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On 15 May 2017, the Copernicus service in support to EU External Action (SEA) started to deliver services in operational mode.

The European Union Satellite Centre , as Copernicus Entrusted Entity, coordinates this service, which assists the EU in its operations and interests outside EU territory, providing decision makers with geo-information on remote, difficult to access areas, where security issues are at stake. It also assists third countries in situations of crisis or emerging crisis and to prevent global and trans-regional threats having a destabilising effect. More information on application domains and types of products, can be found in the Copernicus SEA Product Portfolio.

The SEA service primarily targets European users (EU and Member States decision makers) but cooperation with key International stakeholders is foreseen.

On the 6th of October 2016, the European Commission entrusted SatCen with the operations of the Copernicus services in Support to EU External Action with the signature of a Delegation Agreement by Lowri EVANS, Director-General DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW) and Pascal Legai, SatCen Director in order to support EU External Action with state-of-the art satellite data and technologies in a secure mode and environment.

For further questions regarding the service, you can contact SatCen at the dedicated email address: CopernicusSEA@satcen.europa.eu.

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With around 90% of world trade carried by ships, making sure a vessel follows the fastest route has clear economic benefits.

By merging measurements from different satellites, ESA is providing key information on ocean currents, which is not only making shipping more efficient but is also helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Shipping companies forecast ocean currents down to a depth of about 15 m to route their vessels through favourable currents and avoid those that might hinder a voyage. Reliable forecasts are essential for making sure that goods arrive on time and that ships use as little fuel as possible. The problem is that forecasts might not always be accurate. Combining satellite measurements such as sea-surface height and temperature, surface winds and gravity, along with measurements taken in situ, can yield a unique view of ocean-surface circulation.

ESA’s Globcurrent project has merged measurements to build a picture of daily global ocean surface currents over the last 24 years. Shipping companies can use this information to understand general circulation characteristics of particular regions.

Building on Globcurrent, a near-realtime product would then allow them to choose the most reliable forecast for a given time and location.

Ocean scientists therefore teamed up with CGM-CMA, a worldwide shipping group, to optimise routing using Globcurrent data.

Fabrice Collard from Ocean Data Laboratory said, “The lack of confidence in ocean-circulation models has hindered ship routing.
“Today, Globcurrent can help assess which forecast products are the most reliable for a given local area. This, in turn, helps shipping companies choose a particular route that would make use of favourable currents.”
Patrice Bara from CGM-CMA remarked, “Reducing container vessel fuel consumption is an important challenge, especially when trying to cut down on emissions that contribute to global warming.
“Based on our experience with the Europe-Asia route, using existing ocean forecast products gives us a 0.4% cost saving. However, Globcurrent could help us achieve savings of up to 1.2% on fuel consumption.
“It is extremely important for us to assess the reliability of model forecasts against Globcurrent products in near-real time and to achieve our first target of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by 180 000 tonnes a year.”

Craig Donlon, ESA ocean scientist, added, “The importance of ocean surface currents cannot be overstated for those working on the ocean.
“Helping European industry to fine-tune their ship routing operations with Globcurrent brings not only financial savings but also the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Now Globcurrent has been demonstrated, the operational generation of products will be transferred to the Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service in the coming months.
ESA will continue the fundamental task of scientific research and development to maintain and evolve the new system to take full benefit of the Copernicus Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 satellites, and in the future Sentinel-6.”

Source ESA

Data providers and users at all levels are invited to engage with the NextGEOSS project as it starts to build the next generation Earth observation data hub.

The NextGEOSS Project

GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) is a central part of GEO’s Information System’s mission.The NextGEOSS project, a European contribution to GEOSS, is developing the next generation centralised hub for Earth Observation data, where the users can connect to access data and deploy EO-based applications. The data hub concept revolves around providing the data and resources to the users communities, together with Cloud resources, seamlessly connected to provide an integrated ecosystem for supporting applications. A central component of NextGEOSS is the strong emphasis put on engaging the communities of providers and users, and bridging the space in between.

The project has a special focus on encouraging and stimulating data exploitation by businesses.

Capacity building is at the heart of NextGEOSS and the project will identify training needs to encourage wider user-engagement with EO data and its commercial potential in the next 3,5 years.

Listening Mode

The NextGEOSS data hub will be developed in incremental steps in order to integrate feed-back from various user groups from beginning to end. In the first phase of the development, the NextGEOSS team is in listening mode to make sure a wide range of user requirements are captured as early as possible.

Opportunities to Engage

You are invited to engage with the NextGEOSS team face-to-face at events or through our social media channels or via our website. In the coming months, NextGEOSS will be present at a series of events in Europe, South-Africa, and the US. Below you’ll find a list of events that you might find interesting:

April 2017
20th – 21st April 2017, 2nd GEO Data Providers workshop , Florence, Italy

24th – 27th April 2017, The European Geophysical Union , Vienna, Austria

  • 24th April ESSI2.6, X4 Hall, poster session
  • 27th April 10:30 – 12:00 Splinter meeting
    Throughout the week it is also possible to meet several of the NextGEOSS team individually, either at the conference, for lunch or after hours gatherings. We are interested in your input and questions you might have.

May 2017
8th – 13th May, ISRSE37 and GEO work program symposium , Tshwane, South-Africa

  • 9th May, NextGEOSS session
  • 11th May 17:30 – 19:00 Roundtable
  • 12th – 13th GEO Work program symposium
    Individual meetings on request throughout the stay in Pretoria

June 2017
19th – 22nd June, GEO European Project Workshop (GEPW), Helsinki, Finland
19th – 21nd June NextGEOSS will attend and present the project in sessions to be decided.
22nd June The 1st NextGEOSS Summit – For detailed program sign-up to get alerts and more information about NextGEOSS.

September 2017
11th – 15th September 2017, User Feed-back Week , Reading, UK and online
13th – 14th September Onsite Training, Reading, UK. Sign-up to get alerts about detailed program and more information about NextGEOSS.

October 2017
NextGEOSS will also be present at the GEO Plenary in Washington DC in October 2017.

The NextGEOSS team wants your input!

In addition to the possibilities to engage with the NextGEOSS team at the events mentioned above, you can always reach us through our social media channels. Twitter and Facebook are your best bets in this first phase. Mention us so we can see your question and respond.

Be a part of the future and help us make the next generation data hub for Earth observations meet your needs!

Join the Copernicus Relays and Copernicus Academy launch event on 6 June 2017. It will be a first-of-its-kind meeting, gathering Earth Observation actors and industry representatives from across Europe.

About the Copernicus Programme

With its flagship Copernicus Programme, the EU is changing the world of Earth Observation. Vast amounts of Copernicus Sentinel data are freely, fully and openly available to researchers, the business world as well as every citizen providing ample opportunity for innovation across all industries and sectors.

About Copernicus Relays and the Copernicus Academy

The User and Market Uptake team at the European Commission (EC) is working towards ensuring that all current and potential users of the Copernicus Programme know how to harness the power of the Programme and its data. To ensure this, the Copernicus Academy and the Copernicus Relays were launched by the Commission at the end of 2016, and play a pivotal role in achieving this objective.

The Copernicus Relays are the regional voices of Copernicus in the individual Member States, thus bridging the EC and the end-users of Copernicus. The Academy aims to educate and release an increasing amount of Copernicus-savvy people into the workforce and brings together the EC and the educational and research organisation in the EU.

As of today, the Network includes 61 Relays (link to full list) and 79 Academy members (link to full list), which are now half-way through their first year of operations. Read more about the Relays and the Academy networks.

About the event

After half a year of operations, mostly remote and online, all members of the Network will meet in Brussels to receive the official welcome from the European Parliament and Commission. The event is open to all interested stakeholders. Are you ready to come on-board?

Participate to the launch event of the Copernicus Relays and Copernicus Academy.

The registration is now open!

Up to now, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides freely more than 150 ocean products derived from Satellite/in situ/Models, dealing with the physical (temperature, salinity, ocean currents…) and biogeochemical (chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen…) state of the ocean over the European regional seas and the global ocean.

The year 2017 will see a major improvement in the CMEMS portfolio: Wave products, be from models, satellite or in situ observations will be available throughout 2017 and 2018. The first step of this important release will take place on April 19th 2017.

New wave products are answering the requirements from a large user panel in need of wave information in all ocean basins and the blue economy shall profit from those new open and free waves products.

Various markets such as for example the maritime transport sector, shipping industry, coast guards and port authorities will benefit from it.

Moreover, the Copernicus Marine Service wave products are a key input for the development of wave energy technologies which is developing fast to help secure Europe’s energy supply and reducing its fossil print.

Finally, the research and academic community shall also take a large advantage of the new wave products, and use them for example in ocean-atmosphere interaction studies or applied science to name a few.

Source CMEMS

Climate change, with all its ecological and economic implications, is one of society’s greatest challenges.

It is imperative that we develop efficient strategies and derive measures to protect our sensitive climate system on a global scale. In order to do this, we must gain a profound understanding of the complex environmental processes that contribute to climate change. Atmospheric researchers from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have recently made an important contribution to this.

The EMAC (ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry) simulation system was used to reconstruct respectively forecast the chemical composition of our atmosphere from 1950 to 2100. Exact knowledge of this development is important, as there is a connection between atmospheric chemistry and the climate. Among other things, the data obtained from the model allow scientists to draw conclusions on the influences of individual atmospheric variations on climate change. A detailed description of atmospheric composition is a particular feature of the climate-chemistry model. Moreover, the modular EMAC system was linked to an ocean model to also enable comprehensive consideration of oceanic influences.

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Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has signed an agreement with Andhra Pradesh govt. for using geospatial technologies in state governance and development. These MoUs were signed in the presence of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar.

Although, the state is already using inputs from ISRO in various applications, the MoUs ensure the commitment to get help from ISRO in further extending these applications.

The first MoU was signed to provide experimental meteorological services to the state. The Andhra Pradesh Varuna app for Android smartphones was launched on the occasion. Varuna is the Indian God of water. The application uses a large number of ground-based radio stations and weather forecasting services by Isro, to deliver an accurate and up to date platform for weather information to the end user. The twenty four-hour forecast is updated every six hours.

The second MoU was signed for the provision of disaster management services. Inputs from the various earth observation and meteorological satellites would be combined with data from the ground based National Remote Sensing Centre in Hyderabad to provide Disaster Management Support (DMS) to the state. Data from the field will be combined with near real time inputs to monitor forest fires, cyclones, floods, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis.

The third MoU was signed for the use of Isro technologies to keep track of the natural resource of water across the state. The state and the space agency have agreed to collaborate on a web based geoportal, AP State Water Resources Information and Management System (APWRIMS). The APWRIMS will host all the spatial and non spatial data on water resources in the state. The inventory of water in the state will be maintained with inputs from satellites and validation models.

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With ESA’s EarthCARE Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer satellite now entering its ‘production and qualification’ phase, ESA is calling for a new Mission Advisory Group.

EarthCARE – the largest and most complex Earth Explorer mission to date – is being developed as a joint venture between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA.

Scheduled to be launched in August 2019, this new satellite mission will advance our understanding of the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting incident solar radiation back out to space and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface. These observations are much needed to improve climate predictions and weather forecasts.

The role of the Mission Advisory Group is to provide scientific advice to ESA during the development and implementation of the mission.

This call for group members covers Phase-D to Phase-E1, from production and qualification to the end of in-orbit commissioning.

Applications can be made via the Mission Advisory Group website

The deadline for application submission is 2 May at 11:00 GMT (12:00 CEST).

Source

(By Anusuya Datta) Deforestation is a global problem, more so in the developing and the underdeveloped world, thanks to ineffective laws and corrupt administrations in some parts of the world.

But help is at hand. Now, when a new road appears in the dense forests of Peru, or a patch of forest is felled Malaysia, anyone with an Internet connection can be alerted of the loss.

A Landsat-based alert system, developed by the World Resources Institute as part of its Global Forest Watch network, gives near-weekly alerts for changes smaller in size than a football field. The tool uses imagery from Landsat 7 and 8 to monitor forests across the world every eight days. That revisit time, or data cadence, together with Landsat’s 30 meter spatial resolution, allows land managers to know when small incursions into forests are being made — in time to respond before further damage is done.

Download the Global Forest Watch interactive map here

Global Forest Watch (GFW) — whose goal is to provide decision makers with timely information about global forests — teamed up with the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) team and scientist Matt Hansen to develop this revolutionary tool. The three essential ingredients are freely available Landsat data distributed by the USGS, the Hansen-GLAD tree cover loss algorithms, and Big Data computing power like that of Google’s Earth Engine.

More info

Finance is the fuel that allows business ideas to grow. Entrepreneurs need funds to turn great ideas into great products and services that add value to the society. A brand-new resource is made available by the European Commission for those businesses – detailed factsheets that help navigate the financial opportunities available. The factsheets are tailored for the Copernicus ecosystem and encompass financing for start-ups from the idea stage to commercialisation, up to expansion.

When starting your own business venture, there are a few things that need to be just right: the right idea, that is feasible and has a prospective market; the right time, as some innovations fade away just because they were ahead of their times; and the right people, a complementary team that will make this idea come true. And of course money. While there are many opinions on what a good idea is, or how one should recruit a dream-team, every entrepreneur will agree that finding money is difficult and time consuming.

To help start-ups and scale-ups with gathering funding, the European Commission developed brand new factsheets that help navigate the financial opportunities that the European Union provides. No matter what stage of your entrepreneurship journey you are at – there are instruments available. You will not need to read through hundreds of pages of documentation – this is your shortcut to understanding the available financing options and how to apply for them. Moreover, this material is tailored to the Copernicus ecosystem. The European Commission wants to make sure that the entrepreneurs wishing to take advantage of the full, free and open access to Copernicus Sentinel data and services will benefit from the tools available.

Read more here