Speaker
Description
Data assimilation has evolved from its roots in oceanic and meteorological sciences to become a popular, and increasingly accessible tool in the earth sciences. In the past 20 years, ensemble and particle techniques have been widely used to constrain modeled estimates of soil moisture, snow water equivalent, LAI in a wide range of applications.
This tutorial will start with an overview of the different assimilation techniques and some examples in which data from across the EM spectrum have been assimilated to constrain land surface states and parameters.
We will discuss the key components of a data assimilation framework, and identify the challenges associated with each of them in the context of SAR assimilation. We will address the following questions: (1) What is the current state of the art in terms of the assimilation of SAR data in key applications of social and economic benefit? (2) What role could data assimilation play in accelerating the operational use of SAR data in these key applications? (3) What is the added value of using assimilation as a tool to integrate SAR and other EO data?
