The Scatterometer Instrument Competence Centre (SCIRoCCo): project’s activities and first achievements

The Scatterometer Instrument Competence Centre (SCIRoCCo, http://scirocco.sp.serco.eu) is a project established by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2014 as an interdisciplinary cooperation of international scatterometry experts aimed at promoting the continuing exploitation of ESA’s unique 20 years’ worth of ERS Scatterometer data (ESCAT) at medium (25Km, 50 Km) spatial resolution, and improving the quality of available and future scatterometry data.
SCIRoCCo aims at consolidating current methodologies for Scatterometer data processing and calibration. SCIRoCCo provides ERS-1/ERS-2 sensors inter-calibration, sensor characterization and data validation.
Data analysis and processing software, academic and technical publications in support of calibration and many diverse applications and research in Land (e.g. Soil Moisture), Oceanography (Ocean Winds, Sea, Ice), Climatology are also provided through the web portal, which also serves as the entry point to SCIRoCCo’s educational network, funded through Grants and aimed at fostering the next-generation scatterometry experts.
SCIRoCCo thus targets the needs of meteorological agencies, meteorological operations centers and the broader Researchers’ and Users’ communities for consistent and high quality Scatterometer data processing.