The European Space Agency Ocean Cluster for enhancing satellite-based ocean science

Within the broader scope of scientific exploitation of satellite assets, the European Space Agency (ESA) is funding a critical mass of scientific activities aimed at enhancing the observation and understanding of the Ocean from space.

The ESA Ocean Science Cluster consists of a portfolio of several research opportunities and networking actions promoting synergistic research and fostering European and international scientific collaboration.

About 40 projects are currently belonging to the Ocean Science Cluster, further regrouped into six main topics, namely: Ocean Health, Ocean Extremes, Coastal Ocean including Land-Sea interactions, Ocean Carbon, Upper-ocean Dynamics including air-sea interactions, and the Ocean’ s role in the Earth and Climate System.

This presentation will showcase results and outcomes of a sub-selection of the Cluster projects, with special emphasis on those aspects deemed relevant to this Session, namely: Ocean carbon cycle and its related pools and fluxes, Ocean Acidification, Ocean extremes and Ocean Heat Content. Also, specific attention will be devoted to recent projects highlighting satellite capabilities to provide valuable information in the marine renewable energy context.

The projects’ products are all freely and openly available to the community, providing a unique dataset allowing to further monitor open and coastal oceans in a changing environment.