Last week the European Space Agency organized the fifth Advances in SAR Oceanography workshop, SeaSAR 2018, in Frascati, Italy. The Nansen Center was well represented with a delegation of 5 participants.

SeaSAR is a conference series for the use of synthetic aperture radar over sea – i.e. wind, waves, power, sea ice, oil spill, ship detection. The workshop was part of the #EOScience4Society – Scientific Exploitation Programme element aimed at exploiting data from ESA and operational EO Missions (e.g. Copernicus Sentinels) for science and application development.

The workshop was open to ESA Principal Investigators, co-investigators, Sentinel-1 users, scientists, students, representatives from national, European and international space agencies and value adding industries.

The main objectives for the workshop were:

• Report on progress/status of recommendations of SeaSAR 2012
• Provide a forum for scientific exchange and to assess the state of art in SAR coastal and marine applications, virtual labs, tools, virtual platforms.
• Initiate and encourage close collaboration between individual research groups
• Stimulating and supporting the exploitation of the ESA Earth Explorer and Copernicus Sentinel Missions. Formulate recommendations for algorithm and new products development
• Present exploitation results from spaceborne SAR missions and application projects
• Present SAR marine and ice services developed under the Copernicus Programme
• Group-work and discussion, to develop new skills in the application of complementary satellite for ocean remote sensing data sets and their application in synergy for science and applications serving society.

Jeong-Won ParkIngri Halland SoldalArtem Moiseev

Participation from The Nansen Center:

Johnny A. Johannessen presented the use of various types of satellite data including SAR for detection and interpretation of surface current fronts. http://seasar2018.esa.int/page_session13.php

Anton Korosov presented new results from assimilation of ice drift and deformation from SAR in the ice model neXtSIM. This improves the ability to notify ice drift and distribution of ice flakes. http://seasar2018.esa.int/page_session28.php 

Ingri Halland Soldal presented new results from her research on iceberg detection in SAR. This could enable systematic monitoring of icebergs in the Barents Sea and provide information on iceberg distribution and drift, as well as changes over time.

Artem Moiseev presented new results from comparison of surface velocity measured in SAR Dopplift with HF radar and an analysis of the wind contribution for this signal. 

Jeong-Won Park presented a new calibration method for the SAR Doppler shift and new results from the measurement of ice drift using Doppler shift.

You can find abstracts from our posters here

Leading the Synoptic Session: Johnny A. Johannesen