ESA Sea State Climate Change Initiative - First User Consultation Meeting

What is the Sea State Climate Change Initiative?

Since 2010, the European Space Agency (ESA) together with its Member States is realising the full potential of long-term global Earth Observation archives in order to deliver the most complete, accurate and consistent database of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This international Pogramme is called the Climate Change Initiative (CCI).

Ocean waves are ubiquitous over oceans and seas. They impact air-sea energy fluxes, ocean mixing, sea ice extent, and coastal morphological changes. Understanding sea state and its variability is crucial not only for climate but for a wide number of social, economic and ecological issues, including coastal protection, marine safety, offshore engineering, ship design, marine spatial planning, and renewable marine energy development. Observed and expected changes in the atmospheric circulation as a result of increased global greenhouse gas emission is likely to impact the global distribution of mean and extreme sea state characteristics. Yet, our current knowledge on future sea state conditions (means and extremes) is still severely limited by a lack of long-term consistent observations.

Since 2018, “Sea State” has joined the list of ECVs established by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), and the Sea State CCI project is now in charge of processing 20 years of satellite-based observations, acquired by altimeters and synthetic aperture radars, in order to generate the most accurate and consistent global database of sea state parameters. The development of CCI products, driven by GCOS needs and climate data user requirements, involve strong interactions with the user community in order to feed back into GCOS process. Therefore, this first User Consultation Meeting is the ideal opportunity for any sea state data users (scientists, engineers or consultants) to present their work and express their needs regarding future sea state database in order to increase the potential of their activities.

The objectives of this User Consultation Meeting are :

  1. to introduce the Sea State Climate Change Initiative Program to the user community ;
  2. to introduce the first version of the Sea State CCI global dataset;
  3. to illustrate the importance of long-term accurate and robust time-series of sea state parameters for a wide range of activities;
  4. to identify, discuss and translate the needs expressed by the user community in terms of requirements for providing feed back to GCOS ;
  5. to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to sea states
  6. to promote cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary, scientific/engineering collaborations in the field of climate science, coastal management, wave forecasting...

The meeting will be organized around the following topics :

  • Wave climate variability
  • Nearshore processes
  • Coastal management
  • Marine activity planning / marine safety
  • Renewable Marine Energy

This meeting will consist of oral presentations, poster sessions and open discussions. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 30 June, 2019.

Further information on abstract submission,  meeting agenda, location, transport, and accommodation  will be available soon (web page under construction).

If you need further information, please contact:

Guillaume Dodet :

Ifremer,  Université de Bretagne Occidentale, CNRS, IRD

Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale

IUEM, ZI Pointe du diable, CS 10070

29280 Plouzané, France

guillaume.dodet@ifremer.fr

Fabrice Ardhuin :

CNRS, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, IRD, Ifremer,

Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale

IUEM, ZI Pointe du diable, CS 10070

29280 Plouzané, France

fabrice.ardhuin@ifremer.fr