ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10379
Open Date: 10/07/2020
Closing Date: 01/09/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 20.155.07
Prog. Ref.: EarthScience Block 4
Budget Ref.: E/A105-01 – EarthScience Block 4
Special Prov.: AT+BE+CZ+DK+FI+FR+DE+GR+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+ES+SE+CH+GB+RO+SI+CA
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Technology Domains: Space System Software / Earth Observation Payload Data Exploitation / Applications and Services
Establishment: ESRIN
Directorate: Directorate of EO Programmes
Department: Science, Applications & Climate Dep.
Division: Data Applications Division
Contract Officer: Tamas, Dora
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 10/07/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

Glaciers are retreating and thinning globally partly in response to natural variability but also due to climate change. This affects runoff, critical in snow dependent regions, as well as global sea level, with the last of these estimated to contribute 27 ± 22 millimetres to global mean sea-level rise from 1961 to 2016. Glaciers in the European Alps rapidly respond to climatic forcing and lose mass with a temporal lag of 50±28 years, controlled by slope, elevation range and mass balance gradient rather than size. While continued monitoring of Alpine glaciers for area is conducted by national and supranational agencies, there is a need to monitor more than just area, to understand their state, and also the stability of the areas that they occupied.The AlpsGlaciers (Glacier Science in the Alps) activity is part of the science activities of the first phase of ESAs Alpine Regional Initiative undertaken within the Scientific Data Exploitation element of the Earth Observation Envelope Programme (EOEP-5). The objective here is to maximise the scientific return of the investments in EO by exploiting the availability of products from ESA and EC specifically from the Europes Sentinel fleet of satellites, here Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, to:- to provide enhanced observation capacity for glaciers in theAlps beyond area to glacier velocity and end of season snow cover on a weekly-annual basis;- to provide a scientifically sound assessment of hazard state as a direct function of glacier change, specifically, lake size and slope movement around glaciers;