge modelling capabilities.
Work package 5 is concerned with the storage and exchange of data. This is managed by Philip Axe, at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory. The package faces two principle challenges. The first is the agreement of international quality control and data exchange procedures with the partners in EOSS. These will be based on the guidelines set out in the GLOSS Implementation Plan, and employed at the 'delayed mode' WOCE data assembly centre (DAC). The second challenge relates to the provision of operational sea level data for the storm surge warning systems. At present in Europe, there are bilateral agreements between some countries for the real time exchange of data, and the project SEANET, supported by the European Commission's MAST programme, aims to set up an operational oceanographic monitoring system for the North Sea Basin. To extend this to the rest of Europe, albeit only for sea level, will require the development of some tidegauge networks, and the working out of mechanisms for exchange of the operational data.
For further information on EOSS, please contact Hans van der Wal, at the Rijkswaterstaat, (Netherlands) who is producing a leaflet describing the project. If you would like to contribute to one or more of the workpackages, please contact the relevant workpackage leader. Information on EOSS is available by Clicking here.