Ocean Observing
Ocean Observing – how Canada’s ocean community uses Earth-observation satellites. Canadian Space Agency Contract Report, OEA No. 1/105, 28 pp, 2005.

Executive Summary

The overall objective of ocean observing is to characterize the marine water column and its boundaries – in time and the three dimensions of space, both for civilian and military purposes. It is largely a matter of public good and therefore is largely a matter of political priorities. This report describes ocean observing with an emphasis on Canada and how it benefits from the use of Earth-observation satellites.

Presently, the spaceborne research and development aspect of ocean observing is focusing on the surface waters of the coastal ocean. The priority environmental information requirements are surface winds, water temperature, sea state, currents, sea level and water quality. These are critical to a broad range of activities having socio-economic value. There is also a great need to nowcast and forecast the behaviour of both the coastal and open ocean, using environmental models that operate in concert with the various marine sensors and platforms. Spaceborne sensors play a unique role in the definition of surface waters and their data are used to initialize, constrain and validate marine environmental models. Although the science, technology and infrastructure requirements of coastal ocean observing are still being defined, with certainty, there is substantial opportunity for spaceborne sensors which, in addition to natural surface parameters and met/ocean features, also observe human-induced surface features such as ships and oil slicks.

Most ocean observing systems are publicly funded. From an operational perspective, the navies of NATO and the meteorological community are leading the field. From a research perspective, the American university community has established infrastructure and political momentum. As a result, in a number of areas American universities are driving the advancement of ocean observing, nationally and globally. In the longer term, this university-based ocean observing infrastructure is likely to evolve beyond academia and into the hands of operational federal agencies, especially with respect to operational services pertaining to surface properties and features, which are the focus of spaceborne ocean observing.

The Canadian Space Agency’s Earth-observation focus has resulted in Canadian spaceborne synthetic aperture radar expertise and an ocean observing niche in ice monitoring, oil spill and ship detection. Corresponding operational services are provided by three federal departments - Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment Canada and the Department of National Defence.

With noted exceptions, this focus is not a priority within Canada’s university community and it is providing minimal commercial opportunity for Canada’s industrial marine ocean observing sector. Such factors are resulting in a near absence of the Canadian space program within Canada’s marine university and industrial marine environmental monitoring sectors.

It is feasible that Radarsat and future ocean colour missions could be of direct benefit to Canada’s marine university and commercial sectors, but not from an ice, oil spill or ship surveillance perspective per se. They could also be applicable to the largest pollution problem presently impacting coastal communities – the transport of land-based pollutants into coastal ecosystems.

Oceanography and meteorology continue to be at the root of most and arguably all of the national and global requirements for ocean observing. With individual applications requiring hundreds or thousands of images per year, these fields have the largest requirement for spaceborne imagery and offer the greatest opportunity for growth within the marine component of Canada’s Earth-observation program.