Journal Article

From field experiments to salinity products: a tribute to the contributions of Jordi Font to the SMOS mission

Portabella, Marcos, Vall-llossera, Mercè, Valencia, Enric, Turiel, Antonio, Enrique, Luís, Piles, Maria, Martínez, Justino, Monerris, Alessandra, González-Gambau, Verónica, Blanch, Sebastià, Corbella, Ignasi, Ballabrera-Poy, Joaquim, Camps, Adriano, Talone, Marco, Aguasca, Albert, Villarino, Ramón, Gabarró, Carolina, Bosch, Xavier, Sabia, Roberto, Pablos, Míriam, Torres, Francesc, Duffo, Nuria

2016

Overview

This article summarizes some of the activities in which Jordi Font, research professor and head of the Department of Physical and Technological Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC, Spanish National Research Council) in Barcelona, has been involved as co-Principal Investigator for Ocean Salinity of the European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Earth Explorer Mission from the perspective of the Remote Sensing Lab at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. We have probably left out some of his many contributions to salinity remote sensing, but we hope that this review will give an idea of the importance of his work. We focus on the following issues: 1) the new accurate measurements of the sea water dielectric constant, 2) the WISE and EuroSTARRS field experiments that helped to define the geophysical model function relating brightness temperature to sea state, 3) the FROG 2003 field experiment that helped to understand the emission of sea foam, 4) GNSS-R techniques for improving sea surface salinity retrieval, 5) instrument characterization campaigns, and 6) the operational implementation of the Processing Centre of Levels 3 and 4 at the SMOS Barcelona Expert Centre.

• Publisher: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
• Subject: Accuracy / Brightness / Brightness temperature / calibration / Ciències de la terra i de la vida / Dielectric constant / Earth / Enginyeria agroalimentària / Enginyeria de la telecomunicació / Experiments / Field tests / Fishery oceanography / Geophysics / Global navigation satellite system / GNSS-R / Humitat / interferometry / Laboratories / Oceanography / Physical oceanography / Radiocomunicació i exploració electromagnètica / Radiometry / Remote sensing / Salinity / Salinity effects / Satellites / sea ice / Sea state / Sea surface / Seawater / SMOS / Soil / Soil investigations / Soil moisture / Surface radiation temperature / Surface salinity / Sòls / Teledetecció / Temperature / Temperature effects / validation / Àrees temàtiques de la UPC