The Strategy of the COSMO-SkyMed Mission over the Polar Regions
Daraio, M. G. ; Battagliere, M. L. ; et. al.
Aug - 2016
ISBN : 978-92-9221-305-3

Event Title : Living Planet Symposium 2016
Published in: Proceedings of the conference held 9-13 May 2016 in Prague, Czech Republic. ESA-SP Volume 740
Publisher: ESA
type: Conference Proceedings

Abstract
The polar regions are extremely important in terms of their global impact on weather and climate and functioning of the Earth system. In addition to this, human presence and related activities are increasing in these regions, indeed sea ice monitoring is required by a wide spectrum of users (Authorities and privately held companies) operating at high latitudes, including for navigation (rivers, lakes and sea) and offshore operations. SAR data are able to provide information such as ice coverage, size and shape of ice floes, etc. providing the crucial advantage of a weather-independent, day-night imaging system. Focus of this paper is to show the strategy of the COSMO-SkyMed mission in terms of potentiality and opportunity offered to the user community for climate change study, cryosphere environment monitoring and developing of operative services in polar areas. In addition this paper show the state of the art as regard the exploitation of the COSMO- SkyMed system over the polar region from civilian user community.