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While ESA’s water mission continues to deliver key information on soil moisture and ocean salinity to advance our understanding of Earth, it is becoming increasingly important for ‘real world’ applications, further demonstrating the societal benefit of Earth observation.

During the 2nd SMOS Science Conference held in May at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid, Spain, operational agencies such as Mercator Ocean, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the Deputacío de Barcelona emphasised the potential for applications that benefit everyday life.

Peter Bauer from ECMWF said, “Continuity of L-band observations is of fundamental importance for operational agencies and numerical weather prediction.

_“SMOS data have already shown their value for weather forecasting as soil moisture information is crucial for predictive skill beyond the medium range. SMOS data also have the potential to provide additional capabilities for re-analyses and the Copernicus Climate Change service in future.

_“Longer time series are needed for such research to provide consolidated input. _

The Diputació de Barcelona has been using SMOS information in their summer forest fire prevention campaigns since 2012. Together with land-surface temperatures, SMOS’s daily soil moisture data provide a valuable all-weather tool to detect dry areas susceptible to wildfires.

“By using SMOS data, our ability to assess the risk of fire is now significant, with the overall fire detection rate now being at 87%,”said Ramon Riera from Diputació de Barcelona.

“Areas of more than 3000 hectares that are at risk of fire can now be detected, and even smaller areas of 500 hectares under threat are predicted correctly 60% of the time.”

Carrying an L-band radiometer, SMOS uses an innovative technique of capturing images of ‘brightness temperature’. These images correspond to radiation emitted from Earth’s surface to produce maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity – two key variables in the water cycle.

Over the Arctic, SMOS data have been used to derive the thickness of sea ice. The navigability in ice-infested waters critically depends on the ice thickness. Prof L. Kaleschke from the University of Hamburg has integrated these observations in computer models, improving the accuracy of sea-ice forecasts.

A prototype navigation system predicted the fastest and most economic routes through the ice-covered Barents Sea when tested back in March 2014.

In the future, such a system could support travel along the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route, as the shortest link between Europe and East Asia, and also the extraction and transportation of raw materials from the Arctic.

SMOS operations were recently extended until 2017 based on the excellent scientific results achieved so far. The extension will open the door to look at new ways of using SMOS data in research and applications, and offer further synergistic opportunities with other missions.

The data are already being used with those from the US Aquarius mission. Pierre-Yves Le Traon, from Mercator Ocean and Ifremer, said, “We are already systematically comparing data from SMOS and from the Aquarius mission with our Mercator Ocean global data assimilation system, and we are working on assimilating SMOS salinity data into our ocean models.

“SMOS data have great potential for ocean and climate research, for example tracing interannual climate variability through salinity distributions, which allows us to spot phenomena such as La Niña.

“Such observations are a significant step forward in ocean research and should be continued beyond the present suite of satellites providing them.”

After more than five years in orbit, results are clearly showing the great potential SMOS data have for operational applications as well as climate research. SMOS could also complement new missions, such as NASA’s SMAP, launched in January.

In addition, using SMOS data with those from the Copernicus Sentinel missions – in particular, Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3 – will provide interesting synergistic datasets over oceans.

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As a critical input to the decision-making process that will lead to the selection of ESA’s eighth Earth Explorer mission, the Reports for Mission Selection of the two candidate opportunity missions – CarbonSat and FLEX – are now available.

The selection will take place following a User Consultation Meeting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland on 15–16 September 2015, where the Earth observation scientific community is invited to participate.

In preparation for the selection, reports presenting the scientific and technical ambition of each mission were prepared. Following the consultation with the scientific community in September, the Earth Science Advisory Committee will provide their recommendations to ESA. The final decision on selection will be taken by ESA’s Programme Board for Earth Observation.

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With the signature of a Delegation Agreement on 11 November 2014, ECMWF has been appointed by the EU to implement on its behalf two of the six services of its flagship Copernicus programme: the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Services (CAMS).

In this context, ECMWF has just launched the
Copernicus Climate Change Service website and
the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service website

During this ‘beta’ period, ECMWF welcomes feedback from users of these websites. Feedback can be provided this directly from each of the websites.

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[Via Satellite 07-09-2015] Thales Alenia Space has signed the first part of a contract with Airbus Defence and Space to supply Poseidon 4 space borne radar altimeters for the Jason CS/Sentinel 6A and Jason CS/Sentinel 6B satellites.

Airbus Defence and Space is building the satellites for the European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Commission, for the Copernicus program. United States partners are participating in the mission implementation and operations.

The Poseidon 4 altimeter introduces a new, “interleaved” Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operating mode for higher performance than the previous generation. The altimeter will also feature a new architecture, improving the role of the digital functions to support higher stability of the performances and eventually reduce development costs. The sensor will simultaneously supply low spatial resolution data to ensure continuity with previous Jason missions, and high-resolution data.

Radar altimeters measure the height of the ocean surface, along with measurements of ocean dynamics and currents, wave height and wind strength at the surface. More recently they have also taken measurements of river and lake height. All of this data is used for meteorological and oceanographic research.

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The European Commission has launched two surveys aiming at gathering feedback from users of Copernicus and supporting the development of the programme.

These surveys address the following topics:

  • Assessment of present and future user needs regarding Copernicus Sentinel data. Fill in this survey
  • Assessment of present and future user needs regarding Copernicus Service information. Fill in this survey

After the co-seismic interferogram, TRE produces Rapid Motion Tracking (RMT) maps to continue the analysis on ground deformation during Nepal quake.

As in the name itself, RMT provides rates of ground motion when fast movements occur (in order of centimeters/meters). In contrast with SAR Interferometry, which uses the phase value, RMT extracts motion rates from the amplitude value of radar images.

Based on images acquired by the Sentinel-1A satellite over Nepal, before and after the quake of the 25th April 2015, RMT maps in both the line-of-sight (range) and azimuth (north-south) directions are shown below.

You can browse the results in our web platform TREmaps, simply clicking on image links

Click for large view

This conference will discuss how island economies can leverage Europe’s investments in satellite services to boost their economy and live up to current environmental and socio-economic challenges.

Why participate?

Whether you are a government agency, a private company, or an individual with ICT skills and great ideas, from Malta or elsewhere, you will:

  • learn from the hands-on examples, success stories and case-studies from your peers, suppliers or contractors
  • find new cooperation opportunities (if you come look for them!)
  • contribute and share your needs, your ideas, and your capacities to contribute to smarter islands

The event is co-organised by Eurisy and The Malta Council for Science and Technology.

Programme outline

It is necessary that African scientists look at strengthening their capacities in new Earth Observation applications.

One of the evolved technologies is polarimteric radar data and its efficiency in studying earth surface processes including environment related issues.

However, questions are:

  • What is the main constraint? Is data availability the key issue to develop technical capacity?

NARSS has started to explore the potentiality of this field through international cooperation and partnership and found that to be an avenue for such capacities. An agreement between NARSS and the Canadian Space Agency (RADARSAT-2 SOAR-AF LOAN AGREEMENT LI-24887) enabled to provide the Polarimetric SAR data and to develop and strengthen our capacities in RadarSat-2 data processing and analysis.

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The federal government yesterday signed a $250 million joint venture/partnership agreement with MENASAT Gulf Group to provide synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellites in the country. The SAR satellite technology will be the first in Nigeria, and images generated from it will benefit particularly oil and gas operators, farmers, ocean monitoring and assist the military.

Signing on behalf of the federal government in Abuja, the Director- General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Dr. Seidu Onailo Mohammed, said the SAR technology was necessary for Nigeria because of the challenges the agency had in acquiring images especially in the southern part of the country.

“We have always had this constraint, that even though we are the national repository for satellite images, we are not able to provide completely all the required images in this country. In the light of that, we have specially taken this opportunity to satisfy the Nigerian market,” the NASRDA director general said.

As part of the agreement, Nigeria will contribute its expertise, as well as make a place available for the firm, which will set up a ground-saving station and equipment for processing and making the images available for Nigerians.

MENASAT managing director, Dr. Hani Salem, said the firm decided to invest in Nigeria because the country had a solid foundation, capacity and was more advanced in the earth observation satellite sector than most other countries in Africa.

“We have a very important and solid foundation to build on in Nigeria for this technology; that is why we are here,” he said.
Salem stated that the first satellite plan was expected to be completed by 2020 and will cost $250 million. He said the satellite, being the first in Africa, was an advanced step for Nigeria that would have an impact on the technological development of the country.

Research on South Africa and its wildfire recovery may provide valuable hints for California and other Mediterranean-style climates. Scientists at Yale, University of Connecticut, and University of California recently reported their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

In their research, they used more than a decade’s worth of daily satellite images to determine that ecosystems of South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region recover more quickly from wildfires in warmer winter weather-and following sufficient summer rainfall, according to a release.

They say their model could help predict which ecosystems are most vulnerable to climate change, according to the release.

The scientists examined NASA satellite images of the Cape Floristic Region, which is on Africa’s southern tip. Observing that over more than a decade, western areas of that region recovered more slowly from fires than those in the east. The most important variables for recovery rates were average winter temperature and rainfall amount in the summer, according to the release.

“The study represents a methodological advance in our ability to infer what’s going on “under the hood” of ecosystems using data collected from space, Adam M. Wilson, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale said, according to the release.

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