The Salinity Pilot-Mission Exploitation Platform (Pi-MEP): A Hub for Validation and Exploitation of Satellite Sea Surface Salinity Data

Type Article
Date 2021-11
Language English
Author(s) Guimbard Sebastien1, Reul NicolasORCID2, Sabia Roberto3, Herledan Sylvain4, El Khoury Hanna Ziad4, Piolle Jean-Francois2, Paul Frederic2, Lee Tong5, Schanze Julian L6, Bingham Frederick M7, Le Vine David8, Vinogradova-Shiffer Nadya9, Mecklenburg Susanne10, Scipal Klaus11, Laur Henri11
Affiliation(s) 1 : OceanScope, 38 Rue Jim Sevellec, 29200 Brest, France
2 : Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), IUEM Brest, University of Brest, CNRS, IRD, Ifremer, 29200 Brest, France
3 : Telespazio-UK for ESA, ESRIN, 00044 Frascati, Italy
4 : OceanDataLab, 870 Route de Deolen, 29280 Locmaria Plouzané, France
5 : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91001, USA
6 : Earth & Space Research (ESR), Seattle, WA 98101, USA
7 : Center for Marine Science, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC 28403, USA
8 : Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20706, USA
9 : NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20001, USA
10 : European Space Agency, ECSAT, Harwell OX11, UK
11 : European Space Agency, ESRIN, 00044 Frascati, Italy
Source Remote Sensing (2072-4292) (MDPI), 2021-11 , Vol. 13 , N. 22 , P. 4600 (37p.)
DOI 10.3390/rs13224600
WOS© Times Cited 5
Note This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission (SMOS): Achievements and Expectations
Keyword(s) ocean, sea surface salinity, validation, remote sensing, L-band, SMOS, SMAP, aquarius, CCI
Abstract

The Pilot-Mission Exploitation Platform (Pi-MEP) for salinity is an ESA initiative originally meant to support and widen the uptake of Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission data over the ocean. Starting in 2017, the project aims at setting up a computational web-based platform focusing on satellite sea surface salinity data, supporting studies on enhanced validation and scientific process over the ocean. It has been designed in close collaboration with a dedicated science advisory group in order to achieve three main objectives: gathering all the data required to exploit satellite sea surface salinity data, systematically producing a wide range of metrics for comparing and monitoring sea surface salinity products’ quality, and providing user-friendly tools to explore, visualize and exploit both the collected products and the results of the automated analyses. The Salinity Pi-MEP is becoming a reference hub for the validation of satellite sea surface salinity missions by providing valuable information on satellite products (SMOS, Aquarius, SMAP), an extensive in situ database (e.g., Argo, thermosalinographs, moorings, drifters) and additional thematic datasets (precipitation, evaporation, currents, sea level anomalies, sea surface temperature, etc.). Co-localized databases between satellite products and in situ datasets are systematically generated together with validation analysis reports for 30 predefined regions. The data and reports are made fully accessible through the web interface of the platform. The datasets, validation metrics and tools (automatic, user-driven) of the platform are described in detail in this paper. Several dedicated scienctific case studies involving satellite SSS data are also systematically monitored by the platform, including major river plumes, mesoscale signatures in boundary currents, high latitudes, semi-enclosed seas, and the high-precipitation region of the eastern tropical Pacific. Since 2019, a partnership in the Salinity Pi-MEP project has been agreed between ESA and NASA to enlarge focus to encompass the entire set of satellite salinity sensors. The two agencies are now working together to widen the platform features on several technical aspects, such as triple-collocation software implementation, additional match-up collocation criteria and sustained exploitation of data from the SPURS campaigns.

Full Text
File Pages Size Access
Publisher's official version 37 11 MB Open access
Top of the page

How to cite 

Guimbard Sebastien, Reul Nicolas, Sabia Roberto, Herledan Sylvain, El Khoury Hanna Ziad, Piolle Jean-Francois, Paul Frederic, Lee Tong, Schanze Julian L, Bingham Frederick M, Le Vine David, Vinogradova-Shiffer Nadya, Mecklenburg Susanne, Scipal Klaus, Laur Henri (2021). The Salinity Pilot-Mission Exploitation Platform (Pi-MEP): A Hub for Validation and Exploitation of Satellite Sea Surface Salinity Data. Remote Sensing, 13(22), 4600 (37p.). Publisher's official version : https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224600 , Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00734/84591/