9th Earth Observation Summer School 2018

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:

European Space Agency (ESA) organises a series of summer schools on Monitoring of the Earth System to promote the exploitation of Earth Observation EO data across disciplines, with a specific focus on their assimilation into Earth System models.

The two-week course, held in ESA/ESRIN (near Rome, Italy) from 30 July to 10 August 2018, aimed to provide students with an integrated end-to-end perspective going from measurement techniques to end-user applications. Courses included lectures covering issues related to Remote Sensing, Earth System Modelling and Data Assimilation as well as hands-on computing exercises on the processing of EO data. Keynote lectures on global change issues were also given to discuss the current state of the science of global change and its relationship to society in order to help students appreciate how their specific field fits into a broader scientific and political context.

The school was open to early career scientists (i.e. Ph.D. students, young post-doctoral scientists) who were specialised in a variety of Earth Science disciplines and wished to expand and improve their knowledge and skills. Participation was limited to a maximum of 60 students and was highly competitive. There was no fee for the school but students were expected to cover their own travel and accommodation cost (unfortunately, financial support was not available).

TOPICS:

Global Observing Systems: Capabilities and applications of Earth Observation, physics of remote sensing measurement, concept of integrated Observing Systems of Systems.

Earth System Modelling: Basics of ocean, atmosphere, land and ice modelling, Numerical Weather Prediction, ensemble forecasting.

Data Assimilation: Theory of data assimilation techniques (e.g. optimal interpolation, variational methods, Kalman filter, ensemble filtering) and applications (e.g. re-analysis, inverse modelling, state estimation, control theory, design of optimal observing system, targeting observations).

Global Change: Observation of global change from space, use of Earth System model to understand, forecast and manage environmental issues.

LECTURERS:

• Dr. Anny Cazenave (LEGOS)
• Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck (GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel)
• Prof. Shaun Quegan (University of Sheffield)
• Dr Bob Brewin (PML)
• Dr. Julia Marshall (Max Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry)
• Dr. Marie-Hélène Rio (CLS)
• Dr. Zoltán Vekerdy (ITC – University of Twente)
• Prof. Jörg Ebbing (Kiel University)
• Prof. Amos Lawless (University of Reading)
• Prof. Leif Toudal Pedersen (DTU SPACE)
• Prof. Andrew Shepherd (University of Leeds)
• Dr. Bertrand Chapron (Ifremer)
• Dr. Giuseppe Consolini (INAF- Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali)
• Dr. Miguel Mahecha (Max Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry)
• Dr. Jochem Verrelst (University of Valencia)
• Dr. Fabrice Collard (OceanDataLab)
• Dr. Lucile Gaultier (OceanDataLab)
• Dr. Ewan Pinnington (University of Reading)
• Dr. Natalie Douglas (University of Reading)
• Zackary Bell (University of Reading)
• Dr. Javier Amezcua (University of Reading)
• Dr. Hans Permana (Brockmann Consult GmbH)

Access here below the full programme and training material (both theory and practicals).