The European Space Agency (ESA) organises a series of summer schools on Monitoring of the Earth System, which 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) during August (typically every two years), aims to provide students with an integrated end-to-end perspective going from measurement techniques to end-user applications. Courses include 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 are 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. For more information, please see the programme.

The event is open to Early Career Scientists (i.e. Ph.D. students, young post-doctoral scientists) who are specialised in a variety of Earth Science disciplines and wish to expand and improve their knowledge and skills.

The fifth EO Summer School took place between 2 - 13 August 2010.

Programme

Stephen Briggs (ESA)

• ESA Satellite Missions for Climate Observations

Wolfgang Wagner (TU Wien)

• A short introduction to microwave remote sensing of the land surface
• Microwave remote sensing of soil moisture
• Soil moisture applications in Earth Sciences

Peter Rayner (UNIMELB)

• Data assimilation in biogeochemistry: Adapting the paradigm of Numerical weather Prediction
• Has the data outstripped the models: Recent results from carbon cycle data assimilation
• Data assimilation and model validation, a lesson in Bayesian analysis

David Lary (UTD)

• Chemical Data Assimilation
• Bias Detection and Machine learning
• Objectively Optimized and Autonomous Earth Observation

Reiner Rummel (Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy)

• Gravity - An Introduction
• Gravity and its Role in Earth Sciences
• Satellite Gravimetry

Pierre Gauthier (UQAM)

• Introduction to quality control and bias correction of observations
• Implementation of variational data assimilation: formulations and computational issues
• Data assimilation with coupled ocean-atmosphere models & Adaptive Strategies for the use of observations

Iarla Kilbane-Dawe (AEA Technology)

• Two examples of making EO data saleable - airTEXT and GO Trial
• Making a project work when things go wrong
• Innovation and design of technical projects - from market assessment to product introduction

Jean-Marie Beckers (GeoHydrodynamics and Environmental Research group)

• Oceanography & spatial analysis of irregularely distributed observations
• Empirical orthogonal functions for ocean data with missing values
• Generation of balanced model perturbations

Colin Challen (UK Parliament)

• The Business of Politics
• Politics and science - a marriage made in hell?
• Politics and climate change

Gabriela Seiz (MeteoSwiss)

• Satellite climatology & GCOS
• Multi-view photogrammetric analysis from satellite (focus on clouds)
• Satellite Meteorology

Niels Bormann (ECMWF)

• Satellite Data Assimilation for NWP (I)
• Satellite Data Assimilation for NWP (II)
• New Technologies and Applications of Satellite Data Assimilation, including reanalysis

Bernard Pinty (JRC)

• Representing interactions between solar radiation and Earths' surfaces in large-scale models
• Mitigating the brain damages associated with the use of Vegetation Indices
• Partitioning the solar radiant flux in land surface canopies

Brian Kerridge (SSTD - Space Science and Technology Department Rutherford Appleton Laboratories)

• Atmospheric composition sounding with solar backscattered shortwave radiation
• Atmospheric composition sounding at IR wavelengths
• Atmospheric composition sounding at mm wavelengths

Computing Practicals

Data Assimilation Practicals

Stefano Migliorini, Amos Lawless and Caroline Boess (DARC)
Maeva Doron (MEOM)

• Effect of statistical analysis parameters.
• 4D-Var and incremental 4D-Var
• Ensemble and extended Kalman filters
• Projects

Remote Sensing Tutorial

Val Byfield and David Poulter (NOC)
Linda Moser and Konstantina Rizopoulou (ESA)

• Synthetic Aperture Radar: Land applications tutorial
• Synergistic use of data from SAR, optical and other satellite sensors in oil spill monitoring
• Eddies in the Western Indian Ocean: effects of the Somali Current and Indian Ocean Monsoon
• Level 4 Sea surface temperature products using the Indian Ocean Dipole as an example
• Level 2-4 Ocean Colour: issues with flagging, co-registration, and merging of data from several sensors (using Benguela as an example)