News

Title	GLOBICE Call for Proposal is now open for competitive tender
	2004-08-09
	The Invitation To Tender (ITT) on the DUE, "GLOBICE", Ref. AO4682 in the ESA Invitations to Tender, has been published today on EMITS with a closing date of 29 October 2004.
	The European Space Agency (ESA) hereby invites all companies from DUE participating countries to submit a tender for the GLOBCOVER 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, section Registration Request. Sea ice typically covers 14 to 16 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean, and 17 to 20 million square kilometres of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, during their respective winter seasons. The seasonal cycle of sea ice influences both human activities and biological habitats. Information over sea ice will improve our understanding of the role of the Arctic in global climate. These processes include mass balance, heat transfer, and momentum transfer between the Arctic Ocean and the atmosphere. Not all issues can be dealt within the GlobICE project, which will be restricted to sea ice motion, deformation and flux based on the analysis of ESAâ€™s SAR archive with 13 years of ERS-1, ERS-2 and ENVISAT data. More precisely, the GlobICE project objectives are to: explore ESA SAR archive (ERS-1, ERS-2, ENVISAT), develop a sea ice information system to be installed at ESA, provide validated sea ice information on sea ice motion, deformation and flux. The main user of the GLOBICE products is the CliC project, from the World Climate Research Programme and the broader scientific community of climate change. Future projects will address other issues on sea ice monitoring for climate research.