Mission Advisory Group

The "Mission Advisory Group" (MAG) is appointed by ESA and is responsible for providing guidance to the project development: reviewing the mission requirements, assumptions, processing choices and algorithm used to measure currents, waves & ice drift and other secondary objectives. The MAG is composed of:

  • Dr. Fabrice Ardhuin (LOPS, France), Chairman
  • Prof. Alessandro Battaglia (University of Leicester, UK)
  • Prof. Peter Brandt (GEOMAR, Germany)
  • Dr. Fabrice Collard (OceanDataLab, France)
  • Dr. Geir Engen (NORCE Norwegian Research Center AS, Norway)
  • Prof. Paco Lopez-Dekker (TU Delft, The Netherlands)
  • Dr. Adrien Martin (NOC Southampton, UK)
  • Prof. Jamie Shutler (University of Exeter, UK)
  • Prof. Detlef Stammer (University of Hamburg, Germany)
  • Prof. Michel Tsamados (University College, London, UK)
  • Dr. Erik van Sebille (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
  • Dr. Ernesto Rodriguez (Observer, NASA JPL, USA)

Fabrice Ardhuin (LOPS) , chairman of the MAG.

Fabrice, what is your research about?
My research on waves, currents, sea ice, winds, seismic waves, acoustic waves in the atmosphere... is about the Earth System and how it i hangs together, how a signal in on piece of the Earth System can tell you something about another piece.

Does this have applications in everyday life?
Sure. We just had a new update of the European weather center (ECMWF) with a new method based on my work to compute the dissipation of ocean waves and its interactions with currents and atmosphere. So this is at least used for weather forecasts.

What is your role in the SKIM project?
I am the "Chairman" of the "Mission Advisory Group" (MAG): this means that I represent the scientific community when discussing with ESA. I also help coordinate, with ESA, the work of the MAG.

What would be the biggest SKIM discovery for you ?
That is hard to pick just one. Given the dearth of data in the tropics, I think will have big surprises on the very complex equatorial current system and its coupling to the atmosphere. Because of the equatorial upwelling, this is super important for fisheries and the exchange of CO2 between ocean and atmosphere.

Could you tell us a bit more about you. What was your inspiration to become a scientist?
I've been always captured by the big blue regions on the maps when I was a child,  and my mother's family is from a small harbor town of the mediterranean with a long history (the town, not the family) going back to  600 BC.  The choice of ocean waves as my primary subject was certainly triggered by two encoutersone with Luigi Cavaleri, and the other one, first through a movie "Waves across the Pacific", then in person with Walter Munk.