Marine non-natives, issues, engagement and action in France and the UK

The first presentation focused on best practice in marine environments and was delivered by the MBA, in association with PEGASEAS. Information was presented about the significance of joint working across the Channel and a number of different projects including The Shore Thing Project were explained.

Globcurrent: Sentinel-3 synergy in action

The ESA Data User Element (DUE) funded GlobCurrent project (http://www.globcurrent.org) aims to: (i) advance the quantitative estimation of ocean surface currents from satellite sensor synergy; and (ii) demonstrate impact in user-led scientific, operational and commercial applications that, in turn, will improve and strengthen the uptake of satellite measurements. Today, a synergetic approach for quantitative analysis can build on high-resolution imaging radar and spectrometer data, infrared radiometer data and radar altimeter measurements. It will further integrate Sentinel-3 in combination with Sentinel-1 SAR data. From existing and past missions, it is often demonstrated that sharp gradients in the sea surface temperature (SST) field and the ocean surface chlorophyll-a distribution are spatially correlated with the sea surface roughness anomaly fields at small spatial scales, in the sub-mesocale (1-10 km) to the mesoscale (30-80 km). At the larger mesoscale range (>50 km), information derived from radar altimeters often depict the presence of coherent structures and eddies. The variability often appears largest in regions where the intense surface current regimes (>100 - 200 km) are found. These 2-dimensional structures manifested in the satellite observations represent evidence of the upper ocean (~100-200 m) dynamics. Whereas the quasi geostrophic assumption is valid for the upper ocean dynamics at the larger scale (>100 km), possible triggering mechanisms for the expressions at the mesoscale-to-submesoscale may include spiraling tracers of inertial motion and the interaction of the wind-driven Ekman layer with the quasi-geostrophic current field. This latter, in turn, produces bands of downwelling (convergence) and upwelling (divergence) near fronts. A regular utilization of the sensor synergy approach with the combination of Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-1 will provide a highly valuable data set for further research and development to better relate the 2-dimensional surface expressions and the upper ocean dynamics.