Promoting International Satellite Capabilities for monitoring East African Seas

1
Promoting International Satellite Capabilities
for monitoring East African Seas
PISCEAS

• Dr Ellis Ash, Satellite Observing Systems, UK

2
The PISCEAS Project

• A collaboration between Satellite Observing
  Systems, National Oceanography Centre,
  Southampton, and Kenya Marine and Fisheries
  Research Centre
• Duration March to December 2005
• Practical support and advice to KMFRI and WIOSAP
  on different themes
• Ocean front monitoring
• Wind and wave monitoring
• Training and education in marine remote sensing

3
Ocean Fronts Monitoring

• David Kirugara 4-week working visit to NOCS
• Application of front tracking algorithm developed
  by Andrew Shaw and being extended by Jo Hopkins
• Enhanced version available early 2006 for testing
  in Western Indian Ocean region
• Estimation of frontal location and orientation
  with key parameters
• Mean SST, SST difference
• Width and thermal gradient
• Application to AVHRR imagery

4
Wind and wave monitoring

• Support to marine forecasting for sea safety
  (fishing)
• Demonstration of web based system combining
  satellite measurements and conventional forecasts
• Statistics and trends from archive data
• Sample archive database for evaluation of
  seasonal averages and variability
• Data sources
• Quikscat scatterometer winds (broads swath wind
  vectors)
• Jason-1 and Envisat altimeter waves (narrow swath
  wave height, period and wind speed)
• ECMWF forecasts

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
Wave climate from Altimeter data 1986 - 2004
10
of June-August with sea state gt 4 (2.5 m)
11
Histogram of significant wave height
12
Tsunami measured by Jason-1
13
Training and Education

• Hands-on lesson in remote sensing
• Based on UNESCO-Bilko software, free image
  processing software designed for training
• Wind scatterometer data from QuikSCAT
• Case with interesting features chosen, i.e. storm
  system
• Parameter display with image, histogram and
  scatterplot capabilities

14
Training and Education
15
TIGER bid

• Proposal to ESA DUE (Tiger)
• Prepared by SOS, NOCS, PML, KMFRI
• Objective to provide African users with near
  real-time and archive ocean colour and sea
  surface temperature information
• In support of water quality monitoring along
  coast of East Africa

16
MTAP Workshop

• Final workshop of Meteorological Transition in
  Africa Project (MTAP), Pretoria 24-26th August
• EU funded exploitation of Meteosat data
• Six projects, one closely linked to PISCEAS (West
  Indian Ocean Satellite Application Project,
  WIOSAP)
• Gave feedback on the management and execution of
  the projects
• Discussion of PISCEAS work with KMFRI
  representatives

17
Future plans

• Application for workshop funding to MASMA (letter
  of intent by 31 March)
• Training grant application to WIOMSA for
• MySQL database technology
• Establish W Indian Ocean altimeter database for
  statistics calculations
• Further development and use of Metoc WMS
• Continued work on front tracking and Bilko lessons