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On 2 December 2009 Eurobarometer published a special report on Europeans’ attitudes towards climate change. Based on in-depth thematical studies carried out for DG Communication of the European Commission, the main conclusions are that Europeans remain concerned about climate change and believe that fighting it can boost economic growth in the EU.

Concretely, the survey mapped the opinion of Europeans on a range of climate change related topics, including:

  • Perceptions of climate change in relation to other world problems;
  • Perceptions of the seriousness of climate change;
  • Perceptions about the actions of local, national governments as well as the EU in combating climate change;
  • Attitudes towards alternative fuels and CO2 emissions;
  • Is climate change stoppable or exaggerated, and what impact it has on the European economy;
  • Personal action to fight climate change;
  • Perceived relative importance of the economy and the environment;
  • Willingness to pay more for greener energy.

Among key findings are the facts that a majority of respondents consider climate change as a very serious problem, while almost a half of them feels it is the second most serious problem facing the world today.

Moreover, most of Europeans believe climate change is not unstoppable but the efforts made at all level (including at EU level) for fighting it are not seen to be enough.

More information at

The full report can be found at Europa.EU

SOOURCE Gmes.Info

The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) of the European Parliament has published a study entitled “The EU programme for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES): governance and financing”.

This study introduces the GMES initiative and its components. It draws lessons learned from a comparison with the Galileo Programme. The governance and financing of GMES are critically analysed and discussed. Based on the main findings policy recommendations are developed.

The complete study report can be downloaded from the search page of the European Parliament website at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies.do?language=EN

SOURCE Gmes.Info

The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. At first glance, this may not appear to be connected to space technology, but large development projects and the state of Earth’s environment are intrinsically linked.

Global climate change is also an increasingly important challenge in overcoming poverty and advancing development in the poorest countries and communities, which will suffer the earliest and the most.

These factors have led to a growing demand for information about the state of Earth’s environment – land, oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere. The global scale, consistency and timeliness of the required information means looking at new sources of measurements: the view from space.

From their unique vantage point, Earth observation (EO) satellites are powerful tools for monitoring the environment consistently around the globe, and over time. This information can be used to support the planning, implementation and assessment of a wide range of World Bank projects, many of which may be affected by climate change.

Given the increasing demand for geospatial information, ESA (hosted by the Sustainable Development Team) met with the World Bank in 2008 to raise awareness on how European EO missions and specialist information services available from European companies could support World Bank projects around the globe.

Following the visit, ESA carried out some initial demonstrations over the last year to illustrate the potential of EO information and methodologies for World Bank activities helping countries better adapt to climate change.

Coral reef monitoring

Research indicates that coral reefs will not survive the rapid increases in global temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide forecasted for this century by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Coral reefs are threatened by overfishing, coastal pollution, global warming and ocean acidification.

To help the World Bank monitor the health of coral reefs in the Caribbean, ESA led a project that generated state-of-the-art EO-based information to understand the capabilities of resistance and recovery from disturbances of coral reefs off the coast of Belize.

The project incorporated sea-surface temperature data from the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer and the Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer on ESA’s ERS-2 and Envisat satellites, wind speed and direction data from the Active Microwave Instrument (AMI) on ERS-2 and imagery from NASA’s Landsat to identify coastline and reef-crest areas.

Using these data, scientists from the University of Exeter mapped a number of important factors influencing coral health in the Northern Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (NMBRS). These included chronic and acute thermal stress regimes, wave exposure areas and reef connectivity (for larvae dispersion).

Results showed that those areas predicted to fare better under climate change (from a thermal perspective) are rare and scattered across the study area. Also, if over-fished, some areas are more vulnerable to becoming dominated by seaweed with a resultant loss of corals (for example, north of the barrier reef and the seaward side of the atolls). Finally, the reefs are in general well connected, facilitating the dispersion of larvae.

The demonstration confirmed EO data can be used to map the locations of reef habitats and to understand better what regions are more vulnerable and likely to experience coral bleaching.

“Space-based observations are an essential element of climate monitoring in Latin America and a complement to ground-based stations,” said Walter Vergara, Lead Engineer-Latin America Environment Department at the World Bank. “ESA instruments and observation protocols are particularly applicable to the type of information that needs to be collected over time in the Americas.”

Coastal change monitoring

According to the UN, Bangladesh is one of the few countries to experience potentially catastrophic consequences of climatic change. A critical variable that determines the vulnerability of the South Asian country to climate change impact is the magnitude of sea-level rise.

ESA carried out projects to demonstrate the potential of different EO data and methodologies for coastal change mapping to provide improved input data for models that try to describe the long-term effects of possible sea-level rise due to global warming.

Using EO data from the Disaster Management Constellation (DMC), SPOT, NASA’s Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper, ASTER, Ikonos, and QuickBird from the last decade over the majority of Bangladesh’s coastal region, scientists were able to illustrate how EO can contribute to coastal monitoring.

The situation is very complex owing to large tidal effects in the area. The individual annual erosion and accumulation rates observed from EO satellites show strong spatial variability, as seen in the image above.

“The coastline of Bangladesh is extremely dynamic, making it difficult to predict how sea-level rise may impact the southern part of the country,” said Winston Yu, Water Resources Specialist at the World Bank. “These preliminary results from EO are interesting and merit further investigation into the accretion and erosion processes occurring.”

Coastal Cities

ESA is now starting an additional project to quantify land subsidence from EO over the last decade for the city of Alexandria, Egypt, which extends widely along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This information will be used, together with many other sources, in a World Bank study to assess the exposure and risk of coastal cities to the possible effects of climate change in the future.

“There is very little scientific evidence of the subsidence that has been taking place along the Nile Delta coastline, and whether the city of Alexandria has been affected as well,” said Anthony Bigio, senior urban specialist at the World Bank for the Middle East and North African region. “We therefore very much look forward to EO filling this gap, and we are sure that it will be an important input for the study we are carrying out on climate change adaptation and natural disaster preparedness in the coastal cities of North Africa.”

Next Developments

These initial demonstrations have raised interest from the World Bank in European EO capabilities, and further requests for support are in the pipeline. Discussions are under way for ESA to support additional projects such as sea-level rise in the Caribbean, forest degradation in the Amazon, and water resources management in the Maghreb and Middle East regions.

There are many other possibilities for EO information to be put to use in World Bank activities; both organisations look forward to a longer-term and more formalised form of collaboration.

SOURCE

PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has reopened its payment spigot after a three-week moratorium, signing well over 500 million euros ($720 million) in new contracts in the week ending Dec. 18 for three Earth observation satellites and work on a new upper stage for the Ariane 5 rocket and a winged space-plane demonstrator, according to ESA and European industry officials.

The flurry of year-end activity followed an assessment by ESA’s finance directorate that the agency’s cash deficit, which had been estimated at up to 400 million euros by late 2010, is likely to be much less severe.

ESA officials have concluded that they do not need to take out a loan to cover the shortfall and that if the agency faces liquidity issues next year, they can be handled by less-drastic means as they arise.

As a result, ESA officials have reopened their checkbooks to settle a pile of already-negotiated contracts that been growing since the mid-November moratorium on any new commitments valued at more than 10 million euros.

Among the most significant contracts signed are for duplicate models of the three Sentinel Earth observation satellites being built by ESA and the 27-nation European Union as part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program. The contracts were signed with the same companies building the so-called Sentinel A-units.

The Sentinel 1B satellite, carrying C-band radar, will be built by Thales Alenia Space Italy for 128.8 million euros, compared with 229 million euros for the identical Sentinel 1A spacecraft contracted in June 2007.

Sentinel 2B, carrying a superspectral imager, will be built by Astrium Satellites under a contract valued at 98.6 million euros, compared with 195 million euros for the Sentinel 2A spacecraft, contracted in April 208.

Sentinel 3B, carrying an ocean-altimetry mission, will be built by Thales Alenia Space France under a 143.1-million-euro contract. The Sentinel 3A contract, signed in April 2008, was valued at 305 million euros.

ESA Earth Observation Director Volker Liebig said in a Dec. 18 interview that the three contracts could have been delayed until 2010 without affecting the program schedule, but that the prime contractors’ price proposals included a Dec. 31 deadline. Meeting that deadline, Liebig said, will ensure that the contractors take maximum advantage of being able to build two sets of instruments rather than one.

ESA’s launcher division was also active, signing contracts for a proposed Ariane 5 rocket upgrade that features a new, restartable motor called Vinci.

Antonio Fabrizi, ESA’s launcher director, said Dec. 18 that the agency signed a 157-million-euro contract with Astrium Space Transportation of Les Mureaux, France, for what is called the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution program. The contract covers two years of work by Astrium, motor-builder Snecma and the other Ariane 5 contractors to conduct reviews of the proposed new upper stage.

ESA government ministers will be asked in late 2011 or early 2012 to approve full-scale development of the Vinci-powered stage, which is designed to increase Ariane 5’s payload carrying power to 12,000 kilograms into geostationary-transfer orbit, the destination of most telecommunications satellites.

Fabrizi also signed a contract with Thales Alenia Space Italy for the Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV), a 5-meter-long, 1,800-kilogram winged vehicle scheduled to test atmospheric re-entry technologies following a launch aboard Europe’s Vega rocket in 2012 or 2013. The contract is valued at 39.4 million euros to cover preliminary IXV work for 18 months, Fabrizi said.

SOURCE

ESA

Lokoja — ALL is now set for the launching of two Nigeria satellites to the space by the third quarter of next year, Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Alhassan Bako Zaku has disclosed.

Zaku made this known while speaking during the third annual national media conference on space and technology organized by the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) held in Lokoja, capital of Kogi State, recently stressing that the satellites are about 95 per cent complete.

The minister added that the two Earth Observation satellites namely, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X are of high resolutions, explaining that Nigeriasat-2 carried a high-resolution imagery of 2.5m [pan] and 5m [mutispectral] along with a 32m spatial resolution payload that will be used to replace NigeriaSat-1 who have lifespan of five years which is still in the orbit.

Equally, he noted that Nigerian engineers using facilities of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of the United Kingdom solely built NigeriaSat-X, which is the first indigenous Earth Observation satellites that will be launched into space.

In his remark, Governor Ibrahim Idris commended the effort of the agency for its effort in taking the country to the citadel of technological advancement through the launching of NigeriaSat-1 in 2003 and the deorbited NigComSat-1in 2007, which is a technological breakthrough for the nation, adding that the launching of the satellites marked the country march towards technological development and consequently socio-economic development of the nation.

Earlier, the Director-General of the agency, Dr. Seidu Onailo Mohammed, explained that the idea behind the media workshop was to assist the journalists with relevant information that will go along way in reshaping the views, interest and understanding of the ordinary man in the country in space science and technology and the benefits that abound in its exploration.

SOURCE

Meteo- France, the UK Met Office, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) recently held the 2nd Workshop on, The Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology at the Conference International Centre at Meteo-France, Toulouse, France, from 23-25 November 2009.

See http://www.meteo.fr/cic/meetings/gis-ogc/ for details

Workshop participants reviewed applications of OGC and other standard Web services, encodings, and analytical methodologies being used across the meteorology community; discussed the relationship between the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and OGC; and defined a roadmap for further activities of the OGC Meteorology & Oceanography Domain Working Group. This working group provides an open forum on meteorological and oceanographic systems interoperability and a formal process for developing international consensus standards that may be submitted to the WMO Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) for adoption.

David Arctur, Director of Interoperability Programs at OGC said, “This workshop and the successful 2008 workshop hosted by ECMWF and the UK Met Office showed many implementations of the OGC Web Map Service Interface Standard (WMS) for meteorology. Using this standard and others improves the usability of weather information in fields such as aviation, transportation and disaster management. We are looking forward to deepening the already very good relationship that the OGC has with the Meteo and Oceanographic communities in the future.”

The Met Office ( http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ ) and Meteo-France ( http://france.meteofrance.com/ ) are the UK’s and France’s National Weather Services. They are among the world’s leading weather forecast centres and main contributors to the United Nations University Global Environment Information Centre (GEIC).

The European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) ( http://www.ecmwf.int/ ) is an international European organization located in Reading, UK. It is the world’s leading centre for Medium Range Forecast.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 385 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org

SOURCE

European nations have been given a few more weeks to find the money to fund a key Earth observation satellite…

The Jason-3 spacecraft must be ordered soon if a remarkable 18-year record of ocean height is to be maintained.

Eumetsat, which looks after Europe’s weather satellites, needs at least 58m euros ($87m; £53m) from its member states to initiate the programme.

Jason-3 would launch in 2013, allowing time to cross-check its data in orbit with the current Jason-2 mission.

Only by flying the pair in tandem for a period of months can scientists minimise calibration errors between the two satellites’ datasets.

The Eumetsat Council has extended the deadline for interested member states to subscribe to Jason-3 through the end of the year into January.

Co-operative programme

The altimetry project stretches back to 1992, and provides the global reference data for satellite-measured ocean topography. It is the Jason series and its predecessor, the Topex/Poseiden spacecraft, that have traced the recent 3mm per year rise in sea levels.

The UK funding contribution to Jason-3 is… being actively addressed in government. Bruce Truscott, UK Met Office

The surface height information has been invaluable to oceanographers, weather forecasters and climatologists.

This week’s Council Meeting of Eumetsat recognised that a number of member states needed more time to organise their financing.

The total cost of the Jason-3 programme is estimated to be 252m euros ($380m; £228m), with the biggest individual contributions pledged by the lead nations – the US and France.

With the EU and the European Space Agency also willing to contribute to the flagship project, Eumetsat members are being asked to find 63.6m euros, with a requirement that binding commitments cover at least 90% of that figure to trigger development work.

Biggest members

So far, 13 out of 19 potential participating states have subscribed to the programme.

Among the six outstanding nations are Eumetsat’s two biggest members – Germany and the UK.

Their participation could be critical to the outcome of the subscription process.

Bruce Truscott at the UK Met Office, which leads the UK’s involvement in Eumetsat, told BBC News: “We recognise the potential value offered by the Jason-3 satellite programme and the need to carefully consider the relative merits of our national investments.

“The UK funding contribution to Jason-3 is therefore being actively addressed in government, with a view to reaching a conclusion before the declaration due date at the end of December.”

By Jonathan Amos. Science reporter, BBC News
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

“Related information at Eumetsat”:
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/News/Press_Releases/715819?l=en

21 – 24 February 2010, Dubai, UAE

The GIS World 2010 conference will provide a platform to share the latest developments in the GIS, Geospatial and the Geo-information field

The 2010 programme promises a pan industry view of these subjects as well as burning issues involved in GIS including lack of geospatial understanding, challenges with executive buy-in, data sharing policies, lack of funding, data maintenance and emergency management. Hear from leading speakers presenting world class case studies including Dylan Lorima from Google Enterprise, Eng. Mohammed Hammod, GIS Team Leader and Expert of Ajman Municipality, UAE as well as Prof. Dr. Jonathan Li, Associate professor Department of Geography at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Do not miss this event and its take home tools to:
-Improve your data quality so that the right decisions are made
-Increase the interoperability of your systems
-Examine how you can secure your share of IT budget for your GIS projects
-Prove the real (quantified) value of a GIS-related investment
-Discover the future of GIS integration
-Benchmark your GIS performance against your peers efficiently

For more information about GIS World 2010, visit our website www.iirme.com/gisworld

SOURCE IIRME


Transportable autonomous patrol for land border surveillance (TALOS)

The main objective of TALOS multidisciplinary project is to develop and field test the innovative concept of a mobile, modular, scalable, autonomous and adaptive system for protecting European borders. The conventional border protection systems are based mainly on expensive ground facilities installed along the entire length of the border used only to observe, detect and warn. This infrastructure is complemented by human patrols, where there is an access to the border line. The system developed within the TALOS project will be more versatile, efficient, flexible and cost effective.

The complete system applies both aerial and ground unmanned vehicles, supervised by command and control centre, but in the TALOS project the emphasis will be put on application of UGV, communication and ability to command and control. The ground platforms will be both the watching stations and the first reaction patrols, which will inform the Control and Command Centre and an intruder about her/his situation, and will undertake the proper measures to stop the illegal action almost autonomously with supervision of border guard officers. The most important features of the system are scalability, autonomous operation, mobility and adaptability.

Details

Acrónimo del Proyecto: TALOS
Proyecto Reference: 218081
Fecha de comienzo del proyecto: 2008-06-01
Duración: 48 months
Coste del proyecto: 19.91 million euro
Tipo de contrato: Collaborative project (generic)
Fecha final: 2012-05-31
Proyecto Status: Execution
Financiación del proyecto: 12.9 million euro

Participantes

ASELSAN ELEKTRONIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.TURKEY
HELLENIC AEROSPACE INDUSTRY SAGREECE
OFFICE NATIONAL D’ETUDES ET DE RECHERCHES AEROSPATIALES-ONERAFRANCE
INSTYTUT TECHNIK TELEKOMUNIKACYJNYCH I INFORMATYCZNYCH SP. Z O.O.POLAND
EUROPEAN BUSINESS INNOVATION & RESEARCH CENTER SAROMANIA
SMARTDUST SOLUTIONS LTDESTONIA
ISRAEL AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES LTD.ISRAEL
STM SAVUNMA TEKNOLOJILERI MUHENDISLIK VE TICARET A.S.TURKEY
Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus (VTT)FINLAND
TELEKOMUNIKACJA POLSKA S.A.POLAND
TTI NORTE S.L.SPAIN
POLITECHNIKA WARSZAWSKAPOLAND
SONACA SA

Wide maritime area airborne surveillance (WIMAAS)

WIMA²S addresses the Airborne building block of maritime surveillance with the potential for reduced cost of operation, more autonomous and improved efficiency through the introduction of air vehicles with reduced or zero onboard crew. Innovative concepts are required to support the integration of these new vehicles in a future European maritime surveillance system of systems. With 20 million km2, the surveillance of the European maritime domain has to be improved, according to the European Council, EC and Agencies such as FRONTEX. The urgent need is to control illegal immigration, but WIMA²S will also contribute to other missions.

You cannot control what you do not patrol. Even if cooperation is crucial, Air assets are a unique capability for wide area maritime surveillance because they provide situation awareness over extended areas (endurance, speed and long distance detection), re-direction to areas of interest (threat) and flexible reaction (inspection when needed). WiMA²S will develop concepts and technologies for better operational use at lower costs of: – Maritime Surveillance Manned Airborne Vehicle (MS MAV) including existing Mission Aircraft with zero or reduced onboard tactical crew – Maritime Surveillance Optionally Piloted Vehicles (MS OPV) because regulations will not allow UAVs to fly across European Airspace for years to come.

Intermediate solutions are required – Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (MS UAV) because they will become a future key solution Supported by a User Group, WIMA²S consortium will provide tangible results: – Simulation based on operational scenarios – Innovative concepts and technologies held by simulation (algorithmic modelling, remote control, sensor data fusion) – In flight experiment (remote control, crew concept) – Cost benefit analysis – Dissemination of results (workshops) – Roadmap towards the introduction of reduced-crew platforms and UAVs including R&T priorities and future programs.

Details

Acrónimo del Proyecto: WIMAAS
Proyecto Reference: 217931
Fecha de comienzo del proyecto: 2008-12-01
Duración: 36 months
Coste del proyecto: 4 million euro
Tipo de contrato: Collaborative project (generic)
Fecha final: 2011-11-30
Proyecto Status: Execution
Financiación del proyecto: 2.74 million euro

Participantes

INSTYTUT TECHNICZNY WOJSK LOTNICZYCH*POLAND
SENER INGENIERIA Y SISTEMAS S.A.SPAIN
AEROVISION VEHICULOS AEREOS SLSPAIN
GALILEO AVIONICA S.P.A.ITALY
DASSAULT AVIATION SAFRANCE
UNIVERSITA TA MALTAMALTA
THALES COMMUNICATIONS SAFRANCE
SATCOM1 APSDENMARK
EUROSENSE BELFOTOP N.V.BELGIUM
TOTALFORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTSWEDEN
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIESDIRECTORATE GENERAL JOINT RESEARCH CENTREJRCBELGIUM
FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.VGERMANY
ZAVOD ZA VARNOSTNE TEHNOLOGIJE INFORMACIJSKE DRUZBE IN ELEKTRONSKO POSLOVANJESLOVENIA

[Satellite TODAY 10-07-09] Astrium was awarded a contract by Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (KGS) to build two Earth observation satellites for the Kazakhstan government and create a joint venture for the construction of an assembly, integration and test facility in Astana, Kazakhstan, Astrium announced Oct. 6.

The two satellites will be a high- and medium-resolution imagery satellite. The high-resolution satellite will be provided by Astrium in France and based on the Theos and Formosat-2 platform. The camera will be based on the silicon carbide technology used on all Astrium optical instrument designs. The medium-resolution satellite will be produced by a collaboration between Astrium and U.K. subsidiary SSTL.

“This new space system will provide the Republic of Kazakhstan with access to a wide range of civil applications including monitoring natural resources and agriculture as well as providing mapping data and rescue operation support in the event of a disaster. It will also put the Republic of Kazakhstan at the forefront of current space technology and complement the country’s space heritage, most famous for the Baikonur spaceport. The images from the Earth observation satellites will also be distributed globally by Astrium’s subsidiary Spot Image,” Astrium CEO François Auque said in a statement.

Astrium also received a contract to provide training to technicians and engineers at Kazakhstan facilities. Financial details were not disclosed.

SOURCE