PlanetBye

It is somehow ingrained in my body, I think. The appreciation of biodiversity. I know I love wetlands, growing up by a lake (mostly in it as a child) as I did. It turns out that parts of that lake are so-called Ramsar wetlands of international importance. Little did I know, growing up to be an astrophysicist that these sites existed and that it would once become part of my professional life. Here. On my home planet. Bliksvaer Ramsar site, Norway. Photo: Bente Lilja Bye

New series of webinars on Earth observations
and the water cycle – Check details at the end of this article.

GPS is the first and most well known Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). It actually came out of the space race as it's forerunner was created to meet a need to track the first satellites launched. Today, GNSS is no longer just reserved for a few exclusive high-tech, high-cost applications, we all use this space-based geodetic tool when using our smart phones. Finding the best or the closest restaurant when visiting a new city or get direction driving from your hotel to your meeting location be it in a city you know or in a place you never visited before, our smart phone location and map applications are all based on GNSS. Going indoors and diving subsea

NASA has got the hang of it now. Creating an almost unbearable suspense before the launching of a new satellite, that is. Actually, the last time NASA tortured us with excitement was in connection with a landing, and not a launching. I am of course referring to Curiosity's landing on Mars. That went well, to put it mildly. Both the 'show' and now the results that are ticking in from the mission. Currently it is drill baby, drill mode on Mars!

Puh! Another big one. Earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 are big to put it mildly. Luckily it happened deeper in the crust than first anticipated and thus the resulting tsunami wasn't as devastating as it very well could have been. While writing this 5 people are reported dead, but I am not so sure about the source of that information (only from news media). The Solomon islands in the Pacific Ocean are situated right smack on the Ring of Fire - a 'ring' formed by tectonic plates meeting and rubbing up against each other. Along the Ring of Fire there is a lot going on in terms of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions easily spotted on maps with historic data of tectonic activity.

All men and women to the atlases!

Our Earth observation capacity is growing. Not only are star satellite data providers such as NASA and ESA improving their high quality products, new economies such as China and Brazil invest parts of their new won wealth in remote sensing as well.

This is not a rainforest! A story wherein I reveal resistant and deliberate ignorance.

Everytime I hear the word 'manhole' I think I have a hearing problem, or that my English is really, really bad. It sounds like a word I should understand, consisting of the two well known words 'man' and 'hole' , both of which give perfect meaning. The reason why I think 'manhole' is so weird, is that the combination doesn't give an immediate logical meaning. It is too ambiguous for that; a hole made for a man? or by a man? maybe even a certain hole in a man? For those of you who share my resistant linguistic ignorance, here is a picture showing what a manhole really is – so we all know what we are talking about in the continuing.

Today you'll find a myriad of different

Earth observation systems covering all from local to global areas,

collected from sub-sea to ground to air and of course space.

Providers of these Earth observation services come from both public

and private sector. Some of the collected data are required through

national regulations while others are in demand because of global

challenges such as climate change etc. The need for Earth

observations permeates the entire global society.

Answering this need for Earth

observation capacity several Earth observation systems have been

built.

I've been a great admirer of GRACE since the first time I 'met her'.
That was at a meeting in Potsdam, Germany, a beautiful city just outside
(on the 'wrong side' = old Eastern Germany) Berlin. I was attending a
geodesy meeting, I do not even remember exactly which one,  when we
popped in to listen to Chris Reigber, one of the pioneers in space-based
gravity measurements, giving a talk thanking the community for a reward
he had just gotten for his work in this field. GRACE is the
brainchild of Chris Reigber and his group at Geoforschungzentrum in
Potsdam, and NASA. One of the remarkable things about GRACE is that she
over performs, all the time, again and again.

I've been a great admirer of GRACE since the first time I 'met her'. That was at a meeting in Potsdam, Germany, a beautiful city just outside (on the 'wrong side' = old Eastern Germany) Berlin. I was attending a geodesy meeting, I do not even remember exactly which one,  when we popped in to listen to Chris Reigber, one of the pioneers in space-based gravity measurements, giving a talk thanking the community for a reward he had just gotten for his work in this field. GRACE is the brainchild of Chris Reigber and his group at Geoforschungzentrum in Potsdam, and NASA. One of the remarkable things about GRACE is that she over performs, all the time, again and again.