The project of "Earth Observation for Global Change Sensitive Variables: Mechanisms and Methodologies" passed expert acceptance review in Beijing on October 10. As a project of the 973 Program (National Basic Research Program ), it is jointly undertaken by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of CAS，the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of CAS, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of CAS, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of CAS, Wuhan University, Ocean University of China and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The meeting was chaired by Academician GUO Huadong, chief scientist for the project. He made a brief report on the project, which covered the key scientific issues expected to be solved by the project, the project’s scientific objectives, setting of research subjects and relations among such subjects, academic frame of the project, and the overall implementation plan for the project, etc.

Academician XU Guanhua pointed out in his speech that while global change is drawing wide attention from the international community, China is increasingly enhancing its support for the research in this field. He expressed his hope that the project team will stay more concentrated on the scientific issues of the project during the summary and acceptance phase, and that greater achievements will be made in innovation.

At the meeting, the acceptance review expert panel composed of 16 experts appraised the project through discussion. All the experts agreed that the project has scored important achievements over the past 5 years, and hoped that the team will extend their research scope based on the project by standing at a higher starting point, and make more innovative contributions to the State.

The project of "Earth Observation for Global Change Sensitive Variables: Mechanisms and Methodologies" was launched in 2009. As the nation’s first “973” project for the study of global change, it is pioneering and prospective in nature. Using multi-platform and multi-band earth observation data, the project aims to conduct multidisciplinary comprehensive research on the new theories, technologies and methods for space exploration of global change sensitive variables on land, in the sea and in the atmosphere, establish the theoretical basis and methodology for remote sensing of the complexity factors on land, in the sea and in the atmosphere for the science of global change, and put forward a leading-edge technology model for studying global change.