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 Training
Course Overview: Oceanography from Space
Prof Detlef Stammer (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Oceanography from Space
ESA has a established a series of successful satellite missions that provide
data for environmental and ocean remote sensing, starting with the ERS-1/2
series that lead into the ongoing ENVISAT mission. Each mission expanded the
capabilities of remote sensing of the ocean and sea ice and now covers a wide
range of physical, biological and geochemical applications of societal
relevance. Anticipated Earth Explorer missions of ESA will make additional
contributions to the study of ocean circulation and dynamics, and the high
latitude sea-ice covered oceans.
The ocean exhibits an enormous economic and social value which makes a
continuous monitoring of the oceans through satellite observations mandatory.
This is required to support science applications related to the ocean and clime
in general terms, but also to protect our welfare, to assist everyday activities
performed at sea, to aid ship routing and to support security at sea (oil spill,
ship tracking, search and rescue). Benefits of satellite observations for ocean
applications include increased unprecedented scientific insight, efficiency of
operations at sea, improved safety to personnel and reduced damage to the
environment. Observations of the ocean are especially required for the
monitoring of climate and the environment on seasonal-to-interannual-to-decadal
time scale. Beyond direct studies, a central objective for obtaining satellite
data over the ocean is also to provide the data required by global and regional
(operational) oceanography integrated systems that use in-situ and satellite
observations together with models and data assimilation to provide an integrated
description of the ocean. This required a seamless integration of in-situ and
satellite observations together with models through data assimilation to provide
an integrated description of the ocean and the coupled ocean-ice-atmosphere
system.
This lecture will review the capabilities of present day Earth observing from
ESA and NASA satellite missions. In particular it will discuss applications
across all available ocean applications that will be addressed in more detail
during the course of the week, including physical oceanography and
bio-geochemical applications from the open ocean and coastal regime, and
bio-geochemical applications from the open ocean and shelf regions. Moreover,
the presentation will explain the goals and ongoing work of ocean data
assimilation which is required to gain insight from satellite data available
only at the surface about the full water column.
Training
Course Overview: ESA Missions
Dr Mark Drinkwater (ESA-ESTEC, the Netherlands)
ESA's Current Missions and the Future Earth Explorer Missions for Ocean
and Ice
ESA has a established a heritage in developing successful satellite missions
that enable scientific study of the oceans. Importantly, the post- ERS and
Envisat era will see a succession of exciting, new science- driven Earth
Explorer missions developed as part of ESA's Living Planet Programme, as well as
the operational series of GMES Sentinel monitoring satellites. The first three
approved Explorer missions will make specific contributions to the study of
ocean circulation and dynamics, and the high latitude sea-ice covered oceans.
This lecture will briefly review the objectives of the GOCE, SMOS and CryoSat-2
missions, and will indicate some of the scientific applications that shall
result from their data. In addition, the presentation will indicate current
plans for establishing continuity in the valuable Ku-band radar altimeter,
C-band SAR, ATSR and MERIS climate monitoring datastreams, in the form of the
Earthwatch GMES Sentinel-3 satellite.
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Training
Course Overview: MERIS
Dr Roland Doerffer (GKSS, Germany) and Dr Carsten Brockmann
(Brockmann Consult, Germany)
The MERIS session will address principles and applications of ocean colour
remote sensing with special focus of the usage of MERIS data for coastal waters.
The main topic is the determination of the concentrations of water constituents
and optical properties from reflectance spectra of MERIS.
With its 15 spectral bands of high radiometric performance, a spatial
resolution of 300 m (full resolution mode) and a revisit period of 1-3 days
(latitude dependent) MERIS is in particular suited for coastal waters. However,
the user of the data has to be aware of a number of problems, which are related
to the variable optical properties of phytoplankton, of all kind of suspended
matter and of dissolved organic compounds, all of which change the spectral
reflectance. In addition these waters require a special treatment for the
correction of the influence of the atmosphere.
The application ranges from water quality monitoring, determination of
primary production, determination of water transparency, solar energy
absorption, suspended matter transport, determination of exceptional plankton
blooms etc.
Within the course all details which are necessary
for a useful and critical use of MERIS data will be presented and discussed.
This includes:
- Principles of ocean colour remote sensing
- Basic algorithms for open ocean and coastal waters, bio-optical models
- Basic atmospheric correction for open ocean and coastal waters
- MERIS instrument
- MERIS water algorithms for case 1 and case 2, atmospheric correction case
1 and case 2
- MERIS products overview (RR, FR, L1, L2, L3)
- MERIS flagging system
- What to find in and how to use MERIS documents: MERIS Handbook, Cyclic
report, disclaimers, ATBDs, Model reference, Validation handbook
- Where are the limits of MERIS water products (e.g. concentration ranges
and mixtures, atmospheric correction, sun glint)
- How to apply local algorithms
- MERIS validation procedures
- Applications - examples
- The use of BEAM software with exercises
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Training
Course Overview: ASAR
Prof Johnny Johannessen (Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing
Center, Norway) and Dr Vincent Kerboal (BOOST Technologies, France)
The Synthetic Aperture Radar - A(SAR) session will address principles and
application of the imaging radars that achieve high resolution by using a
synthetic aperture processing technique. Their view of the ocean is unhindered
by clouds, and they have so called all-weather day and night capabilities. Via
resonant Bragg backscattering from centimetre long waves the imaging radars
measure the spatial distribution of sea surface roughness with a horizontal
resolution of a few tens of meters. This fine- scale resolution gives the SAR
the unique capability to observe a number of oceanic and atmospheric phenomena
whose characteristic signatures appear in the patterns of sea surface roughness
such as surface and internal waves, current fronts, surface wind variability,
oil or natural slicks.
The first part of the session will present the basic
principles of SAR imaging mechanisms.
The second part will explain how to interpret radar
images and provide quantitative estimates of waves, near surface wind, current
features, oil spill, and sea ice.
The third part of the session will include
interactive practical training in which both the interpretation of oceanic
signatures and the transformation of SAR images to geophysical quantities (wind,
waves, current, etc.) will be demonstrated using real data from the Envisat/ERS
archive.
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Training
Course Overview: AATSR
Prof David Llewellyn-Jones (University of Leicester) and Prof Ian
Robinson (University of Southampton, United Kingdom)
The Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR), now flying on ENVISAT,
is the third in a series of accurate infrared radiometer sensors designed to
deliver sea surface temperature (SST) measurements of sufficient accuracy,
better than 0.3K, combinmmed with great stability, that they can be used as
climate data records. The (A)ATSR instruments are unique in terms of their
design and their ability to deliver extremely accurate SST skin observations.
This short introduction will provide students with an overview of the (A)ATSR,
its application and practical experience handling AATSR data.
The basic principles of remote sensing in the
infra-red region of the electromagnetic spectrum will first be reviewed and used
to introduce and explore the innovative design of the (A)TSR series of
instruments.
We will then review the modern definitions for SST
including a review of the surface skin temperature deviation, SST at depth and
diurnal variability. The particular SST retrieval process used by the (A)ATSR
(which retrieves an estimate of the SST skin temperature) will be presented.
Finally, the (A)ATSR data set and applications of (A)ATSR will be presented.
Practicals:
Two Three practical sessions
will be provided. The first will introduce the UNESCO Bilko image processing
system and explore the various elements of this system using (A)ATSR data.
The second practical will consist of a Bilko lesson in which the end-to-end
process of deriving SST skin from (A)ATSR Brightness temperatures will be given.
If time is available, a second Bilko lesson exploring ATSR-2 monthly mean SST
will be available.
A third practical lesson will introduce students to some of the basic
operations of examining global data. The data to be examined will be AATSR level
3 products, in the form of monthly means of Global SST. These can be obtained
from:
http://envisat.esa.int/level3/
The operations to be demonstrated will be those of examining inter-seasonal
variability, search ing for anomalies, creation of Hovmueller diagrams
(time-longitude plots) to examine the progression annual or periodic phenomena
such as the Tropical East Pacific upwelling. This lecture will use the ATSR
Global Analyser, an IDL tool specially developed for training purposes. As an
alternative, the Bilko package can also be used for this purpose and its use
will be demonstrated.
Collectively, this course will provide sufficient background information,
practical instruction and tools to apply (A)ATSR SST data products in a variety
of applications.
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Training
Course Overview: RA
Prof Detlef Stammer (University of Hamburg, Germany) and
Dr
Jerome Benveniste (ESA/ESRIN, Italy)
Radar altimeters have been flown on satellites for many years and have become
a firm part of the climate and ocean observing system. The RA session will
address principles and applications of radar altimetry with focus on open and
costal ocean applications. In addition some of the emerging new applications
over ice and land will also be reviewed. As for all microwave instruments, their
observing capability is unaffected by the atmosphere and therefore allows to
observe dynamical features of the ocean with high along- track resolution (10
km). A RA is known for its high-precision measurements of sea surface height
(the shape of the surface), but provides also important information about
surface wave height and about surface wind speed.
The session will present first the basic principles of
RA measurements and will discuss important interaction processes of the radar
pulls with the atmosphere and geophysical phenomena that need to be known in
order to obtain high accuracy data.
The session will then discuss additional information
that is required to use RA data for dynamical ocean studies, such as marine
geoid fields or in situ data.
Finally the session will discuss various ongoing and
anticipated applications of RA.
The last part of the session will include interactive
practical training using the new ESA RA tool box to train students in the
interpretation of oceanic signatures of RA data (SSH, waves, wind speed) using
real data from the Envisat/ERS archive.
This course will provide background information, practical instruction and
tools sufficient to apply RA data products in a variety of applications.
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