News
OceanFlux: Call for Proposal is now open for competitive tender
4 February 2011
The European Space Agency (ESA) hereby invites all interested companies from all eligible STSE participating countries to submit a tender for the OceanFlux procurement. If companies are not yet registered as an ESA bidder, they are invited to obtain access to EMITS by completing a questionnaire, which can be found at the indicated URL below.
OceanFlux is part of a series of activities launched by ESA in the last few years aiming at reinforcing the scientific collaboration of the Agency with major international scientific programmes. In this case, this project has been conceived in close collaboration with the international Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS).
This activity is jointly motivated by the growing importance of investigating ocean-atmosphere interface dynamics due to their capability of strongly affecting the Earth system and its climate, as well as by the increasing multi-mission observational capacity provided by ESA EO missions to observe and monitor ocean dynamics and the atmosphere. In this context, this activity aims at fostering the collaboration among the different scientific communities involved in marine studies, atmospheric research, modellers and EO scientists. The generic project objective is twofold: 1) support the development of novel products and enhanced EO based observations responding to the needs of the SOLAS community and 2) facilitate and advance in the integration of EO based products into processes studies and coupled ocean-atmosphere models. The proposed activity is based on the scientific requirements expressed by the SOLAS community.
In particular, STSE OceanFlux is dedicated to three main thematic areas to be implemented via separated contracts:
- Theme 1: Enhancing the observation and characterisation of sea-spray aerosol production (“Sea-Sprayâ€);
- Theme 2: Improving the quantification of air-sea exchanges of greenhouse gases (“GHGâ€);
- Theme 3: Characterising the role of upwelling processes as sinks and/or sources of greenhouse gases (“Upwellingâ€).
