Roberto Sabia
ESA Ocean Remote Sensing Activities and Perspectives
Roberto Sabia
European Space Agency (ESA)
ABSTRACT
The keynote intends to cover a wide range of European Space Agency (ESA) satellite activities, projects and initiatives on the oceanic domain, with a distinctive focus on the science of the remote measurements and the related geophysical parameters retrievals.
This will showcase the portfolio of projects within the Science for Society Ocean Science Cluster, which embodies 40+ projects exploiting spaceborne assets for the estimates of a diverse set of physical and biogeochemical oceanic variables. A specific focus will be on the EC-ESA joint Earth System Science Initiative (ESSI) with an emphasis on the collaborative ocean projects.
In a wider perspective, a subset of activities within the frame of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme will be described, debriefing specifically on the ocean Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) that are monitored within CCI, e.g.: Sea Surface Temperature, Sea Surface Salinity, Ocean Colour, Sea Level and Sea-state.
Lastly, a sketchy overview on the aquatic domain activities within the scope of the Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRMs) will be given, to provide awareness of the qualified selection of in-situ measurements to be used for satellite data validation.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Roberto Sabia was born in Napoli, Italy, in 1975.
He graduated cum laude in Environmental Sciences, curriculum in Oceanography, at Universitá Parthenope in Napoli, Italy (2002), and obtained the Ph.D. cum laude in Signal Theory and Communication at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain (2008), with a Thesis on the ocean salinity retrieval applied to the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. In 2006, he was visiting Ph.D. student at NOC, Southampton, UK.
From 2010 to 2013, he was an ESA post-doc Research Fellow at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy.
In 2013, he was with Telespazio-UK Ltd. seconded at ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and since 2015 at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, with coordination responsibilities on several oceanographic projects.
In 2023, he has been appointed Earth Observation Ocean Scientist at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy.
In 2008, he was the recipient of the best Ph.D. award in Remote Sensing of the European IEEE GRS Society.
In 2010, he has led a European COST Action proposal titled “SMOS Mission Oceanographic Data Exploitation (SMOS-MODE)”, successfully funded for the period 2011-2015.
In 2018 he obtained the APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ).
His research interests are within the ocean remote sensing and climate change domains - specifically on ocean salinity, carbon cycle and ocean acidification.
