SEASTAR: A Mission to Study Ocean Submesoscale Dynamics and Small-Scale Atmosphere-Ocean Processes in Coastal, Shelf and Polar Seas

Christine Gommenginger (1) , Bertrand Chapron (2) , Andy Hogg (3) , Christian Buckingham (4) , Baylor Fox-Kemper (5) , Leif A. Eriksson (6) , François Soulat (7) , Clément Ubelmann (7) , Francisco Ocampo-Torres (8) , Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli (9) , David Griffin (10) , Francisco Lopez-Dekker (11) , Per Knudsen (12) , Ole Andersen (12) , Lars Stenseng (13) , Neil Stapleton (14) , William Perrrie (15) , Nelson Violante-Carvalho (16) , Johannes Schulz-Stellenfleth (17) , David Woolf (18) , Jordi Isern-Fontanet (19) , Fabrice Ardhuin (2) , Patrice M. Klein (2) , Alexis Mouche (2) , Ananda Pascual (20) , Xavier Capet (21) , Danièle Hauser (22) , Ad Stoffelen (23) , Rosemary Morrow (24) , Lofti Aouf (25) , Øyvind Breivik (26, 27) , Lee-Lueng Fu (28) , Johnny A. Johannessen (29) , Yevgeny Aksenov (1) , Lucy Bricheno (30) , Joël J.-M. Hirschi (1) , Adrien Martin (1) , Adrian P. Martin (1) , George Nurser (1) , Jeff Polton (31) , Judith Wolf (31) , Harald Johnsen (32) , Alexander Soloviev (33) , Gregg A. Jacobs (34) , Fabrice Collard (35) , Steve Groom (36) , Vladimir Kudryavtsev (37) , John Wilkin (38) , Victor Navarro (39) , Alex Babanin (40) , Matthew Martin (41) , John Siddorn (41) , Andrew Saulter (41) , Tom Rippeth (42) , Bill Emery (43) , Nikolai Maximenko (44) , Roland Romeiser (45) , Hans Graber (45) , Aida Alvera Azcarate (46) , Chris W. Hughes (30, 47) , Doug Vandemark (48) , Jose da Silva (49) , Peter Jan van Leeuwen (50, 51) , Alberto C. Naveira-Garabato (52) , Johannes Gemmrich (53) , Amala Mahadevan (54) , Jose Marquez (55) , Yvonne Munro (55) , Sam Doody (55) , Geoff Burbidge (55)

1 NOC - National Oceanography Centre [Southampton]
2 IFREMER - Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer
3 RSES - Research School of Earth Sciences [Canberra]
4 IUEM - Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer
5 Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences [Providence]
6 Brown University
7 CLS - Collecte Localisation Satellites
8 Centro de Investigacion Científica y de Educacion Superior de Ensenada
9 CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [Bologna]
10 CSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [Canberra]
11 Department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing [Delft]
12 DTU Space - National Space Institute [Lyngby]
13 Department of Planning [Aalborg]
14 Dstl - Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
15 IOB - Institut océanographique Bedford - Bedford Oceanographic Institute [Dartmouth, Canada]
16 Department or Ocean Engineering [Rio de Janeiro]
17 Institut für Küstenforschung / Institute of Coastal Research
18 EGIS - School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastruture and Society
19 ICM - Institute of Marine Sciences / Institut de Ciències del Mar [Barcelona]
20 IMEDEA - Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avancats
21 PROTEO - Processus et interactions de fine échelle océanique
22 SPACE - LATMOS
23 KNMI - Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
24 LEGOS - Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales
25 DIRSE - Météo-France Direction Interrégionale Sud-Est
26 MET - Norwegian Meteorological Institute [Oslo]
27 GFI / BiU - Geophysical Institute [Bergen]
28 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
29 NERSC - Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center [Bergen]
30 NOC - National Oceanography Centre
31 NOC - National Oceanographic Centre [Liverpool]
32 NORUT - Northern Research Institute Tromsø
33 Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography
34 NRL - Naval Research Laboratory
35 OceanDataLab
36 PML - Plymouth Marine Laboratory
37 SOLab - Satellite Oceanography Laboratory [St Petersburg]
38 Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences [New Brunswick]
39 Starlab SLU [Barcelona, Spain]
40 Department of Infrastructure Engineering [Melbourne]
41 MOHC - Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change
42 School of Ocean Sciences [Menai Bridge]
43 CCAR - Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research
44 SOEST - School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
45 RSMAS - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
46 GHER - GeoHydrodynamics and Environment Research
47 Department of Earth Ocean and Ecological Sciences [Liverpool]
48 CEPS - College of Engineering and Physical Dciences [UNH Durham]
49 DGAOT - Departamento de Geociencias, Ambiente e Ordenamento do Territorio
50 Department of Meteorology [Reading]
51 Department of Atmospheric Science [Fort Collins]
52 Ocean and Earth Science [Southampton]
53 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Victoria]
54 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
55 Airbus Defence and Space Ltd [Portsmouth]

High-resolution satellite images of ocean color and sea surface temperature reveal an abundance of ocean fronts, vortices and filaments at scales below 10 km but measurements of ocean surface dynamics at these scales are rare. There is increasing recognition of the role played by small scale ocean processes in ocean-atmosphere coupling, upper-ocean mixing and ocean vertical transports, with advanced numerical models and in situ observations highlighting fundamental changes in dynamics when scales reach 1 km. Numerous scientific publications highlight the global impact of small oceanic scales on marine ecosystems, operational forecasts and long-term climate projections through strong ageostrophic circulations, large vertical ocean velocities and mixed layer re-stratification. Small-scale processes particularly dominate in coastal, shelf and polar seas where they mediate important exchanges between land, ocean, atmosphere and the cryosphere, e.g., freshwater, pollutants. As numerical models continue to evolve toward finer spatial resolution and increasingly complex coupled atmosphere-wave-ice-ocean systems, modern observing capability lags behind, unable to deliver the high-resolution synoptic measurements of total currents, wind vectors and waves needed to advance understanding, develop better parameterizations and improve model validations, forecasts and projections. SEASTAR is a satellite mission concept that proposes to directly address this critical observational gap with synoptic two-dimensional imaging of total ocean surface current vectors and wind vectors at 1 km resolution and coincident directional wave spectra. Based on major recent advances in squinted along-track Synthetic Aperture Radar interferometry, SEASTAR is an innovative, mature concept with unique demonstrated capabilities, seeking to proceed toward spaceborne implementation within Europe and beyond.

Keywords: satellite; air sea interactions; upper ocean dynamics; submesoscale; coastal; marginal ice zone; radar; along-track interferometry

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Ocean, Atmosphere

Christine Gommenginger, Bertrand Chapron, Andy Hogg, Christian Buckingham, Baylor Fox-Kemper, et al.. SEASTAR: A Mission to Study Ocean Submesoscale Dynamics and Small-Scale Atmosphere-Ocean Processes in Coastal, Shelf and Polar Seas. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019, 6, pp.457. ⟨10.3389/fmars.2019.00457⟩. ⟨insu-02324567⟩