Role and Activities of the GGOS Bureau of Products and Standards

The Bureau of Products and Standards (BPS) is a key component of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG). It supports GGOS in its goal to provide consistent geodetic products needed to monitor, map, and understand changes in the Earth’s shape, rotation, and gravity field. In its current structure, the Committees “Contributions to Earth System Modeling” and “Definition of Essential Geodetic Variables” as well as the Working Group “Towards a consistent set of parameters for the definition of a new Geodetic Reference System (GRS)” are associated to the BPS.

This poster contribution presents the role of the BPS and it highlights some of the recent activities, which are focused on the updating of the IERS Conventions, mainly related to Chapter 1 "General definitions and numerical standards", the updating of the BPS inventory of standards and conventions used for the generation of IAG products to incorporate the latest developments in the field, the compilation of user-friendly descriptions of geodetic products published at the GGOS website, and the contribution to GGOS films for specific products. The BPS activities also comprise the interaction with IAG and other entities in the field of standards and conventions, such as the IAG Services, the IERS Conventions Center, the Commission A3 “Fundamental Standards” of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), ISO/TC 211 and the Working Group ``Data Sharing and Development of Geodetic Standards” of the UN-GGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy (SCoG).