City of York, UK. Data acquired by Sentinel-2 on the 17th September 2024. Image courtesy of ESA/Copernicus. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024/Sentinel Hub.
I spent last week in York at the UK National Earth Observation Conference 2024. This joint event occurs every few years, and is organised by the National Centre of Earth Observation (NCEO), the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc), Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation (CEOI) and the Satellite Applications Catapult. This years event took place at the National Stem Centre and participants came from research, government, and industry, and the sessions covered a broad range of topics, including aquatic, atmospheric, and terrestrial remote sensing.
The first day, Tuesday 12th September, began with a keynote from Susanne Mecklenburg, Head of the Climate and Long-term Action Division at the European Space Agency (ESA). She discussed ESA’s shift in focus from primarily providing Earth Observation (EO) data to enable research, to providing actionable information for the climate – known as Earth Action datasets. In addition to being a trusted provider of data and science, ESA has also taken the role of enabler, catalyst, and translator of that data.
Next up was a session on Machine Learning (ML) & Algorithm Development for Atmospheric Applications. Methane was an area of focus not only in this session but across the conference – this was exciting for me as I was also giving a presentation on the last day focused on this. Techniques are being developed to automatically detect methane plumes and reduce the instances of errors and false plumes. Other applications included the optimal estimation of derived cloud properties and nowcasting convective cores, which are the coldest parts of clouds and sources of heavy precipitation. In the afternoon, I was focused on environmental monitoring to support water quality and atmospheric applications. The presentations covered applications of EO satellite measurements and the development of a ground-based network to monitor greenhouse gases (GEMINI-UK) that’s coming online later this year. The evening was a poster session, providing an opportunity to chat to those presenting their research.
The second day’s sessions included Novel Applications and ML; an overview of the TRUTHS mission that aims to launch in 2030 and those working to bring it to fruition; and a keynote by Beth Greenway & Lauren Newell from the UK Space Agency (UKSA). Novel applications included detecting methane and atmospheric pollution emissions, understanding the environmental impact of armed conflict, and understanding the impact of flooding on intertidal vegetation. The TRUTHS session had short talks from those working on this ESA mission that is led by the UK, and, I have the pleasure of piece part of the Mission Advisory Group (MAG) for the mission. TRUTHS aims to be a ‘standards laboratory in space’, which can both support other EO missions to generate more accurate data, and support the collection of information about the Earth’s radiation budget – incoming solar radiation and reflected radiation. The UKSA session outlined that they’ve been asked to identify ‘winners’ rather than support everything the UK is good at, with an example given being bespoke missions with quality-assured EO data.
The last day, Thursday, started with a keynote from Thorsten Fehr, Head of Atmospheric Section at ESA, followed by sessions focused on Climate Data Studies and Novel Instruments with the conclusion being a panel session discussion looking to the future. I presented in the Novel Instruments sessions, on the Hyperspectral Chroma-D Instrument (HERCHI) Payload Development project led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd that has been funded under the CEOI Enhancing UK Satellite Climate Monitoring programme, and Pixalytics is part of the project working on user requirements, understanding the currently available satellite dataset and future markets for EO-derived greenhouse gas and atmospheric pollution information.
An interesting point was made in the panel session, where it was noted that we are no longer ‘data deprived’, and instead the challenge is handling all the data available. This a huge change in my working career, when I undertook my PhD SeaWiFS satellite I was due to work on had its launch delayed, and so instead, I had to organise an aircraft overflight for which I had one matchup point with the boat-based fieldwork to get data to work on.
Overall, it was a great week in York. The weather was generally dry and a bit cold at times, which enabled me to walk to and from the venue every day. With four parallel sessions outside the plenary sessions, I’ve only captured a snapshot of what was presented and discussed, and I would encourage you to attend future events.
