The annual Living Planet Fellowship workshop took place online on 03 December. On this occasion, the Living Planet Fellows presented their research projects and their scientific results, exchanged ideas and interacted with ESA scientists, fellows and YGTs, showcasing scientific exploitation of Copernicus Sentinels, ESA Earth Explorers, the long-term series of ESA data archives, as well …
In a world where public health threats are increasingly challenging, wide availability of EO data, increased computational power and AI untapped potential open new opportunities to create early warning systems and support public authorities in decision making. The AIDEO project explored the use of AI applied to a pool of EO datasets in the context …
The polar regions have experienced the most rapid rates of warming in recent years. Expected consequences due to this warming include the loss of sea ice, threats to wildlife, increased emissions and extreme weather. In response to this, ESA and the European Commission have come together to organise the first-ever European Polar Science Week dedicated …
A new online course is about to be launched to introduce the role of satellite Earth observation (EO) technology in monitoring the Earth’s Cryosphere: it is for decision-makers, policy-makers, educators, communicators and anybody interested in learning more about monitoring glaciers, sea ice, ice caps, and areas of snow from space. Learn more on the MOOC …
In October 2020 ESA contributed to a training event on EO for seasonal agriculture monitoring in North Africa. The virtual training was organised by the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in French Language (CRASTE-LF), in collaboration with OSS North Africa Consortium and GMES&AFRICA partners. More than 20 experts from 8 different …
ESA actively promotes uptake of state-of-the-art ICT platform resources for EO exploitation by European research activities. This uptake phase is supported by opportunities to access these resources free-at-point-of-use, implemented via vouchers mechanisms. Today two initiatives are in place, one sponsored by ESA, one sponsored by the European Commission allowing research activities to request vouchers that can …
Ocean currents are a key component to understanding many oceanic and climatic phenomena and furthermore the knowledge we have of them is crucial for navigation and operational applications. Therefore, a key problem in oceanography is the estimation of the synoptic (or “big picture”, large-scale, simultaneous conditions over a broad area) velocity field. Thanks to satellite …
Arctic sea ice extent during the summer months has declined considerably over the satellite record. Surface melt ponds, which form on sea ice during the spring, play an important role in the decay of sea ice and seasonal reduction in ice extent because they influence how much solar radiation is absorbed into the sea ice-ocean …
Four out of the best weekly contributions to the Custom Script Contest – focused on the support of space assets during the COVID-19 crisis – were invited to upscale their ideas to the European level. Two of them have now been selected for integration into the RACE (Rapid Action Coronavirus Earth observation) dashboard. The winning …
High-resolution images collected over a mixed forest ecosystem with the HyPlant sensor, deployed as an airborne demonstrator of the forthcoming ESA-FLEX satellite have been exploited in this study to explore the potential of a novel metric based on far-red sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (F760) to map the functional diversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Plant functional diversity, defined …
