2024-07-12 –, While Loop (4.2)
Explore how Julia empowers scatterometer operations at EUMETSAT. From visualizing data to calibrating operational instruments and planning future missions, Julia is becoming an important tool. Spaceborne scatterometers are vital for monitoring ocean wind speeds, essential for numerical weather models. Additionally, they measure soil moisture, contributing to our understanding of climate dynamics.
The Scatterometry team at EUMETSAT has embarked on a gradual transition to Julia over the past few years, and now, it’s an integral part of our daily workflow. In this talk, we’ll delve into key aspects of how Julia is used to support our scatterometer operations.
We will share our experiences and give concrete examples of how we use Julia to support the current ASCAT mission. This ranges from data visualization to instrument calibration and quality monitoring. We will also describe how we use Julia in the preparation for the future SCA mission.
While Julia is not directly used in the operational processing chain, we will discuss its potential and the associated challenges. We have not released any Julia packages yet, but we hope to do so in the future. We will reflect on how this can help empower the end users.
Simon, the newest addition to the Scatterometry team at EUMETSAT, contributes to the operational observation of ocean winds needed for global weather forecasts. His daily work involves using Julia to monitor and maintain processing software for the ASCAT instruments aboard the METOP satellites. Additionally, he contributes to developing software tools for the upcoming SCA instrument on the METOP second-generation satellites.
Simon holds an MSc in Earth and Space Physics and Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. His interest in Julia began during his studies in 2019. After a 2-year period of working with C# on medium-sized public IT projects in Denmark, Simon eagerly embraced the chance to return to scientific computing with Julia upon joining EUMETSAT.
Simon is excited about the potential to use Julia to improve the processing chain of Earth Observation (EO) and wants to play a part in the realization of this potential.