Report of the
SECOND SMOS
Science Workshop
TOULOUSE
CESBIO
November 28-30 2000
YHK January 2001
 
 

1. Introduction

The second SMOS Science Workshop was held in Toulouse on November 28-30 2000. It gathered about 90 Participants from European and US institutions and followed the tentative Agenda.

This report is divided in two parts. The first part will be a summary of the presentations made during the plenary sections, while the second part consists of the splinter sessions reports.
Several relevant documents used as starting points are given in the third part:

I have endeavoured to make it easy to read using HTM so that all the presentations can be included.

Please note
 
 

2. Plenary presentations

After a brief introduction, the workshop started with general presentations (chaired by C. Readings from ESA/ESTEC/APP-FS) to give the general context and status of the SMOS mission.

2.1 Status of the project

2.1.1 Overview and context of the SMOS project at ESA (C. Readings)

Jean Louis Fellous (CNES/DPI/EOT) described the status of SMOS on the CNES point of view after a brief historical review of the project (from RAMSES to SMOS), indicated the interest and support from CNES to this project.
C. Readings gave then an overview of SMOS in the context of the Earth Explorers. He described the current elements of ESA'Ss programme as well as the overall schedule and scenario going from the Earth Observation future missions down to the Earth Explorer opportunity missions. The SMOS mission was then dealt with  (time table, programmatics, from extended phase A to mission implementation)
The talk ended with a description of the other Explorer missions (GOCE, ADM-EOLUS, CRYOSAT, ACE.
 

2.1.2 SMOS Phase A technical activities (P Silvestrin)

The Technical aspects of SMOS were then described by P. Silvestrin (ESA/ESTEC/APP-FT). (presentation) who gave the history of the project and its context (technical aspects) and described the different studies underway or planned. there are scientific studies to help with the mission requirements, studies on the instrument, on the bus. In parallel an end to end  simulator is planned with related activities.
After this presentation several questions were asked related to the Computing time required to simulate SMOS and how to improve it. The question was to be addressed more specifically during the related splinter session.

2.1.3 Other activities in europe

2.1.3.1 Scientific support studies (M. Berger)

Michael Berger (ESA/ESTEC/APP-FS)  presented the Science support activities at ESA for SMOS. They are mainly prepared in consultation with the SMOS SCience Advisory Group (SAG) and are designed to address the open scientific questions. M. Berger gave an overview of the different studies underway or planned together with the remaining study needs. He concluded his presentation with an overview of the SMOS SAG topics.

2.1.3.2 Planned Campaigns (N. Skou)

N. Skou (TUD) presented the current status of the SMOS crelated campaigns (see also the Campaigns requirements Document) with the emphasis on the currently planned or underway (WISE, LOSAC, Avignon, Toulouse). There were some discussions on potential campaigns for cryospheric studies, and the need for campaigns in antarctica for SMOS calibration, eventhough this possibility has still to be addressed further.E. Lopez-Baeza (Univerity de Valencia) gave a short report on the cvalencia site and its possible use for campaigns and eventually calibration. J. Font gave also a brief report on WISE which was then underway.

2.1.3.3 The HUT demonstrator (K. Rautiainen) (no documents)

An outlook of the HUT demonstrator was presented together with schedule. The instrument should be ready by October 2001 and operational by 2002. It was stressed that the current simulator under construction should be able to simulated the HUT system. It is obvious that the avaialbility of the HUT 26D radiometer is quite important for the SMOS camapigns

2.1.3.4 The Miras Demonstrator Pilot Project (M. Martin Neira)

Following and in complement to P. Silvestrin's  presentation, M. Martin Neira (ESA/ESTEC/TOS-ETP) presented the status of the Miras Pilot Demonstrator Project

2.2 Collaborations/contributions

2.2.1 Presentation of the Soil Moisture Mission workshop (T. Jackson)

T. Jackson (USDA/ARS) presented the outcome of the soil moisture workshops (Irvine and Las Vegas) He presented the various options considered for future missions and how the group decided on a mission to support for the next round of ESSP in the US (OSIRIS+). Dara Entekhabi (MIT) who is the PI for the OSIRIS+ mission presented then the current status of the project to be submitted to NASA in 2001. He stressed how thetwo missions (SMOS and OSIRIS) could be complementary, OSIRIS bringing a significant plus to SMOS by improving temporal coverage and calibration/intercalibration facilities.  For this a common approach must be undertaken so capitalise as much as possible on SMOS and achieve optimal synergy between the two missions.
T. Jackson gave also an overview of current instrument developped in the US and in particular the IIP project (Dave LeVine) of the 2DStar.schedule to make its first flights during fall 2001.

2.2.2 Science Program Highlights (C. Koblinsky)

G. Lagerloef (ESR) and C. Koblinsky (NASA/HQ) gave two presentations related to the activities in the field of oceanography in the US. They presented the current plans for the next ESSP round for oceanography where they are studying a possibke mission entirely devoted to SSS retrievals. Several concepts are understudy: tp achieve an accuracy of 0.1 psu for 30 days integration at 100 km resolution All these concepts are currently under study

2.2.3 Planned campaigns in the US (land) (T. Jackson)

T. Jackson gave then an overview of the planned campaigns in the US SMEX-01 (which was delayed linked to delays in acqua's launch) and SMEX-02 with in situ network (web access) in the US in the long term.
C. Koblinsky presented then the camapigns with in 2001 activities around PALS (cal/val), dielectic constant determination (lab work), studies on foam and E-P/SSS relationships.
In 2002 there should be campaigns in cold seas.
 

2.2.4 Ocean Observation for calibration (G. Lagerloef)

This presentation covered mainly the aspects related to field measuremenst and planned experiments which could be of use for the SMOS science objectives and for calibration purposes.

2.2.5 Wind wave effect on sea surface measurements (Y. Trokhimovski)

Effect of wind speed at L band is still an open issue. Y. Trokhimovski (IKI) gave a presentation of the measurements and modelling done at at IKI in Russia. The full paper is available. If no real problems were identified with the theory, power spectrum is still an issue.

2.3. Outstanding issues

The second part of the plenary presentation were organised to address the identified issues.

2.3.1 Calibration (C. Ruf)

C. Ruf presented the SMOS calibration isssues which are linked to weaknesses in hardware and software. There was then no hardware setups to verify the assumptions.He stressed also the issue of the correlation structure of errors in ancillary data. He then presented the method of calibration he developed relying on the minimum brightness temperatures.
It was also recommended to test the HUT 2-D in an anechoic chamber . and a question was raised on the modelling of the instrument calibration relying on linear parts. The idea of using the G-matrix approach was considered as not too difficult by D. Levine (NASA/GSFC) but might pause problems due to deformations while in orbit.

2.3.2 Image reconstruction (M Peichl)

M. Peichl (DLR) gave then an overview of the reconstruction process and the associated issues/ questions and solutions.

2.3.3 Physics of measurements (ocean) (G. Caudal) (Documents on paper only)

G. Caudal (IPSL/CETP) presented the current status of SSS retrieval with an analysis of the pertubing factors (sea state, paths effects and extraterrestrial sources effects), and their respective effects on the signal and consequently retrievals.

2.3.4 Physics of measurements (land) (JP Wigneron)

J.-P. Wigneron (INRA) presented the status of surface soil moisture retrieval with perturbing factors and related issues as well as several muti variable retrieval schemes.

2.3.5 Systems-based Multi-patch Land Data Assimilation (E. Burke/J. Shuttleworth)

J. Shuttleworth (UoArizona-USA) described (actually after presentation 2.3.6) the LDAS concept and retrieval minimisation approaches.

2.3.6 Mixed and varying pixels over land (L. Simmonds)

L. Simmonds (Uo Reading-UK) presented the results gained during the SGP experiments on the heterogeneous pixels.

2.3.7 GCM / mesoscale models, requirements and links to GEWEX (J. Polcher) (Documents on paper only)

J. Polcher (IPSL/LMD) presented an example of the use of a GCM coupled to a land surface scheme in preparation of SMOS. He also presented how GEWEX hopes to encourage the community to work towartds assimilation of relmote sensing data in land surface schemes.

2.3.8 Cryospheric studies (M. Hallikainen)

M. Hallikainen (HUT) ended the plenary sessions with a presentation of the cryospheric studies and a report on the cryosphere group findings during the first SMOS Barcelona workshop

3 Splinter session reports

The rest of the workshop was spent in splinter session. The outcome of these sessions is given below.

3.1 Land (and cryosphere) rapporteur J.P. Wigneron

3.2 Ocean rapporteur G Lagerloef

Presentation on NRL activities (J. Miller)

Presentation on WISE (J. Font)

3.3 Image reconstruction rapporteur M Peichl

3.4  Campaigns rapporteur N. Skou

3.5 Simulator rapporteur P. Waldteufel

3.6 Cal-Val and Dome C (M. Drinkwater)

Note on Sky calibration

Note on Calibration

4. Conclusions

The workshop ended with a pleanry to present and discuss the different findings 
In summary 3 hard points were identified::     Time is flying and we have to be ready very soon to conclude phase A.
It was finally suggested to hold another workshop in about one year, possibly in Germany.The format was considered as good and should be reproduced.

Miscellaneous documents of potential interest

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