Agenda for WATER HM Barcelona Meeting

2:00 PM, July 25, 2007

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Final agenda, your comments are welcomed. Date of this document is July 19, 2007

Link to Results of the Meeting (MSWord)

Link to Results of the Meeting (PDF)

Meeting Invitees: Doug Alsdorf (OSU), Shannon Brown (?, JPL), Anny Cazenave (CNES), Diane Evans (?, JPL), Daniel Fernandez (JPL), Lee Fu (JPL), Juliette Lambin (CNES), Yves Menard (CNES), Nelly Mognard (CNES), Baptiste Mourre (ICM), Ernesto Rodriguez (JPL), Jean-Claude Souyris (CNES) [Note: ? = uncertain of attendance]

Invited but unable to attend: Kostas Andreadis (UW), Paul Bates (U. Bristol), Bruno Cugny (CNES), Bruno Lazard (CNES), Dennis Lettenmaier (UW), Eric Thouvenot (CNES)

Mike Freilich of NASA HQ has responded to the CNES letter of May 25^th and has affirmed the formation of the working group to investigate synergies between CNES’s WatER and NASA’s SWOT. Our Barcelona meeting is the first in a series of upcoming meetings, telecoms, and joint-studies that are designed to ensure a successful WATER HM mission.

A key result of our Barcelona meeting will be a plan for the first kick-off meeting of the international joint-science working group (SWG). This kick-off meeting, I believe, should be held by mid-Fall, perhaps sooner. It would be ideal if technology and science discussions were held at the kick-off SWG meeting. Representatives of CNES and NASA management will be invited to ensure coordinated actions.

I. Overview of Agenda

a. Define Science

The overall science agenda for WATER HM includes physical oceanography and hydrology. Specific science questions tied with the technology studies (below) need to be finalized. Potential other science targets (bathymetry, land topography, etc.) should be identified, but only those that avoid science and technology creep.

b. Prioritize Trade Studies

Trade-off studies are needed that show costs associated with required height accuracies, power, and roll stability. The orbit selection plays a key role in this process. We need to carefully prioritize and coordinate these studies being conducted at CNES and JPL.

c. Data Processing, Applications, and Synergies

Items I.a and I.b are of an immediate concern, but in the near future we will need to determine how data will be processed and its processing level; who are the potential end users and what are their requirements; and synergies that should be developed with other satellite missions or in-situ sampling groups.

II. Action Items

a. Define the International Joint-Science Working Group

The overall goal of the SWG is to conduct a mission definition study leading to an optimal preliminary design of the mission given science requirements and technology and cost constraints. The SWG will (1) form the science and applications drivers, (2) derive the accuracies required, and (3) develop the engineering constraints.

b. Determine SWG Participants and Workers

We need to identify a small number of people with a focused set of hydrological, oceanographic, and technological skills to become SWG participants. We need to make certain that a small team is available to conduct the actual work. We also need to identify how the SWG will contact and involve key international agencies such as Brazil’s ANA (hydrologic gauging group).

c. Plan First Full SWG Meeting

A goal of the first SWG meeting is to demonstrate that WATER HM is capable of accomplishing the science goals. We need a meeting location, agenda, action items, and actions expected to result from the first SWG meeting.

III. Agenda Details

a. Define Science

Forming the SWG is the immediate next step necessary to advance key science and technology studies for WATER HM¹. A key aspect of the SWG is to ensure that the global community of oceanographers and hydrologists recognize the importance of bringing together our two communities. This will likely require regular WATER HM presentations at international and specialized meetings, occasional open meetings hosted by the SWG, publication of results, and interactions with key leaders at CNES and NASA HQ (and perhaps other Federal and National agencies?). The two communities need to ensure that our science goals can be answered by the spatial and temporal resolutions and the height and slope accuracies of the KaRIN instrument.

Our science questions need to drive the technology. For example, while hydrology science questions are not primarily based on orbit selection, oceanographic science questions will define the need for certain orbits. Hydrologic science will, however, require high-spatial resolutions to sample rivers with smaller widths (less than 100m). This sampling may require a certain amount of power to ensure a signal-to-noise ratio capable of supplying the needed height accuracies. Thus, the science drivers should be prioritized in terms of “critical and must have” (e.g., determination of storage changes in lakes and reservoirs) to those of less importance but still valuable (e.g., land surface topography). This prioritization should focus the mission and prohibit science and technology creep.

b. Prioritize Trade Studies

CNES developed initial studies necessary for submitting the WatER² proposal to ESA whereas JPL has a large investment in WSOA related studies. The SWG needs to update these previous studies by ensuring that the hydrology and oceanographic science drivers are within a reasonable budget (i.e., develop cost trade-offs). Some studies have already been conducted or are in progress. For example, field experiments showing Ka-band radar returns from rivers, data assimilation to determine river discharge, and assessments of SRTM for estimating discharge have already been conducted. A hydrology virtual mission study is now fully funded by NASA and will provide trade-offs between various sampling strategies and the derived discharge and storage changes. Alsdorf, Lettenmaier, and Moller are conducting this VM study.

Various studies have been discussed such as a need to update the CNES WatER power consumption study which focused on sun-synchronous orbits with stationary solar panels instead of a non-sun-synchronous orbit with solar panels rotating once per orbit (or other configurations). Such studies need to recognize that the oceanographic community at the Hobart OST meeting endorsed non-sun-synchronous orbits.

Nevertheless, knowing the science, engineering, and cost trade-offs associated with a sun-synchronous vs. non-sun-synchronous orbit are useful for carefully defining the mission.

Additional needed studies will include the usage of DEMs to mitigate spacecraft roll errors and to correct errors from atmospheric water vapor; determining the power necessary to meet the require height accuracies; the degree to which rain rates are mitigated; height accuracy over small rivers; etc. Prioritizing the needed studies and securing their funding are functions of the SWG.

c. Data Processing, Applications, and Synergy Issues

Data processing, applications, and synergy issues will soon become important, thus an initial discussion on these is needed in Barcelona. Because of the massive data volume expected for terrestrial hydrology (~0.5 terrabytes per week), a processing pathway is needed that is capable of handling the downlinking of the data, creation of height maps, and delivery of hydrologic data products. Similarly, on-board processing of oceanic radar returns will be required to reduce the resolution to ~1 km.

Applications groups will find value in WATER HM. For example, international water resource policy groups should value the ability of WATER HM to deliver weekly maps of water flow. Hurricane forecasts, near-shore pollutant transport studies, shipping, and related groups should improve their capabilities by using WATER HM data. But, how do we connect with these groups?

The SWG will coordinate synergies with planned conventional altimetry missions focused on oceanographic applications such as AltiKa and Jason-3. Hydrologic missions such as Hydros and GPM should also be coordinated.

IV. Discussion Items, Discussion Leaders, and Times

The schedule is approximate, we will take a coffee break during the meeting.

a. 2:00 – 2:15: Introduction to ICM; meeting agenda: Nelly Mognard, Baptiste Mourre

b. 2:15 – 2:30: Action Items: Doug Alsdorf

c. 2:30 – 3:30: Science Questions:

Hydrology: Doug Alsdorf, Nelly Mognard

Oceanography: Anny Cazenave, Lee Fu

d. 3:30 – 5:30: Technology Trade-Off Studies: Yves Menard, Ernesto Rodriguez

Brief ~5+ minute presentations on recent WATER HM related studies:

Hydrology virtual mission: Doug Alsdorf

Hydrology data assimilation: Doug Alsdorf

Ka-band radar from bridges: Ernesto Rodriguez

Radiometer over coasts and land: Shannon Brown

CNES Studies: Jean-Claude Souyris

CNES Studies: Juliette Lambin

e. 5:30 – 6:30: International Joint-Science Working Group: Lee Fu, Yves Menard

f. 6:30 – 7:00: Action Items (also brief discussion on responses SWG should have to Geneva November meeting; to GEOSS; to CUAHSI, to others): Doug Alsdorf

V. Notes

a. From Bruno Lazard:

We are working on a generic Platform to succeed Proteus and Myriade (called PF2012) for which SWOT is one of the eight reference mission.

The mission with a 78° inclination orbit and with a fixed solar array need about 21m² of solar panel for 1000 W of satellite mean power. Assuming that having more than 15-20m² is complex and so expensive, we shall try to be compatible with a 800W-1000W satellite and 500W-700W for mean PL power. This seems challenging but realistic.

We didn't yet work on data transmission, and wait update from Karin studies.

I suggest initiating regular teleconferences from mid-September to end of this year in order to iterate with current PL design and platform studies. The objective is to update initial 2005 studies for what concern PF feasibility at reasonable cost.

b. From Doug Alsdorf

We might consider the SWG to consist of a core group of say a half-dozen people (e.g., researchers) who are conducting the work and a slightly broader group of say two-dozen people that provide guidance (e.g., NASA, CNES, JPL program managers; key leaders in the hydrology and oceanography communities).

I would like for us to consider three locations for the inaugural SWG meeting: Pasadena, Washington D.C., or Paris. Pasadena is well located for west-coast oceanographers and JPL researchers; Washington D.C. is about half-way between France and the U.S. west coast; Paris is central to CNES HQ (and the most wonderful city to visit!). The meeting will probably require two full days and should involve the core SWG people as well as key individuals from CNES, NASA, and JPL administrations.

c. Previous Mission Names

1 WATER HM is the joint surface water and physical oceanography mission. The NRC Decadal Survey referred to this as SWOT, Surface Water Ocean Topography.

2 WatER is the Water Elevation Recovery mission proposed to ESA’s Earth Explorer opportunity. WatER was focused exclusively on terrestrial surface water hydrology.

VI. Meeting Location

Baptiste says: It may be useful to inform the participants that the L4 metro line that normally connects the IGARSS meeting place (Forum) to the Ciutadella Vila Olimpica station next to ICM will be out of order until the end of August. There are some bus substitutes, but I think the better and most pleasant way to come from the Forum is by tram (tramvia line T4, 10 to 15' + 10' walking). Take the T4 line from the Forum station until Ciutadella Vila terminus then walk for about 5-10 minutes. Maps are found on the following pages. Note that it is about 4 km from the IGARSS conference to the ICM meeting location.

Baptiste says, Concerning the check-in at ICM, I will provide a list with the names of the participants at the front desk. They generally ask you to sign the list, and give you a visitor badge. There is no need to enter all at the same time, so that people can enter when they arrive, and we can meet directly in the meeting room. The room number is B92b.

Baptiste Mourre Email: mourre@icm.csic.es Tel: +34 93 230 96 02

Institut de Ciències del Mar Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 37-49 Physical Oceanography Group E-08003 Barcelona

You are looking for this building: It is named: CMIMA (CENTRE MEDITERRANI D'INVESTIGACIONS MARINES I AMBIENTALS)