October 6, 2014

SMOS training session

The Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère (CESBIO) announces the
SMOS FORMATION SESSION
(Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Satellite)
5 - 9 November 2012
Toulouse, France,

also sponsored by CNES and ESA

An opportunity to learn how to work with Soil Moisture, Ocean Salinity and Brightness Temperature products from this pioneering satellite mission.

The technical program will include:

Theoretical background on the SMOS mission:

An introduction to SMOS orbit and measurement characteristics
How are soil moisture and ocean salinity obtained from satellite measurements? The data processing chain: from measurements, to brightness temperatures, to soil moisture, and ocean salinity products
Caveats and pitfalls to avoid
How to make the most of the data itself

Practical formation sessions for each SMOS product including:

Accessing data
Working with the products and understanding their contents
Data quality checking (flags & data filtering)
Key tools and software for ease of data manipulation
Exercises guided by the SMOS team at CESBIO and experts from partner institutions
Installing and running the soil moisture and/or ocean salinity retrieval processors

Costs:
The formation itself is free and lunches will be provided. However, participants will have to pay their own expenses for travel, accommodation, breakfast and evening meals. Formation materials including data sets, documentation and scripts will be provided.

Important Dates:
The course will take place from November 5th to November 9th, 2012, and will be held in Toulouse, France.
Applications should be sent to "smos-training-course at cesbio.cnes.fr", stating name, institution, area of interest and experience with SMOS data, no later than 31st August 2012. A response will be given on 7th September 2012.
The maximum number of workshop participants is limited to 15. If a higher number of applications are received then places will be allocated as follows: (1) limited to one person per institution, and (2) according to order of application

If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to "smos-training-course at cesbio.cnes.fr". More detailed information on the formation content will be available at the end of June 2012 and posted on the SMOS blog (http://www.cesbio.ups-tlse.fr/SMOS_blog/).

ESA will financially support the attendance of students to the formation session held at CESBIO at a level of up to 1000€ for each selected attendee. Students should apply for financial support through their response to this announcement, elaborating their suitability to receive such support by outlining both: