The over 70 countries and 40 international organizations that make up the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) agreed to develop a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) at the third Earth Observation Summit in February 2005. GEOSS is intended to provide timely, quality, long-term global environmental information as a basis for sound decision making in nine societal benefit areas.

The focus of this paper is to describe the status of one of the GEO tasks – GEONETCast, specifically the GEONETCast system serving the Americas. GEONETCast is a dissemination system under development by which environmental remotely-sensed and in situ data and products from participating data providers will be transmitted to users through communication satellites using DVB-S broadcast capabilities. It is anticipated that this capability would be especially useful in parts of the world where high speed land lines and/or internet are not available or for users desiring access to diverse environmental information through one portal.

This paper describes the NOAA vision and current plans for GEONETCast. NOAA is taking the lead role in the development of a regional GEONETCast system for the Americas, called GEONETCast Americas. This paper is targeted at our external GEO partners, domestically and internationally, to provide them information about GEONETCast Americas so that they can be better informed and engaged in this development and demonstration effort.