ESA Science Hub

The Hub Talks: Mapping the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of marine plastic litter: The need for measuring ocean surface currents
2025-05-29 15:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Rome)
Speaker: Erik van Sebille is a professor of oceanography and public engagement at Utrecht University, where he also received his PhD in 2009. He has worked at the University of Miami, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and Imperial College in London. Erik investigates how ocean currents move ‘stuff’ around. He is the lead developer of the open-source OceanParcels.org code for Lagrangian Ocean Analysis. He is co-author of the textbook ‘Ocean Currents – Physical Drivers in a Changing World’ with Professor Robert Marsh. He led the European Research Council Starting Grant project ‘Tracking Of Plastics in Our Seas’ and is now leading the project ‘Tracing Marine Macroplastics by Unraveling the Ocean’s Multiscale Transport Processes’. In parallel to his ongoing work in physical oceanography, he leads a research team on how scientists can be effective and inclusive in their communication and engagement with society, specifically on the climate crisis.

Abstract: The world’s ocean currents can transport floating material like plastic and plankton over very large distances. Understanding how the transport varies over time and space requires fine-resolution observations of the surface currents. Most Earth Observation techniques in operation now measure the large-scale geostrophic flow field, but miss the direct effects of winds and waves on the transport of floating material. In this seminar, I will make the case why accurate and near-real-time measurements of ocean surface currents is important for understanding the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the plastic soup and the formation of hotspots of high plastic concentrations.

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The Hub Talks: Observing the Earth (water and) energy cycle from space to understand climate change
2025-06-12 14:30 - 15:30
Speaker: Dr. Meyssignac is a researcher at the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiale (LEGOS) and at the French Space National Center (CNES) in Toulouse, France. His research focuses on understanding the variations of the global Earth energy-water cycle at regional and global scales through high precision geodetic satellite observations and modelling approaches. He investigates processes leading to changes in the Earth energy budget, theEarth energy imbalance and the response of the energy-water cycle fluxes to greenhouse gases emissions. He is the author of more than 70 research articles and a lead author of the last IPCC report. He was awarded for his work the Christian Le Provost prize from the French national science academy in 2017 and theEGU/ESA Earth observation excellence award in 2021. He is active in the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) as a leader of the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Earth Energy Imbalance assessment and the Earth Energy imbalance trend case of the WCRP lighthouse activity on explaining and predicting Earth system change.

Abstract: At decadal and longer time scales, the Earth’s global energy cycle is governed by the difference between incoming solar radiation (TSI) and outgoing terrestrial radiation (OTR). The small but persistent imbalance between TSI and OSR —known as the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI)—is the primary driver of long-term climate change. Constraining this imbalance with sufficient accuracy is critical for understanding EEI variations in time and predicting the climate system’s response to anthropogenic forcing. Satellite observations offer unprecedented global coverage and temporal continuity, making them indispensable for tracking the key components of the energy budget. However, achieving the required precision—on the order of tenths of a watt per square meter—remains a formidable challenge due to instrument calibration, orbital stability, sampling biases, and inter-sensor consistency.

This presentation reviews the main satellite-based datasets used to observe Earth’s radiative fluxes, ocean heat content, and surface temperature. It examines how this satellite data constrain both the magnitude and variability of EEI and the associated climate feedback. We highlight the limitations of current observing systems, the inconsistency among independent datasets, and the difficulties in closing the energy budget at global scale. Moreover, we discuss emerging efforts to integrate satellite altimetry (Sentinel 3 and 6), gravimetry (GRACE-FO and NGGM), and radiometry (CERES and ECO) to improve estimates of EEI, determine its drivers and constrain the global energy budget. We outline the key remaining observational gaps and scientific questions that must be addressed to understand the processes driving temporal variations in the global energy cycle in response to greenhouse gases. One significant gap concerns the lack of observations on the role of deep atmospheric convection and its interaction with tropical circulation in modulating climate feedback. This should be a priority in the coming decade, with missions such as EarthCARE, AOS, INCUS, and WIVERN expected to address this need.

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The Hub Talks: UK Gas Leak Detected from Space: An Unexpected Discovery Leading to Large ImpactThe Hub Talks:
2025-06-19 15:00 - 16:00 | Online
Speaker: Dr Emily Dowd is Research Fellow in Greenhouse Gas Modelling at the University of Leeds. She graduated from her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2024 and her thesis focused on analysing methane across difference spatial and temporal scales. Emily’s research focuses on using satellite data and chemical transport models to investigate changes in atmospheric methane. She is currently working on a project which models clumped isotopes of methane in a global 3D chemical transport model. Alongside her research, Emily co-founded an outreach programme called SatSchool. SatSchool aims to introduce key Earth Observation concepts to 11-15 year olds by providing ready-made outreach materials which researchers can take into schools. This project has reached over 7000 students across the UK and continues to provide outreach in schools. Emily was a visiting researcher at the Science Hub in 2023.

Abstract: In spring 2023 a methane leak from a faulty gas pipeline was detected from space and successfully mitigated for the first time in the UK. The leak was discovered by GHGSat satellites while measuring methane emissions from a landfill near Cheltenham, UK. The leak was then confirmed through ground-based mobile surveys, providing the first validation of GHGSat’s emission estimates for an active gas leak. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is 82 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years and is a major contributor to climate change. Approximately 60% of global emissions come from human activity, including oil and gas operations. This discovery is a prime example of how satellite data can play a crucial role in mitigating the human impact on climate change.

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The Hub Talks: Carbon Mapper - Global distributions of super-emitting methane point sources as detected by satellites
2025-09-25 15:00 - 16:00 | ESRIN Science Hub, Via Galileo Galilei, 1, Frascati, RM, 00044, Italy
Speaker: Daniel Cusworth is the Science Director for Carbon Mapper. Carbon Mapper’s mission is to drive greenhouse gas emission reductions by making methane and carbon dioxide data accessible and actionable. Daniel oversees algorithm development, validation, analysis, and applications of airborne and satellite greenhouse gas datasets. He was formerly a Data Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a Research Scientist at University of Arizona and worked on quantification of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions from regional to facility scales. He received his B.S. in Applied Math/Atmospheric Sciences at UCLA and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Chemistry at Harvard University.

Abstract: Super-emitting (>100 kg/h) methane sources likely contribute significantly to total emissions across several oil&gas basins, but the robust quantification and characterisation of these sources remains uncertain in absence of routine, transparent, and robust measurements. Solving this quantification gap is particularly important given international regulations and initiatives to require low methane intensities across the oil&gas supply chain by country and operator. The Tanager-1 satellite (launched August 2024) has shown capability of detection and quantification of the vast majority of methane super-emitters given adequate observing conditions and spatiotemporal coverage. Here we show Carbon Mapper’s progress in mapping super-emitter distributions and quantifying super-emitter intensities through intensive tasking of the Tanager-1 satellite of the majority of oil and gas infrastructure across key oil&gas producing countries. With 30-m spatial resolution of Tanager-1, we attribute each detection to facility and equipment type, allowing for better understanding of drivers of intensities and how those drivers vary across basins. Significant distributions of super-emitters are routinely detected in Tanager-1 across austere environments (e.g., high latitude, snow-covered), allowing for increased transparency of emission sources in regions that have been typically under-observed. Building a more complete global picture of super-emitters with attribution to infrastructure will aid in constructing mitigation roadmaps for lower-intensity energy.

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The Hub Talks: The NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission: Overview and Status
2025-10-01 11:00 - 12:00
Speaker: Dr Marco Lavalle is the Deputy Project Scientist for the NISAR Mission and the Group Supervisor (JPL equivalent for ESA’s Section Manager) of the SAR Algorithms and Processing Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California). He received an M.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy) in 2006 and a Ph.D. from the University of Rennes 1 (Rennes, France) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata in December 2009. From 2006 to 2008, he was a Visiting Scientist at the European Space Agency (ESRIN), supporting ESA’s activities on polarimetric radar calibration and interferometric algorithm development. From January 2010 to December 2011, he was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at JPL. He became a Staff Scientist in the Radar Science and Engineering Section at JPL in January 2012. Dr. Lavalle has served as Principal Investigator and co-Investigator for several NASA programs. He has been leading the NASA Distributed Aperture Radar Tomographic Sensors (DARTS) project and is a member of the ESA ROSE-L Mission Advisory Group. His research interests include retrieval algorithm development using interferometric and polarimetric radar techniques, physical and statistical model formulation, electromagnetic propagation, scattering theory, SAR tomography, ecosystem modeling, and surface parameters estimation. Dr. Lavalle is the recipient of the 2019 NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal and the 2020 JPL Lew Allen Award for Excellence.

Abstract: The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) Mission launched successfully on July 30, 2025, and will begin distributing science data as early as mid-October 2025, ramping up to full science operations – collecting all land and ice-covered surfaces every 12 days from ascending and descending orbit vantage points – in early November 2025. These data will be freely and openly distributed from the NASA Alaska Satellite Facility within days of acquisition. NISAR observations are capable of addressing fundamental and applied research topics spanning disciplines that include ecosystems science, cryosphere science, geodesy, solid earth science, hydrology, disaster response, and resource management. This talk will provide an overview of the mission, including its science and technology innovation, and dive into its status with emphasis on data and uniqueness of this first-of-its-kind L and S band mission.

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The Marine Heat Waves from space: from detection to prediction workshop.
2025-10-13 00:00 - 2025-10-16 23:59 | ESRIN Science Hub, Via Galileo Galilei, 1, Frascati, RM, 00044, Italy
Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) — periods of abnormally high sea surface temperatures lasting several days — are becoming more frequent and intense under climate change. Enhancing our capacity to monitor and predict them is now crucial — not only for science, but also for society and ocean health.

The event gathers 25 experts from 11 countries to exchange insights and shape future research around four core objectives: improving MHW detection, enhancing observability, advancing predictability, and assessing impacts. A major outcome will be a White Paper summarizing key challenges and opportunities and outlining a roadmap for future MHW-related activities.

More information on the workshop is available The Marine Heat Waves from space: from detection to prediction workshop. Science Hub, ESA-ESRIN 13-16th October 2025. – ESA Science Hub

The Hub Talks: Cloud radiative imbalance in global 3D radiative transfer simulations
2025-10-20 10:00 - 10:45
Speaker: Giulia Roccetti is a visiting us in the Science Hub from 14th to 21st ofOctober. Giulia recently finished her PhD at the European Southern Observatoryand has started a research fellowship position at ESA/ESAC. There, she will useEarthCARE data, among other resources, to study how 3D cloud structure affectstheir radiative effect.Abstract: We use 3D cloud fields from the ERA5 reanalysis product to model global-scale 3D radiative transfer in the Earth’s atmosphere. However, strong biases emerge due to the coarse spatial resolution of the ERA5 cloud data. To address this limitation, we have developed a 3D cloud generator capable of representing sub-grid cloud variability and heterogeneity within the ERA5 framework. Using this approach, we find that the simulated cloud radiative effects converge at a horizontal resolution of approximately 6 km. Our next step is to validate this global 3D cloud generator using EarthCARE cloud products and to further investigate how horizontal resolution influences the modeled radiative effects of clouds.

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The Hub Talks: Quantifying atmospheric trace-gas emissions using broadband satellite observations
2025-10-30 15:00 - 16:00 | Online
Speaker: Daniel Varon is an Assistant Professor at MIT in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He received his PhD in atmospheric chemistry from Harvard University in 2020 and held postdoctoral fellowships at both Harvard and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs from 2020 to 2025. His research revolves around satellite remote sensing of atmospheric composition with a focus on quantifying methane and NOx emissions. He is an Associate Editor of the Atmospheric Measurement Techniques journal, Model Scientist of the Integrated Methane Inversion (IMI) cloud-computing tool for quantifying atmospheric methane emissions with satellite observations, and Co-Nested Model Scientist of the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model.

Abstract: Broadband multispectral satellite instruments have supported a wide range of land-imaging applications since the 1970s. In this talk, I will show how these ubiquitous sensors can also quantify atmospheric trace-gas emissions at facility scale. I will discuss: (1) high-resolution retrieval of methane plumes from oil and gas facilities with the Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI); (2) near-real-time detection of large, transient methane releases using the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI); and (3) mapping of NOx point sources at 10–60 m with Sentinel-2 MSI and the Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI).

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The Hub Talks: The Science and Technology behind Spaceborne Doppler velocity measurements
2026-02-26 04:30 - 05:00
Abstract: The Earth Cloud, Aerosol, and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) 94-GHz Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), is the first spaceborne Doppler radar that provides coincident measurements of reflectivity and Doppler velocity, opening the path to quantifying vertical air motions and hydrometeor sedimentation velocities from space. The coming decade will feature several additional space-borne missions including the NASA-Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) and the JAXA-NASA Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) Precipitation Measurement Mission (PMM) and the ESA Wind Velocity Radar Nephoscope (WIVERN) explorer mission. Despite being deployed hundreds of kilometers above the Earth’s surface, these planned missions are expected to offer unprecedented measurement capabilities, that in many ways will be superior to those available today from suborbital platforms. Furthermore, the convection measurement capabilities from the different planned space missions are based on different measurement techniques and are applied at different resolutions and detection limits. As such, they will provide highly complementary insights into the different parts and processes of the spectrum of convection. Here, we will review the scientific importance these measurements in cloud and precipitation studies and the technical challenges and approaches utilized by the different missions.

Short bio: Pavlos Kollias received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics and Environmental Physics from the University of Athens, Athens Greece in 1994 and 1996 respectively and the Ph.D degree in meteorology from the University of Miami, Miami FL in 2000. He is currently a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University – SUNY and has a joint appointment with the Environmental Science and Technologies Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University, Canada and Global faculty at the University of Cologne Germany. Kollias was a prestigious Canada Research Chair and Professor at McGill University, Montreal Canada from 2007 to 2016.

Kollias has spent twenty-five years at the cutting edge of atmospheric experimentation. Kollias is internationally recognized as one of the leading thinkers in the use of radars for the study of atmospheric phenomena. He has authored and co-authored over 230 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and he is the recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship from Germany in 2013 and of the AGU Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award in 2020.

The Hub Talks: Probing the urban atmosphere from ground: the BAQUNIN project
2026-03-26 15:00 - 16:00
Speaker: Stefano Casadio ESA

The Boundary-layer Air Quality analysis Using Network of INstruments (BAQUNIN) Atmospheric Composition monitoring and Cal/Val supersite (www.baqunin.eu), will be described with particular focus on the urban component. The BAQUNIN activities started on 2015 (ESA IDEAS+ WP), with increasing support from ESA and EUMETSAT in the following 10 years. The project consortium is composed by SERCO Italy, Univ. Sapienza, CNR-ISAC, CNR-IIA, ARPA Valle d’Aosta, and Sardegna Clima. Fruitful collaborations have been established with space agencies such as NASA and JAXA, and with research institutes, e.g. the University of Thessaloniki (GR) and INOE (RO).The mandate of BAQUNIN is to operate state-of-art instrumentation devoted to atmospheric monitoring and satellite Cal/Val in different environments, being the urban observatory in the centre of Rome the pivotal component. The data distribution policy is to grant free and open access to all products through the BAQUNIN website,and through PGN, AERONET, COCCON, EUBREWNET, SKYNET international networks. Cal/Val data are made available through the ESA Validation Data Centre (EVDC).Starting from the main motivations that lead to the realisation of the project and continuing with the description of the current setup and instrumental suite of the urban observatory, the following concrete examples will then be discussed:a) long-term data series in urban environment: 30 years NO2 vertical column from ground and spaceb) validation of satellite products: trace-gases, GHG, cloud top/bottom height, aerosolsc) correction of “reference” data: the AERONET AOD at 440nm case

For more BAQUNIN details, documents, and open data access: http://www.baqunin.eu

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The Hub Talks: TANGO: The Twin Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Observers Mission
2026-04-30 15:00 - 16:00
Speaker: Dr Jochen Landgraf, SRON, Netherlands

Short Bio: Jochen Landgraf is a senior scientist at SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, and a docent at the Institute for Environmental Physics of Heidelberg University. At SRON, he leads a research group specializing in atmospheric remote sensing of trace gasses using observations from TANGO, TROPOMI, Sentinel‑5, GOSAT (1 and 2) and GOSAT-GW. His group has developed algorithms and software for the operational retrieval and processing of CO and CH₄ data for the Sentinel‑5P and Sentinel‑5 missions. In multiple studies, his team has demonstrated advanced retrieval applications of Sentinel‑5P CO and CH₄ data products and CO2 an CH4 retrieval from GOSAT, OCO-2 and GOSAT-2 measurements. Currently, he is involved in the Sentinel-5 data inspection during the commissioning phase of the mission.

He is a member of the Sentinel‑4/Sentinel‑5 and CO₂M mission advisory his primary scientific expertise lies in atmospheric radiative transfer and inverse modeling of atmospheric measurements and extends to the development of novel measurement concepts and the definition of instrument specifications. For instance, he successfully proposed the Multi-Angle Polarimeter (MAP) as a payload instrument for the CO₂M mission. For SPEXone on NASA’s PACE mission, he led the development of the Level‑1A to Level‑1C data processor, providing him with detailed experience processing raw instrument data. In his role as Principal Investigator for the TANGO mission, he has gained comprehensive insight into general mission-level challenges, ground segment architectures, end-to-end simulation analysis, and the required trade-offs ‐ between mission constraints and scientific objectives, including the use of flux inversion techniques for quantifying hotspot emission estimates.

Abstract:

The Twin Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Observers (TANGO) mission is a small satellite mission to be launched in 2028, under the ESA Scout Programme tapping into NewSpace to quickly deliver affordable and innovative science, as part of ESA’s FutureEO Programme a schedule of three years from mission kick-off to launch. Designed to complement the Copernicus atmospheric monitoring missions Sentinel-5 Precursor, Sentinel‑4/5, and the CO2M carbon dioxide monitoring mission, TANGO will observe carbon dioxide and methane emissions from human activities to support verification of the Paris Agreement. The mission is anticipated to generate >10,000 emission estimates per year for major industrial facilities and power plants. The scientific community will be able to propose specific observation targets, which will be incorporated into mission planning alongside routine observations aimed at enhancing current state-of-the-art point-source emission inventories.

Two agile CubeSat-class satellite buses, each carrying an imaging spectrometer, will operate in close formation with a temporal separation of less than 1 minute, enabling near-sequential observations of the same target area. Platform agility is ensured by three-axis stabilized reaction wheel control, which permits flexible spectrometer pointing with a roll capability of ±30° and forward motion compensation. This forward motion compensation increases the effective integration time by up to a factor of five, thereby enhancing spatial coverage and improving the precision of the retrieved geophysical quantities. As part of the mission implementation, a dedicated ground segment will be established to provide the scientific user community with open and freely accessible data products. These will include calibrated top-of-atmosphere radiance measurements (Level-1b), column-averaged dry air mole fractions of CO2 (XCO2) and CH4 (XCH4), as well as tropospheric NO2 column densities (Level-2), and corresponding emission estimates for CO2, CH4, and NO2 (Level-4). TANGO’s first satellite, TANGO-Carbon, will measure solar-reflected radiances in the 1.6 µm spectral region with a spectral resolution of 0.45 nm, enabling the detection of moderate to strong CH4 emissions (≥ 5 kt yr⁻¹) and CO2 emissions (≥ 2.5 Mt yr⁻¹). The TANGO-Nitro instrument will provide collocated NO2 observations derived from radiance measurements in the visible spectral range with a spectral resolution ≤ 0.6 nm, facilitating plume detection and the use of the NO2 for improved source characterization and emission quantification. In this contribution, we describe the status of the TANGO mission, the planned data products up to Level 4, the associated scientific opportunities, and the mechanisms for engagement of the scientific community in data exploitation.

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The Hub Talks: Absolut Sensing’s GEN1: One Year of In-Orbit Operations and Data Processing for Facility-Scale Methane Monitoring
2026-05-28 15:00 - 16:00
Speakers: Amélie Falcou, Frédéric Roman

Abstract: This talk presents a one-year return on experience from the in-orbit operations of the GESat GEN1 mission, a compact satellite designed to detect and quantify methane emissions at facility scale.

We will first introduce the mission concept, based on a SWIR Fizeau interferometer combined with a push-frame acquisition strategy, enabling high-resolution measurements from a small satellite platform. We will then describe the ground processing chain, from raw interferometric measurements to methane concentration and emission products, including calibration, interferogram reconstruction, and physics-based retrieval.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the articulation between instrument physics, radiative transfer modeling, and inverse methods, which together enable robust methane detection and quantification.

A key focus of the presentation will be the validation of the measurements and derived products. We will present in-orbit performance results, including statistical assessment of retrieval precision, consistency analysis across repeated acquisitions, and comparisons with reference datasets such as TCCON and TROPOMI. We will also highlight validation campaigns based on controlled methane releases, demonstrating accurate quantification of emission rates under real conditions, including blind test scenarios.

Finally, we will share lessons learned from operating such a system in real conditions, highlighting key challenges across the acquisition and processing chain, as well as perspectives for improving performance and scaling towards future constellation deployments.

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