ESA and GODAE Ocean View

Dr Stephen Briggs, Head, Earth Observation Planning and Co—ordination

Third GODAE Ocean View Science Team Meeting, ESA HQ ParisNovember 15th 2011

www.esa.int

• Over 40 years of experience

• 18 Member States, 19 in 2011

• Five establishments in Europe, about 2200 staff

• 4 billion Euro budget (2011)

• Over 70 satellites designed, tested and operated in flight

• 17 scientific satellites in operation

• Six types of launcher developed

• Celebrated the 200th launch of Ariane in February 2011

ESA Facts and Figures

– Space science

– Human spaceflight

– Exploration

– Earth observation

– Launchers

ESA is one of the few space agencies in the world to

combine responsibility in nearly all areas of space activity.

Activities

– Navigation

– Telecommunications

– Technology

– Operations

ESA’s Earth Observation Toolkit

The development of Earth observation in Europe: ESA’s Living Planet Programme

BIOMASS CoReH2O PREMIER 3 Core Candidate Earth Explorer 7 missions

CarbonSat & Flex in Explorer 8 Opportunity Mission Candidates

Sentinel 1

Sentinel 2

Sentinel 4

Sentinel 5/5P

Sentinel 3

ENVISAT

MSG/MTG

MetOp

17/3/2009

16/7/2009

08/4/2010

Mid 2013

End 2013

End 2013

Scientific challenges for ESA’s LPP

– SP-1304 Updated Science Strategy for ESA’s LPP, after broad user consultation

– Emphasis on the Earth System Approach, where interactions and interfaces between different parts of the Earth system are fundamental

– Understand the impact of human activities on natural Earth processes

Available from http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/SP-1304.pdf

Focus on:

Atmosphere

Cryosphere

Biosphere

Geosphere

Hydrosphere

The Challenges of the Oceans

• Challenge 1: Quantify the interaction between variability in ocean dynamics, thermohaline circulation, Sea level, and climate.

• Challenge 2: Understand physical and bio-chemical air/sea interaction processes.

• Challenge 3: Understand internal waves and the mesoscale in the ocean, its relevance for heat and energy transport and its influence on primary productivity.

• Challenge 4: Quantify marine-ecosystem variability, and its natural and anthropogenic physical, Biological and geochemical forcing.

• Challenge 5: Understand Land/Ocean interactions in terms of natural and anthropogenic forcing

• Challenge 6: Provide reliable model- and data-based assessments and predictions of the past, present and future state of the ocean.

First images

Prestige tankeroil slick

Mar 02

Lau

nch

Serving 5000 scientific projects

and many operational

users (including GMES Services)

Sep 04

Envisat SymposiumSalzburg (A)

Ozone hole 2003

Bam earthquake

Tectonic uplift(Andaman)

Chlorophyllconcentration

B-15A iceberg

HurricaneKatrina

Envisat SymposiumMontreux (CH)

Apr 07

CO2 map

Arctic 2007

Living Planet Symposium

Bergen (N)

Jun 10

L’Aquila 2009

and many workshops

dedicated to

specific Envisat user

communities

ESA: thousands of scientific projects

ERS1 ERS2 ENVISAT CryoSat Sentinel-3RA RA RA2 SIRAL SRAL

Altimetry: A foundation for ocean forecasting

Sea Surface Height Mean Sea levelWind and WavesDEM, Tides,River and lakeHeights, …

SSTSST-VC

ERS1 ERS2 ENVISAT Sentinel-3ATSR1 ATSR2 AATSR SLSTR

Improvements in data assimilation of SST:

Better ocean dynamics (fundamental variable)Climate (seasonal/decadal prediction)Better ocean/weather forecasts

Ocean Colour

ENVISAT MERIS Sentinel-3 OLCI

Improvements in data assimilation of Ocean colour:

Better Water quality indicatorsBetter ecosystem managementClimate (carbon cycle)Pollution management

GOCE: ESA’s Gravity Mission

Its objectives are to improve understanding of:– global ocean circulation and transfer of heat

– physics of the Earth’s interior (lithosphere & mantle)

– sea level records, topographic processes, evolution of ice sheets and sea level change

The Gravity field and steady-stateOcean Circulation Explorer (GOCE)

www.esa.int/livingplanet/goce

Launched 17th March 2009!!

GOCE gravity field

meters

Results – Mean Dynamic Topography

The GOCE MDT display the well-known features with enhanced resolution and sharpened boundaries.

=> Compute surface geostrophic currents (u,v)

1.4

m

-1.4

(Knudsen et al. 2011)

Gulf Stream:

The GOCE (MDT, top left) and derived current speeds (top right) compared to GRACE current (lower left).

Cf Maximenko (2009) (lower right)

1.0m

-1.0

40cm/s

0

Aghulas:

The GOCE MDT and derived current speeds (upper left and right)

Speeds from a GRACE derived MDT (lower left)

Speeds from Maximenko (2009) (lower right)

1.4m

-1.4

40cm/s

0

GOCE was included in the Top 10 scientific results of 2010 by Nature

CryoSat2: ESA’s Ice Mission

Its objectives are to improve our understanding of:

- thickness and mass fluctuations of polar land and marine ice - to quantify rates of thinning/thickening due to climate variations

- Instrument: Ku band SIRAL (SAR Interferometric Radar Altimeter).www.esa.int/livingplanet/cryosat

Launched 8th April 2010

Arctic Ocean Mean Dynamic topography (S. Laxon & D. Wingham, UCL)

– Cryosat can view much more of the Arctic than other missions due to the high inclination of the orbit

– Most recent data highlight the MDT using Cryosat data

(Credit:BBC)

Arctic Ocean sea ice thickness from Cryosat (University College London)

– The first map of sea-ice thickness from ESA’s CryoSat mission

– Data from January and February 2011have been used to show the thickness of the ice as it approaches its annual maximum.

– Thanks to CryoSat’s orbit, ice thickness close to the North Pole can be seen for the first time.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent, 14 Sept 2011 (Envisat + AMSR)

Courtesy ESA, NASA,Univ Bremen

SMOS: Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission

Its objectives are:- to provide global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity for hydrological studies- to advance our understanding of the freshwater cycle - to improve climate, weather and extreme-event forecasting- Instrument: Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS)

www.esa.int/smos

Launched 2nd Nov 2009!!

The first SMOS Global Soil Moisture Map (20-23 June 2010)

P. Richaume, CESBIO

VALIDATION OF GEOPHYSICAL DATA PRODUCTS:OCEAN SALINITY

SMOS sea surface salinity versus in-situ observations for April to October 2010Statistics of differences “quasi global” for lLatitudel≤55°

Global SMOS error: 0.4 psu !

– Level 2 ocean salinity data products released to the science community in Oct 2010

– Progress has been made in responding to the mission objectives

– Presently the global SMOS error has reached 0.4 psu and for subareas even less (0.3 psu for Tropical Pacific Ocean)

Areas for improvements- RFI contamination in particular for lLatitudel≥55° - Long-term drift - Land-sea contamination

© IFREMER (Reul et al. 2011)

Document title | Author Name | Place | Data doc | Programme | Pag. 24

1. Ocean Forecasting and data assimilation of is of strategic importance to ESA (satellite development, climate monitoring, GMES…)

a. Integration of models and observations is the key to a successful monitoring programme

b. Observation operators & data assimilation techniques are essential to improve models’ performance and confidence in results

c. Model re-analyses offer the potential to provide high quality datasets that are also methodologically consistent

d. Assist & inform the design of optimal observational systems via Observation System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs)

e. Monitoring programmes should inform future model developments

GODAE Ocean View: Key Issues for ESA

In summary: ESA produces Global Ocean Products

Dynamic Topography Geostrophic Ocean Currents

Ocean Colour Sea Surface Temperature

Salinity

Geoid

SST Ocean colour

Sun glitter

Roughness

And: The Challenge remains to exploit Synergy and Mesoscale Processes

Summary

1.ESA has many ocean sensors and archive data that are world class: please continue to use of them for assimilation, validation and monitoring and feedback your experience, issues and problems/successes to ESA so that we can do better. (This is essential for further development etc)

2.As we move to coupled ocean-atmosphere systems EO ocean sensors and assimilation will be essential.  ESA look to GOV-ST to drive the use of EO data in ocean forecasting forwards.

3.International collaboration is essential and ESA has CCI, CEOS VC's etc amongst other mechanisms to help coordinate.  GOV-ST can help us demonstrate the usefulness of EO data so that we can continue to provide better capabilities.

Document title | Author Name | Place | Data doc | Programme | Pag. 27

THANK YOU