Inauguration lecture Luciana Fenoglio

Luciana Fenoglio at the Space Geodesy and Geodynamics Unit, Onsala Space Observatory, will present her inauguration lecture for (biträdande) professor. 

Titel:

Monitoring water surface change from space

Abstract: 

Surface water level, discharge and water storage are among the most sensitive indicators of 
climate change and human impact. Their changes reflect shifts in precipitation, evaporation, land 
use, hydrological cycles on land, ice melting in mountain glaciers and polar regions, ocean 
warming. All changes influence ecosystems, water availability, regional climate patterns and 
floods, coastal sea level change.

Today innovative remote sensing observations merged with in-situ data provide a two-dimensional 
observational surface water level which is denser and more accurate than previously. The novelty 
is the new generation of satellite altimeters since 2016 that includes Delay Doppler, laser and 
bistatic SAR altimeter techniques. These new observations outperform conventional altimetry 
providing globally observations valuable for climate research. In my talk I will address the new 
challenges towards a global monitoring of water surface changes at small spatial scales, a 
separation of natural and anthropogenic variability and improvement of regional ocean models. 
Starting from a local study at the Onsala Space Observatory, I will show examples where in-situ 
and space observations are merged to address key research questions related to climate change.