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by Pat Brennan for NASA Earth News. Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 22, 2017, published on Space Daily.

A new NASA tool links changes in sea level in 293 global port cities to specific regions of melting land ice, such as southern Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula. It is intended to help coastal planners prepare for rising seas in the decades to come.

All coastal cities will see some impacts of global sea level rise. But the new tool shows that, for example, New York City is more strongly affected by melting ice in northeastern Greenland than in southwestern Greenland; while Sydney has a greater risk from the rapidly melting Antarctic Peninsula than from East Antarctica.

A paper describing the new tool, titled “Should coastal planners have concern over where land ice is melting?,” was recently published in the journal Science Advances. The research team is Eric Larour, Erik Ivins and Surendra Adhikari of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Melting ice and rising ocean temperatures contribute about evenly to global sea level rise today. Individual cities are also affected by local conditions such as land sinking. Other Web-based resources such as the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit address some of these issues, but the new NASA tool is the only resource to match specific melting ice locations with their effects on the world’s ports.

Water from melted ice on land doesn’t spread evenly across the world’s oceans because of a gravitational push-pull between ice and ocean. As a melting glacier or ice sheet dwindles, it loses mass, causing its local gravitational pull on nearby ocean water to diminish.

Seawater that had been pulled toward the ice by the force of gravity flows away – in other words, sea level drops in the vicinity of a melting glacier but rises farther away. When this spatial pattern can be attributed to a given glacier or ice sheet, it is known as a sea level fingerprint.

To calculate this and other influences on sea level such as Earth’s rotation, Larour and his colleagues used a dynamic mathematical formula called the adjoint method, which is used in seismic and meteorological studies.

The method enables fast computation of the sensitivity of a model’s output to its inputs – in this case, the sensitivity of sea level to ice melting. They used the method with JPL’s well-tested computer model of ice sheet melting, the Ice Sheet System Model, to develop their new tool, called Gradient Fingerprint Mapping.

Users of the tool need no specialized training or extreme computer power; they simply download it, input data or projections of ice loss, and let it evolve the shifting ice and water patterns forward into the future. The result: a detailed profile of the sensitivity of sea level at any of these cities to changes in ice anywhere in the world.

Calculations of sea level fingerprints have been made in previous studies but tended to be cumbersome and spatially coarse, Larour said. The new tool provides an overall mechanism for rapidly computing high-resolution results using a variety of potential data sets.

Gradient Fingerprint Mapping is not dependent on a particular climate change scenario, Larour said. “You can apply the method to any type of melting scenario that you want.” That means it will retain its utility as improved projections of ice loss become available in the future.

The computations show that the specific location of mass loss in Greenland is crucial, as it greatly affects the local sea level predictions for many major coastal cities in North America and Europe. The spatial details of Antarctic melting are important for areas south of the equator in South America, Africa and South Asia.

Among some intriguing results, Larour said, are those for New York, London and Oslo. Greenland’s northeastern ice stream was shown to have an outsized effect on New York’s local sea level, but the island’s southern glaciers had little influence. London was more strongly affected by Greenland’s northwestern and western glaciers. And Norway is so close to Greenland, the island’s gravitational fingerprint is contributing to sea level decrease in Oslo.

The authors note that ocean dynamics can accelerate or offset the changes in sea level from gravitational fingerprints – particularly in New York, where the contribution of melting ice to accelerated sea level rise is minor compared to other sources.

“This is really a new capability,” Larour said. “Now a coastal planner can understand and see how the melting or growing of a given ice sheet could be detrimental or beneficial to a specific location.”

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The French company PlanetObserver, specialized in geospatial data production, has just finalized the new PlanetSAT Updates imagery basemap of the United States and Mexico. Processed with fresh and cloudless Landsat 8 source data, this new basemap covers more than 10 million square kilometers at 15-meter resolution. With an advanced natural color imagery processing, this high quality mapping product provides up-to-date and detailed geographic information, perfect for 1:50,000 scale mapping.

Key user benefits of the new PlanetSAT Updates basemap are:

  • Up-to-date and reliable geographic information data, available immediately,
  • Plug-and-play product, ready-to-use in all professional applications,
  • Flexible licensing and pricing models.

PlanetSAT Updates basemap is a unique backdrop solution that brings strong added value to many commercial and military applications, ranging from flight simulation, geo-intelligence and mission preparation solutions, geographic information systems, to mapping applications such as web-based mapping solutions.

The production of PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico is part of a comprehensive annual maintenance program set up by PlanetObserver in 2016. All new PlanetSAT Updates productions are merged into PlanetSAT Global imagery basemap. Users benefit from constantly refreshed data, perfect to develop new applications and efficient services serving a wide variety of markets.

Laurent Masselot, CEO of PlanetObserver said, “The new PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico fulfills customers’ expectations, specifically for those based in North America, a market that we target in partnership with East View Geospatial. We are excited to offer an efficient and unique mapping product with advanced color balance that will improve user experience.

To find out more on PlanetSAT Updates basemap of the United States and Mexico, visit PlanetObserver website at www.planetobserver.com.

About PlanetObserver
PlanetObserver offers a full range of value-added geospatial products: PlanetSAT range of global imagery basemaps, PlanetDEM global and accurate Digital Elevation Models, and on-demand service for Very High Resolution imagery and orthophotography. All products are developed internally, backed up by PlanetObserver know-how in geospatial data processing and 30 years of technological expertise. PlanetObserver geospatial data are perfect for numerous commercial, military and consumer applications, ranging from web-mapping to 2D and 3D visualization and simulation solutions, GIS tools, cartographic mapping to audio-visual production.
________________________________________
Contact : PlanetObserver – 25 bd Gergovia – 63000 Clermont-Ferrand – France
Phone : (+33) 04 73 44 19 00 – info@planetobserver.com – www.planetobserver.com

TOKYO — Japan looks to offer companies free access to troves of satellite images starting in fiscal 2018, aiming to help with tasks such as inspecting infrastructure remotely and forecasting crop harvests.

The move was announced Friday in a report on usage of the data from an expert panel including members of the nation’s economic and science ministries, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology — known as AIST — as well as information technology businesses and university research bodies.

The images were captured by the Daichi earth-observation satellite, designed to help the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan — part of the land ministry — make maps and track disasters.

JAXA is in possession of a large volume of satellite imagery. A single image often costs private enterprises several thousand yen, or tens of dollars, to use. Businesses largely shy away from doing so, as the amount of data they need can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the analysis requires specialized software or expert knowledge.

AIST will develop a method for using artificial intelligence to analyze the voluminous data, letting businesses that sign up obtain the material preprocessed from a dedicated website.

The economy ministry hopes combining imagery taken at various angles by special cameras will draw interest from a range of fields. For example, agricultural companies could use infrared and other types of imaging to study crop characteristics invisible to the naked eye, like sugar content and protein volume. This would help pinpoint the optimal time to harvest.

Construction companies and others could tap the images for remote management of infrastructure, performing maintenance checks more efficiently on structures such as bridges and tunnels that are difficult for people to enter. Oil trading companies might streamline distribution, using photos from multiple angles of tanks with movable roofs to check how much fluid remains in the receptacles around the globe.

Easing access to the satellite data is part of the economy ministry’s “connected industries” plan to spur technological innovation by enticing businesses in different sectors to partner and share information as well as production equipment. Companies could improve productivity and enter a wider range of related businesses, eventually exporting business models to the rest of Asia and elsewhere.

Japan’s myriad satellites include positioning and meteorological trackers. Launches typically have been costly, so JAXA has handled them. But private companies have developed lower-cost satellites recently, and related industries are expected to grow.

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) — China will freely share data from its new-generation weather satellite Fengyun-4 as well as its first carbon monitoring satellite TanSat with international users, a Chinese official said here Tuesday.

Yang Jun, director general of the National Satellite Meteorological Center, part of the China Meteorological Administration, made the remarks at the China Day event during the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) week 2017 in Washington, D.C.

“These two satellites represent the latest outcomes of scientific and technological innovation in China, and also the contribution made by China to global meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation, climate change response and economic-social development,” Yang said.

“In the future, we will continue to provide more and better satellite observational products for users worldwide,” he said.

FengYun-4, launched last December, was the first of China’s second-generation weather satellites in geostationary orbit and also the country’s first quantitative remote-sensing satellite in high orbit.

Yang said the testing of FengYun-4 platform and payloads has been completed recently, showing that the satellite is stable in operation with good performance.

“The China Meteorological Administration is in the process of testing FengYun-4’s various products including cloud, atmosphere and surface conditions,” he continued.

“FengYun-4 is scheduled to be put into use in early 2018, with its data and products being freely available to international users,” he said.

TanSat, also launched last December, was China’s first satellite to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, which Yang said was “of great importance to a full understanding of the global carbon cycle process and its impact on global climate change.”

The Chinese official said that the satellite’s in-orbit test has also been completed and that all performance indicators met the design requirements, with the precision of carbon concentration monitoring being below four ppm (parts per million).

“We have developed a carbon satellite data sharing policy, and level 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 data will be open to users worldwide freely,” he said, referring to data that have been processed and relevant products.

Yang added that data and products from TanSat will be released through Fengyun satellite data center website and national integrated Earth observation data sharing platform in quasi real-time.

“We have a key carbon initiative and we would love to see China more engaged in that,” Barbara Ryan, secretariat director of GEO, an intergovernmental organization, told reporters at the event.

“I think your satellite is going to be a key contribution, and particularly with your broad open data polices that will help enormously, really give us better estimates of how the Earth climate is changing,” Ryan said.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) and Radiant.Earth announce their agreement to jointly enhance geospatial data literacy in the global development community to support tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The ESA and Radiant.Earth cooperation focuses on merging the rapid innovation in machine learning and cloud computing with traditional remote sensing science to support global development objectives in addition to the SDGs. This cooperation will include 1) capacity building and outreach activities linked to the analysis and measurement of the SDGs using satellite data; 2) technical collaboration, including access to each others platforms, data and tools; and 3) methodological components to develop shared applications and services to feature the value of geospatial data and to help develop a better workflow for practitioners.

About 17 years ago, United Nations member countries committed to upholding individual and societal progress. Global leaders pledged to eradicate poverty and hunger, improve global health, ensure environmental sustainability and foster global partnerships. This bold plan, which is the precursor to the SDGs, helped to leapfrog many countries out of poverty. The SDGs are designed to usher in the next stage of global accomplishments towards improving human lives.

Radiant.Earth Founder and CEO Anne Hale Miglarese noted geospatial information is central to accurately tracking and measuring the global progress of the SDGs and added that Radiant.Earth works with a diverse group of actors to ensure the global development community has greater access to Earth imagery, as well as to put the innovation in geospatial technologies to work for the community. As a neutral entity that collaborates with a variety of sources, the company can offer an unbiased perspective to implementation and evaluation decision-making processes.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programs, added that global and open Earth Observation data from space will help to better guide development practitioners in managing natural resources in a sustainable way. The cooperation between ESA and Radiant.Earth will also contribute to increasing the uptake of EO data by the wider development community, thereby helping to deliver the full societal value of open data.

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This book was realised under the auspices of the “Institut Français de l’Histoire de l’Espace” (IFHE) and is entitled « Observation spatiale de la Terre – Optique et Radar- La France et l’Europe pionnières ». It provides a comprehensive overview over a period of 50 years (1965-2015) of Earth observation activities and applications performed in Europe.

The book is focused on high resolution optical and SAR imagery and covers both civilian and military space systems. Several chapters deal with EU and ESA Earth Observation cooperation programmes starting from the early days with Earthnet till today with the Copernicus Sentinels satellites. It also covers cooperative programmes between the EU and some Member States (e.g. Belgium, Sweden and France for the Vegetation instrument flown on Spot satellite missions).

The book results of contributions of more than 80 space « pioneers », all being or having been key players from Space agencies (ESA, CNES, ASI, DLR, CSA…) and Space industries (Airbus Space and Defense, Thales Alenia Space, etc.), from European Commission DGs (DG Research and DG GROW) and the Joint Research Centre as well as from the scientific and application communities.

This 400-page well-illustrated book is currently in French and, at the occasion of several presentations to diverse audiences, the need for an English language version was strongly advocated to enable a wider distribution, for instance within ESA and EU Member States, Canada, European space industry, national space institutions abroad, associations (such as EARSC, EARSeL, CEOS …) and at the occasion of major forthcoming space Earth observation events (such as the 20th anniversary of GMES Baveno Manifesto in 2018, CEOS General Assembly meeting…).

Pre-purchase orders are available at a preferential unit price!

For more info please contact:
Guy Duchossois / iPhone : 0033-(0)6 75 03 60 79 / email : guy.duchossois@libertysurf.fr

October 17, 2017. The French Startup Earthcube is thrilled to announce a €3 Million seed funding with 360 Capital Partners.

This first fundraising round will enable them to double down on their commercial efforts and to continue the development of their state of the art artificial intelligence technology.

A unique way to enable global monitoring.
Availability of satellite imagery is booming. With higher frequency, resolution and reduced costs, those images have become an unparalleled source of information to monitor operations across the planet. Earthcube mission is to enable our customers to benefit from the wealth of information hidden in this ocean of pixels.

Surveillance for customers with highest reliability requirements.
Created in 2016, Earthcube offers a deep understanding of its customers’ operations together with advanced artificial intelligence solutions to alert on actual threats. No more. No less. Their technology combines know how of remote sensing sciences together with deep learning and computer vision approaches developed originally for medical imagery.

Ambitious goals for the future.
Earthcube developed and implemented over the last year their technology to monitor infrastructures for customers from several industries. With this first financing round,they will double the size of the team to accelerate our commercial development and to develop additional applications.

More information

18 September 2017. An app that uses satellite imagery to give flight travellers an interactive, bird’s-eye view of their routes took the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp at ESA’s centre in Frascati, Italy.


The winning team

In its sixth year, the App Camp offers access to the latest space data to app developers, who work to make the information accessible to a broad audience.

As Europe’s Copernicus programme continues to launch the Sentinel satellites, transforming their information into useful products poses both a challenge and an opportunity.

The week-long ‘camp’ culminated today with presentations of the six projects to a jury, including a brief address by ESA Director General Jan Woerner, who discussed the importance of ESA’s space activities for society.

“We are developing spacecraft and launching spacecraft […] but at the end of the day all of this is for the people on Earth,” he said.“Space is working beyond Earthly borders, and therefore your apps should work beyond Earthly borders. They should be accessible for each and every one.”

The winning AiR app displays an interactive projection of the world’s surface to airborne travellers from Copernicus Sentinel satellite imagery, letting them see information about the cities and landmarks they pass over during their flight, without the disruptions of clouds or the plane getting in the way.

Twenty-four developers from 14 countries attended this year’s App Camp.

Other apps developed included Puddle, which combines measurements on aerosol concentration from satellites and ground instruments to present the probability of severe rainstorms in a user-friendly map to help secure assets, manage risks and share accurate information when heavy rain occurs.

For mountain bikers, RideGreen combines satellite data such as information on vegetation from Sentinel-2 and air quality data from Sentinel-5P along with in-situ meteorological data to calculate and compare the greenness and cleanliness of biking routes.

Also for fitness enthusiasts, Track Champ combines Earth observation data with street maps to find the perfect time and place to stay active while tracking personal performance over time.

CARDpernicus is an educational card game that presents Earth-observation data in a beginner-friendly format.

The Spottitt app enables corporations to monitor their projects remotely and receive alerts when deforestation limits are exceeded. Users can also monitor areas of interest and even flag deforestation cases by sending photos through the App.

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Conferences, roundtables, training and information sessions, hackathons, accelerators and incubators. Sounds interesting, right? All these activities, and many more, will await you during one entire week at the European Space Week in Tallinn (EUSW2017), which is organised by the European Commission under the auspices of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

From 3 to 9 November this year, experts, scientists, stakeholders and anyone interested in using Space technologies and applications is invited to discover cutting-edge potential of the two EU global flagship Space programmes, Galileo and Copernicus, to meet award-winning entrepreneurs, start-ups and visionaries, to interact with the Earth Observation (EO) and satellite navigation community, and to discuss the latest trends with decision makers, innovators and industry leaders.

The European Space Week features over 12 events, organised in two different cities, Tallinn and Tartu. But don’t feel burdened by having to make a choice! In order to facilitate your decision-making on which events to attend, we have rounded up an overview of all the events taking place. Of course they are all highly recommended and fall under the “can’t miss” category!

European Space Week’s website

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(26 September 2017 ) Thanks to a major effort to ensure full satellite coverage of the world’s forests, all countries now have the necessary data for annual forest monitoring for the first time ever.

Deforestation and forest degradation is the 2nd leading source of carbon emissions globally, and must be reduced significantly in order to meet global climate targets. Complete forest cover data is crucial for countries to be able to report on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in support of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Full and open forest data is now available for all countries as a result of the open data policies and collaboration of a variety of national space agencies and coordinating bodies. This advance in satellite coverage was coordinated by the Group on Earth Observations through its space arm, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), and through its flagship Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI).

The satellite data underpinning this effort comes primarily from the United States Landsat series (USGS), and the European Union Copernicus Programme Sentinel-1 radar series and optical Sentinel-2 series (EU/ESA). Additional contributions are provided by Japan (JAXA), Brazil (INPE), China (CRESDA), France (CNES), Italy (ASI), Canada (CSA), and Germany (DLR). Further datasets are anticipated next year from the space agencies of the UK (NovaSAR mission) and Argentina (SAOCOM mission).

Global coverage of forests through this collaboration will continue from 2017 until at least 2030, allowing countries to confidently apply satellite data in their national forest monitoring and reporting systems.

For more information please contact the CEOS Space Data Coordination Group at sdcg-exec@lists.ceos.org

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