ESA Open Invitation To Tender AO8173
Open Date: 25/02/2015
Closing Date: 13/04/2015

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 14.155.24
Prog. Ref.: EOEP-4 Sup.Scien.Ele
Budget Ref.: E/0094-E4 – EOEP-4 Sup.Scien.Ele
Special Prov.: B+DK+F+D+I+NL+E+S+CH+GB+IRL+A+N+FIN+POR+LUX+CZ+RO+PL+CDN
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Establishment: ESRIN
Directorate: Directorate of EO Programmes
Department: Science, Appl & Future Technologies Dept
Division: Science Strategy,Coord & Planning Office
Contract Officer: Bode, Silke Friederike
Last Update Date: 25/02/2015
Update Reason: Tender issue

The Mediterranean region features a nearly closed sea surrounded by urbanized littorals and mountains that acts as a transition zone between humid climates to the north and arid climates to the south. As a result, the region experiences many interactions and feedback between oceanic, atmospheric, and hydrological processes, as well as anthropogenic activities. Understanding these interactions, links to extreme weather events and climate change impact is essential for the environmental and socio-economic prosperity of the region encompassing southern Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. In the last decades, Earth Observation (EO) technology has been consolidated as a unique global information source for earth science. The existing ESA and non-ESA EO data archives as well as the increasing global multi-mission EO observational capacity provides today an unprecedented potential to observe, describe and predict the dynamics of hydrological parameters and key processes governing the water cycle from local to global scales. HyMeX (HYdrological cycle in the Mediterranean EXperiment) aims at a better understanding and quantification of the hydrological cycle and related processes in the Mediterranean, with emphasis on high-impact weather events, inter-annual to decadal variability of the Mediterranean coupled system, and associated trends in the context of global change. Several studies on the water cycle on the Mediterranean have been done in the past but mainly addressing the continental or the ocean components separately or integrated studies overland, ocean and atmosphere using reanalysis. In this context, this project represent an ESA contribution to HYMEX activities. In particular, the objective of this project is to advance in the use of EO satellite data to support the scientific objectives of HYMEX. This includes: 1. Exploring the potential, suitability and limitations of existing satellite products to characterize the ocean,land and atmosphere components of the water cycle over the Mediterranean region; 2. Explore the potential of innovative emerging methodologies to develop an enhanced satellite-based dataset characterizing the main components of the water cycle over land, ocean and atmosphere by imposing the closure of the water budget over the Mediterranean area; 3. Explore through a number of test cases and process studies the potential of existing EO capabilities and products to address some of the scientific questions and challenges addressed by HYMEX including: The quantification of the integrated ocean-atmosphere and land water budget over Mediterranean area; Extreme events (e.g., flash-foods, draughts, heat waves); Variability of interactions between the ocean, land and atmosphere componentsand temporal patters of the water cycle in the Mediterranean.

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