Expecting 40 to 60 participants (i.e., no "big-conference setting") it is planned to have a workshop in the true sense; that is, no parallel sessions, no very short (10 min-type) presentations, high-visibility of posters, ample of informal possibilities to enter into scientific discussion and discourse, and so on.

Presentation types and equipment details:

• Oral presentation (invited keynote talk: 40-60 min slot, incl. 5-10 min discussion; invited talk: 30 min slot, contributed talk: 20 min slot, both incl. 5 min discussion; equipment available: 1 viewgraph projector, 1 slide projector, 2 laptop-PCs featuring USB port, CD-Rom drive, PowerPoint2000 & XP and Acrobat Reader 7, 1 video beamer/1280x1024 pixels (also for participant laptops); viewgraphs in the back-hand in case of problems with electronic presentation recommended)

• Poster presentation (dedicated sessions with 3 min oral intro slots; all posters up all-week, all to be mounted Monday; poster board size/max. poster size: ~ 150 cm height x 90 cm width, i.e., size of order "DIN-A0 Portrait" recommended; mounting material available on site)

• Software demonstration (integrated into poster session(s); 3 min oral intro slots; location nearby poster area; equipment available: 2 PC stations, each providing Windows2000 and Linux(SuSE8), 21-inch monitor, 1280x1024 TrueColor graphics, and all "usual" application software)

Overall session structure and meeting schedule:

Morning sessions (about 9-10:30, 11-12:30), afternoon sessions (about 14-15:30), and late afternoon/early evening sessions (about 16-17:30 oral and 17:30-19 posters & ample of free beverages and snacks) are foreseen on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (poster session on Tuesday). Sufficient informal coffee break (30 min) and lunch time (90 min) is left in between. On Wednesday only morning sessions will take place (excursion and dinner in the afternoon & evening).
As an OPAC workshop novelty, a special moderated wrap-up session is planned on Thursday afternoon, for systematically gathering and prioritizing the essential views of the represented community on the key challenges ahead in the occultation science field, in particular regarding continuation missions and next-generation occultation missions, methodology&processing open issues, atmosphere and climate science applications, and user community development.
Subsequently, an ATOMMS-ACCURATE splinter meeting is scheduled (see below). Also other formal or informal splinter meetings may be held in connection with OPAC-3 (organized by participant sub-groups; special smaller meeting rooms are available for this purpose). Just contact Andrea Wurzinger in case you want to pre-reserve for a sub-group.
It is planned to fit the regular session programme into Monday through Thursday so that Friday is left for sub-group meetings (including potentially the meeting with ESA and other representatives, prepared for in the ATOMMS-ACCURATE splinter). The draft-final, effectively firm, meeting schedule will be available on-line, and announced to all participants, by August 14, 2007.

Next-generation occultation missions - preparations and prospects:

CM and MM Wavelength LEO-LEO Occultations for Climate - The ATOMMS Project
E. R. Kursinski*(1), D. Ward (1), A. Otarola (1), B. Herman (1), C. Groppi (1), C. Walker (1), M Schein (1)
(1) Inst. of Atmospheric Physics, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

ACCURATE - Observing Greenhouse Gases, Isotopes, Wind, and Thermodynamic Variables by Combined MW Radio and IR Laser Occultation
G. Kirchengast*(1), S. Schweitzer*(1), and F. Ladstaedter (1)
(1) Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change and IGAM/Inst. of Physics, Univ. of Graz, Austria


Radio occultation reviews - atmosphere and climate and ionosphere/space weather:

A Scenic Tour of Atmospheric Radio Occultation: Past, Present, and Future
T. P. Yunck*(1)
(1) JPL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Radio Occultation Data in Ionosphere and Space Weather Applications: Achievements and Prospects
J.-P. Luntama*(1)
(1) Space Research Div., Finish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland


Advances in radio occultation retrieval processing:

Open-Loop Tracking and Water Vapor Retrieval Accuracy for GPS Radio Occultations
C. O. Ao*(1), B. A. Iijima (1), D. Kuang (1), A. J. Mannucci (1), T. K. Meehan (1), M. K. Pestana (1)
(1) JPL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA

Post-processing of COSMIC Open-Loop Radio Occultation Signals at CDAAC/UCAR
S.Sokolovskiy*(1), C. Rocken (1), W. Schreiner (1), D. Hunt (1), and J. Johnson (1) (1) COSMIC Program Office, UCAR, Boulder, CO, USA

New Applications and Advances of the GPS RO Method as Recovered by Analysis of the FORMOSAT-3 and CHAMP Database
A. G. Pavelyev*(1), Y. A. Liou (2), J. Wickert (3), T. Schmidt (3), A. A. Pavelyev (1), and V. N. Gubenko (1)
(1) Inst. of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Russian Acad. of Sciences, Fryazino/Moscow region, Russia; (2) Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central Univ., Chung-Li, Taiwan; (3) GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Error Estimates of Bending Angles from Radio Occultation in the Presence of Strong Horizontal Gradients
M. E. Gorbunov (1) and K. B. Lauritsen*(2)
(1) Inst. for Atmospheric Physics, Russian Acad. of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; (2) Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark


Recent occultation missions - overviews and achievements:

Recent Results from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE)
C. D. Boone*(1), K. A. Walker (2), G. Dufour (3), R. Nassar (4), C. P. Rinsland (5), D. Fu (1), and P. F. Bernath (6)
(1) Dept of Chemistry, Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; (2) Dept of Physics, Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; (3) LISA, Univ. Paris 12 et Paris 7, CNRS, Creteil, France; (4) Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Div of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; (5) NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA; (6) Dept of Chemistry, Univ. of York, Heslington, York, UK

The Meteor3M/SAGE III Mission - a Bridge to the Future for Long-term Records of Ozone and Aerosol
D. E. Flittner*(1)
(1) Science Directorate, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA

The FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC Radio Occultation Mission: Results and Challenges
C. Rocken*(1), S. Sokolovskiy (1), B. Schreiner (1), D. Hunt (1), S. Syndergaard (1), and B. Kuo (1)
(1) COSMIC Program Office, UCAR, Boulder, CO, USA

GRAS on MetOp: The First Operational RO Instrument and First Results
A. von Engeln*(1), C. Marquardt (1), E. O. Clerigh (1), Y. Andres (1), J.-P. Luntama (2), and K. B. Lauritsen (3)
(1) EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany; (2) FMI, Helsinki, Finland; (3) DMI, Copenhagen, Denmark

GPS radio occultation with CHAMP, GRACE-A, TerraSAR-X and COSMIC: Results from GFZ [Poster]
J. Wickert (1), G. Beyerle (1), S. Heise (1), R. Koenig (1), G. Michalak (1), M. Rothacher (1), T. Schmidt (1), C. Viehweg (1), and D. Pingel*(2)
(1) GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany; (2) Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Offenbach, Germany


Upcoming radio occultation missions - overviews and next activities:

GPS Radio Occultation Mission in Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite KOMPSAT-5
Sungki Cho*(1), Jong-Kyun Chung*(1), Jong-Uk Park (1), Jae-Cheol Yoon (2), Yongsik Chun (2), and Sang-Ryool Lee (2)
(1) Space Geodesy Div., Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon, Korea; (2) Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea

ROSA - The Italian Radio Occultation Mission On-board the Indian OCEANSAT-2 Satellite
G. Perona*(1), A. Sutera (2), M. Petitta (2), A. Speranza (3), N. Tartaglione (3), M. Materassi (4), R. Notarpietro (5), S. Casotto (6), F. Vespe (7)
(1) Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Torino, Italy; (2) Universita' Sapienza, Roma, Italy; (3) Universita' di Camerino, Camerino, Italy; (4) Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi (ISC), Firenze, Italy; (5) Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy; (6) CISAS Universita' di Padova, Padova, Italy; (7) Centro di Geodesia Spaziale CGS, ASI, Matera, Italy


Use of occultation data in meteorology, climate, and atmosphere studies:

Latest Results on the Assimilation of GPS Radio Occultation Data at the Met Office and ECMWF
M. P. Rennie*(1) and S. B. Healy (2)
(1) Met Office, Exeter, UK; (2) ECMWF, Reading, UK

Climate Monitoring with Radio Occultation Data: From CHAMP to FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC
U. Foelsche*(1,2), B. Pirscher (1), M. Borsche (1), G. Kirchengast (1), and J. Wickert (3)
(1) Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change and IGAM/Inst. of Physics, Univ. of Graz, Austria; (2) COSMIC Program Office, UCAR, Boulder, CO, USA; (3) GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Testing Climate Models Using GNSS Occultation and Infrared Radiance Spectra
S. S. Leroy*(1), J. G. Anderson (1), J. A. Dykema (1), and M. E. Gorbunov (1,2)
(1) Harvard School of Eng. and Appl. Science, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, USA; (2) Inst. for Atmospheric Physics, Russian Acad. of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Multi-year Comparison of Lower Stratospheric Temperatures from CHAMP RO and MSU/AMSU Climate Records
A. K. Steiner*(1), G. Kirchengast (1), M. Borsche (1), and U. Foelsche (1)
(1) Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change and IGAM/Inst. of Physics, Univ. of Graz, Austria

Recent Advances in Global Wave Activity Analysis from Long-Term GPS RO Data
A. de la Torre*(1), P. Alexander (1), P. Llamedo (1), T. Schmidt (2), and J. Wickert (2)
(1) Departamento de Fisica, FCEN, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; (2) GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Global and Regional Scale Studies of Atmospheric Gravity Wave Energy using CHAMP and COSMIC
T. Tsuda (1) and S. P. Alexander*(1)
(1) Research Inst. for Sustainable Humanosphere (RISH), Kyoto Univ., Uji, Japan

Quantifying Gravity Waves and Turbulence in the Stratosphere using Stellar Scintillation Measurements
V. Sofieva*(1), A. S. Gurvich (2), F. Dalaudier (3), and the GOMOS team (4)
(1) Middle/Upper Atmosphere Div., Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland; (2) A.M. Oboukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Moscow, Russia; (3) Service d'Aeronomie du CNRS, Verrieres-le-Buisson, France; (4) FMI, Finland; Service d'Aeronomie, France; BIRA, Belgium, ACRI-ST, France; ESA, Netherlands and Italy

ATOMMS-ACCURATE Splinter Meeting:

An ATOMMS-ACCURATE splinter meeting (next-generation LEO-LEO MW radio and IR laser occultation mission) is scheduled, Thursday late afternoon/early evening, as an information and discussion forum and for preparation of a meeting with ESA and other (European) national space agency representatives. Everybody interested in the ACCURATE and ATOMMS plans, and the ways of best partnering these efforts, is welcome to the forum part of this splinter (1st of two parts, 2nd is by invitation).
For (pre-)information on the status and prospects of both ATOMMS and ACCURATE there will be keynote talks on both during the week (see Kursinski et al. and Kirchengast et al. talks in the invited talks list above).
The detailed scheduling of this splinter will follow here in firm form by August 14, 2007. Practically, everybody interested to join the splinter forum meeting can just enlist on-site at the Registration&Information Desk during the workshop.