ERS-Envisat Symposium “Looking Down to Earth in the New Millennium” FOREWORD
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ERS-Envisat Symposium “Looking down to Earth in the New Millennium” FOREWORD The ESA ERS-ENVISAT Symposium entitled “Looking down to Earth in the New Millennium” was organized jointly by ESA and Chalmers University of Technology and was held at Svenska Mässan, the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre, in Gothenburg, Sweden from 16th to 20th October 2000. This was the fourth ERS Earth Observation symposium, following those in Cannes (1992), Hamburg (1993) and Florence (1997) and was the first ENVISAT symposium. This symposium was open to all interested parties, from scientists to operational commercial users and service providers and was attended by 540 participants from 34 different countries. Some 451 abstracts were submitted to the symposium and a Scientific Committee of 70 members composed of scientists and ESA experts supported the programme preparation. Following the themes of the ENVISAT Announcement of Opportunity the 296 oral presentations were grouped into 42 sessions. Each session was chaired by leading scientists and co-chaired by an ESA expert. In the conference exhibit area some 150 posters were displayed and 5 demonstrations were organized. The conference stands allowed some 25 companies involved in earth observation to present their work. The symposium gave participants the opportunity to review the current status of ERS science and application developments after nearly ten years of ERS data exploitation and to present the launch preparations for ENVISAT, as well as the plans for calibration and validation of the different data products that will be supplied. The ERS-ENVISAT symposium demonstrated the ERS-1 and 2 missions’ contribution to the monitoring of our environment, and the continuous development of Earth Observation (E.O.) applications. The presentations given ranged from pure research, to demonstration of applications and development of services and markets. Several new applications of E.O. data were presented and an increased emphasis on atmospheric disciplines was apparent. In addition, ESA distributed to all participants two questionnaires aimed at collecting their feedback on data exploitation and user services. The enclosed proceedings contain the results presented at the symposium in the form of full-length papers, summary reports of the 42 sessions and recommendations brought up at the symposium. A web site was also prepared for the conference and submitted papers are now available on-line at URL: http://www.esa.int/sympo2000/ We would like to acknowledge Chalmers University of Technology and the City of Gothenburg for hosting the symposium .We also thank the symposium Scientific Committee, the appointed chairs and co-chairs for their work in supporting the programme and running the symposium sessions. Special thanks to the Organizing Committee for setting up a unique infrastructure which facilitated information exchange as well as to all those who contributed daily to the successful running of the symposium. We also acknowledge all attendees and exhibitors of the symposium for their presentations and feedback. We look forward to seeing all of you at the next ESA ERS-ENVISAT Symposium. Dr. Stephen BRIGGS Prof. Jan ASKNE Head Earth Observation Applications Department Chalmers University of Technology, ESA-ESRIN Gothenburg, Sweden A welcome to Sweden and Chalmers University of Technology by J. Askne It is an honour to have this symposium arranged in Gothenburg, particularly because space technology is important for Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. Recently we have created a Centre for Astrophysics and Space Techniques to strengthen the activities related to Onsala Space Observatory and ongoing research related to radio waves (microwaves and sub millimetre waves). The historic roots were in ionospheric research and wave propagation, moving later to include radio astronomy and, more recently, remote sensing. The Odin satellite, a collaborative project between Canada, Finland, France, and Sweden, is due to be launched early next year. Odin will be used both for radio astronomy and, in a limb-sounding mode, for studies related to the ozone chemistry in the upper atmosphere. The development work for Odin’s sub-millimetre receiver has been performed at Chalmers, and both radio astronomical and aeronomy observations will be very important for future work as well as work related to other satellites. In Gothenburg we also have one of the major Swedish space related industries, Saab Ericsson Space. Remote sensing at Chalmers using microwaves goes back to the 70s. The first remote sensing conference in Gothenburg was in 1987, when the URSI “Microwave Signatures in Remote Sensing” was arranged. In 1994, the EARSeL General Assembly “Sensors and Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing” and the workshop on “Topography from Space”, were arranged here. Now the ESA ERS-Envisat conference “Looking Down to Earth in the New Millennium” means a further step in the development towards the usefulness of remote sensing. The Swedish remote sensing program has always been focused on applications. A preparatory program for ERS was initiated by the Swedish National Space Board in the mid 80s. The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) together with key remote sensing and technical groups such as Chalmers, the National Defence Research Institute, and the Swedish Space Corporation set the goals. The goal was to support the icebreaker operations in the Baltic with near real-time SAR imagery. An important part of the project was collaboration with similar interests in Finland, and this was quickly established enabling joint airborne campaigns and in-situ observations to be carried out in 1986 and 1987. The 3-day orbit of ERS-1 in 1992 and 1994 was related to the needs of the sea ice community as represented by the ESA initiated PIPOR group. The final choice of the orbit was very much influenced by the needs to cover the Baltic. Today support by means of synthetic aperture radar images is established as an operational service in the sense that each winter season a large number of SAR images is used (and paid for…). Sea ice remote sensing is of great interest for the northern countries, and the cloud independence of radar is rather important. In 1991, the first Swedish Arctic expedition was arranged. With the strong support of ESA, some of the very first ERS-1 images (from August 1991) were delivered for covering part of the expedition area. A group onboard the icebreaker Oden made observations of ice properties and used measurements with scatterometers to establish our understanding of scattering processes. In 1996, a second expedition to the central Arctic was carried out with Oden, again carrying a group studying ice properties and comparing with simultaneous ERS and Radarsat SAR images. Arctic sea ice is a sensitive indicator to global change and properties such as ice extent, concentration, polynyas, etc. are important to follow up over long periods of time. From SSM/I we have long term and global data sets, but with low resolution and accuracy problems. SAR is an important complement for accurate information on ice properties, concentration, polynyas etc. Although sea ice has been an important area for microwave remote sensing, the land applications have always been of interest. 52% of Sweden is covered by forests, and play a key role in the country’s economy and environment. Remote sensing for change detection and stem volume retrieval is very important. Radar backscatter from forests is highly variable, but interferometry offers the extra information necessary to estimate stem volume and biomass. The 3-day ice orbit suddenly offered the short repeat period, which is necessary for forest applications, and the “tandem” mission offered still shorter repeat times. The “experimental” aspects of ERS-1/2 (different orbits), together with the very high stability of the satellite, provided the basis for developing the interferometric applications. The Kyoto Protocol allows carbon emission to be balanced by carbon sinks represented by vegetation. For this purpose, aboveground vegetation biomass needs to be quantified. For boreal forests, InSAR seems to be an extremely interesting possibility for observations during wintertime with stable ground conditions. ERS-1/2 have offered opportunities for major remote sensing applications for a country like Sweden, with large coverage of sea ice and forest. Envisat is a major step ahead, offering important developments for e.g. sea ice, where the SAR wide swath, the global mode and the alternating polarisation mode will be very important. The forestry applications of interferometry for forestry were based on the short repeat period available during periods of the ERS-1/2 missions and are not expected to be possible with Envisat. Instead the SAR alternating polarisation and the use of MERIS are expected to give interesting information. With each ERS symposium, the focus moves a step further from the technical issues, and more towards the applications — in particular environmental applications. The need for global data sets with high accuracy, and stability over long time periods, is crucial to answer many questions concerning global change. For those of us doing research in the field of microwave remote sensing the ESA satellites have been a fascinating and interesting development. Let me hope this symposium will be useful and effective, and lay the ground for observations in the new Millennium. COMMITTEES Scientific Committee W. Alpers Univ. of Hamburg, Germany J. Askne Technical Univ. of Chalmers, Sweden P. Berry De Monfort Univ., UK C. Brockmann Brockmann Consult, Germany J. Burrows Univ. of Bremen, Germany J. L. Casanova Univ. Valladolid, Spain K. Chance Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA R. Cordey GEC Marconi, UK C. Doake British Antarctic Survey, UK M. Edwards Univ. of Leicester, UK H. Fischer Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany A. Goede SRON, Netherlands M. Hallikainen Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland E-A. Herland VTT, Finland J. Johannessen Nansen RS Center, Norway T. Le Toan CESBIO, France S. Lehner DLR, Germany J. Lillibridge NOAA, USA D. Massonnet CNES, France W.