The Climate Risk Management Unit is looking for a doctoral student to advance its pre-normative research on standards for quality assessments of Earth Observation products. In support of Copernicus/GMES a newly developed model-based quality assurance framework is to be applied to the benchmarking of field validation protocols for Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) over land. Using validated Monte Carlo ray-tracing models the successful candidate will: - develop unbiased approaches assessing the quality of in situ measurement schemes for LAI, FAPAR and/or albedo.

Dear GLP community, This month we want to welcome Dr. Héctor Ricardo Grau, that joined the GLP Scientific Steering Committee. We believe he will bring substantial contribution to GLP work! We also want to remind you that the deadline for submitting abstracts to the 2014 GLP Open Science Meeting was extended! Now you can send your abstract until July 31, 2013. Best regards! GLP IPO

Scientific integrity and consensus rely on the peer review process, a defining feature of scientific discourse that subjects the literature forming the foundation of credible knowledge in a scientific field to rigorous scrutiny. However, there is surprisingly little training in graduate school on how to develop this essential skill [Zimmerman et al., 2011] or discussion of best practices to ensure that reviewers at all levels efficiently provide the most useful review. Even more challenging for the novice peer reviewer is that journals also vary widely in their review guidelines.

Abstract submission is now open for the 5th Workshop of the EARSeL Special Interest Group on Land Use and Land Cover on Frontiers in Earth Observation for Land System Science. A joint workshop of the EARSeL SIG LULC and the NASA LCLUC Science Team at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 17-18 March, 2014. The Workshop aims and scope Landsat-8 and the upcoming Sentinels, together with an increasing number of free-access EO data archives open up new possibilities for space-based analysis of land use and land cover chance.

Recent food crises have highlighted the need for better agricultural monitoring. GEO-GLAM is an international program to enhance the use of Earth Observations (both satellite and in situ) for this purpose. In this context, Brad Doorn (NASA HQ) and Chris Justice (University for Maryland) are convening a session titled, Earth Observations for Global Agricultural Monitoring at the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, CA.

Dear GLP community, This month we bring very exciting news, and a lot of reasons to celebrate. The GLP community is getting bigger and the recent achievements of some of our members bring more strenght and visibility to GLP Science! We want to congratulate these members for their achievements which made us very proud! They are: - Harini Nagendra (GLP SSC Member) that received the first Elinor Ostrom Award. - Cheikh Mbow and Sandra Diaz, both former members of the GLP Scientific Steering Committee, nominated members of the first Future Earth Initiative Science Committee.

Since its online publication on Oct 27, 2010, there has been a total of 1183 chapter downloads for Eurasian Arctic Land Cover and Land Use in a Changing Climate book on the SpringerLink online platform.

Dear GLP community, This is a selection of the recent relevant news. Good reading! GLP IPO

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 30 June 2013! The 2014 Global Land Project Open Science Meeting program will be a combination of plenary sessions involving international figureheads and experts in the field, followed by parallel sessions covering a wide range of topics within the broad themes of the conference. In addition, poster sessions will take place during lunchtimes and early evenings. We invite you to submit abstracts for presentations and posters for this leading global conference in Land Science. Your contribution should reference one of the conference sessions.

Dear GLP community, This is a selection of the recent relevant news. Good reading! GLP IPO