Hello (안녕하세요, annyeonghaseyo) COSPAR Community!
Commission A (Earth Observation) writing today (Editor’s Note: Jérôme Benveniste, Vice-Chair of Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Commission A, formerly Senior Advisor at the European Space Agency – Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes). The Earth Observation scientific sessions cover a wide range of Earth Sciences and Technology for taking the pulse of our planet and run from Sunday to Friday. The sessions essentially stem from the three sub-commissions: Atmosphere, Ocean and Cryosphere, and Land. This year we have some fascinating cross-cutting sessions on small satellites for the equatorial regions, interactions between Land-Ocean-Atmosphere, disaster mitigation, carbon neutrality, connections between Lower and Upper Atmosphere.
Mioara Mandea, CNES, giving the key note (Photo credit: Jérôme Benveniste)
There were, so far, so many interesting results, reporting on a few select is bound to do injustice to all others. In this short report I will mention the keynote by Mioara Mandea, CNES, on the magnetic planet and the problematic South Atlantic Anomaly (photo), responsible for numerous and repeated electronic errors (singular event upsets, high radiation provokes a spurious change in a bit) in satellite hardware crossing that area. The future challenge is to pinpoint the source of the evolution of the South Atlantic Anomaly between solar activity and geomagnetism, not to mention another intriguing and debated topic, equatorial plasma bubbles.
Also worth mentioning is the science done using GNSS-Reflectometry for ocean surface wind speed data and mapping water bodies, as well as flood monitoring with GNSS-tracked constellations, and groundwater and ocean mass variations with variable gravity from space (GRACE). Many talks reported optical measurements for ocean colour and exploiting radar altimetry for geodetic measurements like sea level rise and sea level budget closure.
Also worth mentioning is the importance of attending Commission business meetings. The commission A meeting was well attended by associates and gave rise to fruitful scientific discussions on cross-cutting themes that will be object of sessions at COSPAR-2026 in Florence.
Join us on Friday for the Land-Ocean-Atmosphere interactions session (A0.2), Disaster Mitigation (A0.4) and Connections between Earth’s Lower and Upper Atmosphere (A0.6) in rooms EC1-316/317!