SESSION OVERVIEW

The program includes plenary session that will feature invited high-level presentations to introduce core themes. Subsequent breakout sessions will focus on sub-themes and consist of short presentations, panels, and discussions. After each breakout sessions, a plenary session will summarize the outcomes of the breakout sessions and provide input for subsequent sessions.

The following sessions are proposed:

• Plenary Session 1: Assessing and Managing the Changes: The Metrics This session will summarize the knowledge about indicators for the state and trends in the Earth system, including the social component of this system. Particular focus will be on indicators related to the SDGs, the SOSH, and sustainable development in general. The science behind the indicators will be the starting point for presentations.
  
  
• Breakout Sessions Block 1 Designing the Metrics: In the first block of breakout sessions, the focus will be on specific sets of indicators and the extent to which the indicators are linked to essential variables of the earth system.
  
  
• Plenary Session 2: Assessment of the Metrics Based on the previous plenary and breakout sessions, an assessment of the available metrics in terms of completeness, applicability, and decision support will be considered.
  
  
• Plenary Session 3: Monitoring and Foreseeing the Changes: The Role of Earth Observations Quantification of the indicators — the metrics — requires observations of the essential variables used to generate the indicators. This session will compare the available and anticipated observations of essential variables to the needs arising from the task, which is navigating sustainable development on a rapidly changing, dynamic planet.
  
  
• Breakout Sessions Block 2: Quantifying the Metrics Based on the outcome of the previous breakout sessions, the sessions will consider the sets of essential variables for several goal sets (SDGs, SBAs, SOSH) and discuss availability and applicability of data for these essential variables that would allow quantification of these goal-related indicators.
  
  
• Plenary Session 4: Setting Priorities Based on the previous sessions, priorities for Earth observations will be discussed and translated into recommendations.
  
  
• Joint Plenary Session A (Jointly organized with Workshop 4): Changing Science for a Changing Planet The rapid changes in key variables of the planet (for example, biodiversity, atmospheric chemistry, ocean heat content, water cycle and sediment transport, ocean acidity, land cover, ice sheets, sea level) that are already taking place and expected to increase can lead to major challenges for humanity. We need to ask whether the current approach to science will be able to identify these challenges in a timely manner and provide the practice-relevant knowledge needed to address them, or whether a new approach to rapid knowledge creation is needed.
  
  
• Joint Breakout Sessions Block (Jointly organized with Workshop 4): Creating the practice-relevant knowledge to cope with global change The breakout sessions will review methods for knowledge creation related to key areas of global change while considering the potential for rapid changes that might challenge the traditional scientific approach.
  
  
• Joint Plenary Session B (Jointly organized with Workshop 4): Linking Science, Metrics, and Observation Systems In this session, we will aim to bring together science and goal-based metrics in order to better understand the requirements of future observing systems which will provide the data required to quantify the metrics and enable applications for societal benefits.