This May, the fifth ESA Living Planet Symposium (LPS) was held in Prague, Czech Republic. Over 3000 participants from diverse scientific background, ranging from land management over geomagnetism to cryospheric sciences took part, making this the largest LPS to date. The keynotes from the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Bohuslav Sobotka and the ESA Director General, Johann-Dietrich Wörner highlighted the importance of Earth observation data for climate and disaster monitoring.
With the focus primarily on ESA satellite missions, there were only few gravity field contributions compared to the EGU (see Adrian’s blog entry). Since the gravity program was so slim, I was able to check out different presentations, such as the mass balance block in the cryosphere session. To me, it is always very interesting to see the user’s perspective of the GRACE gravity fields we provide. Their viewpoint usually differs from ours, with different priorities (I imagine it is similar situation when I use GNSS orbits and clocks to derive GRACE orbits) and you can learn a lot from this direct feedback to improve on future iterations.
All in all, the conference was a great opportunity for networking and information exchange, with Prague being an excellent host city!
