IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2022 - 320

needs smaller scale models, which is one of the reasons
the mission Harmony will be extremely important for
future measurements.
Dr. Borgeaud demonstrated with a further video how
EO can also be very useful for mapping disappearing ecosystems,
for example, through deforestation. The Copernicus
Sentinels also monitor volcanoes and air quality and
not only provide " pretty images " but also derive quantity
information, e.g., on the change of NO2 over Europe.
Six new expansion missions are planned for Copernicus
in the near future: carbon dioxide monitoring (launch
in 2026, combatting climate change), land surface temperature
monitoring and Copernicus hyperspectral imaging
mission for the environment (for food security and
water management), Radar Observing System for EuropeL-Band
(monitoring land and natural resources), and
Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer and Copernicus
PolaR Ice and Snow Topography ALtimeter (safeguarding
the Arctic). Most of these missions will fly with
two or three satellites.
Three days of ESA EO data,
if written on CDs and
stacked, would pile up as high as the Eiffel Tower. There are
challenges in dealing with these dimensions of EO data,
but there is also great potential together with digital solutions,
artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and
machine learning or digital twins, to name only a few. Digital
twins can answer grand science challenges. Digital twin
Earth means Earth system modeling using EO data, for example,
in the field of hydrology, for water cycle research, or
for Antarctica or subglacial lake modeling. New space companies
are not replacing " traditional " satellites but complementing
Copernicus data with theirs.
ESA has a new concept for actions for Europe, " Accelerating
Europe Into the New Global Space Age, " which
emphasizes three challenges: space for a green future,
rapid and resilient crisis response, and the protection of
European space assets. Here, ESA works with space agencies,
public entities, and companies together who share
the same vision of accelerating this transformation. Of
course, international cooperation is also an important
part of ESA activities with partners, such as NASA, the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian
Space Agency (CSA), and Comisión Nacional de Actividades
Espaciales (CONAE), just to name a few.
The second speaker of the plenary session was Dr. St.
Germain (Figure 7), Earth Science Division Director, NASA
Headquarters. She spoke about NASA Earth Science, which
is a unique activity in the U.S. government because it is an
end-to-end activity from technology to investment. It develops
new ways of looking at Earth through in-situ and flight
systems, research and analysis, relying on data and computation
capability and thereby unleashing the power of science
by making it usable for decision makers. To do this, there is
currently a fleet of 25 missions in orbit and more to come.
These missions give an unprecedented view of the world because
they look at Earth from a systems perspective. They use
a vantage point from space to grasp the entirety of the Earth
system, as they observe how the natural system is working,
how human communities interact with the Earth system,
and how different processes work together.
As an example, Dr. St. Germain showed insightful animations
about how oceans absorb approximately 94% of
the excess heat produced by the accumulation of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. Ocean currents, in turn,
move that heat around the globe, accounting for very different
impacts regionally from the changing climate. Both the
warming atmosphere and the warming oceans are impacting
the flow of land ice into the oceans. The warming and
moving ocean also fundamentally changes the water cycle.
The water we use on land originates in the ocean and gets
delivered by the atmosphere. The amplification of the cycle
is manifested, for example, in most severe weather. That
is impacting coastal communities or agriculture communities.
With their full breadth of observations, NASA was
able to assimilate data into projection models, which can
be combined with crop models to estimate future problems
in the food supply. These kinds of tools are taking what we
already know about how the Earth system works and translating
it in usable projection tools that industry and communities
can use for their decisions. NASA's Applied Science
Program builds impactful applications and also helps
inform communities about how to use the information.
After that, Dr. St. Germain talked
about NASA's Earth Science Applications
Guidebook [4], which was released
in April 2022. This guidebook
is a new web-based resource synthesizing
best practices in developing decision-support
applications of Earth
science information and is targeting
interested scientists. The document is
free and openly available.
After this riveting overview about
FIGURE 7. The plenary session speech on " NASA Earth Science-Today and Tomorrow, " by
Dr. Karen St. Germain, Earth Science Division Director, NASA Headquarters.
320
NASA's present activities, Dr. St. Germain
took a look at very exciting missions
and launches in the next two
years, highlighting two of them. The
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2022
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2022

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