Enabling earth observations in support of global, coastal, ocean, and climate change research and monitoring

This is a special issue featuring a selection of research papers presented at the 13th Biennial Pan Ocean Remote Sensing Conference (PORSEC) in November 2016. PORSEC was initially established, during the International Space Year 1990, as the Pacific Ocean Remote Sensing Conference – an organization dedicated to helping developing nations around the Pacific Rim stimulate their science programmes focused on the applications of remote-sensing technology to Ocean Sciences. Primarily through volunteer efforts, with some support from the host countries and national and international agencies that share its principles, the PORSEC Association has been holding biennial scientific meetings since 1992, rapidly expanding and gaining global status as a prestigious remote-sensing conference, with a scope covering all the world’s oceans. The goal of the meetings and the associated training courses is to further the understanding of the Earth’s environmental processes and to assist in training, education, and capacity-building. As the landscape of earth observing systems has been changing in the past two and a half decades, with many nations moving forward with missions, many with regional focus, PORSEC has continued in its efforts to advance science capabilities and to build a bridge to the future, while expanding to new regions and countries, such as India and the Indian Ocean, and Brazil and the Atlantic. Conferences take advantage of the unique perspective provided by satellite remote-sensing technology and those of the host country/region, while striving to protect the ocean and atmosphere and promote sustainable use and development of oceanic and coastal resources. PORSEC 2016 and the preceding capacity-building course were held in Fortaleza, state of Ceará, Brazil, and hosted by the Marine Science Institute (LABOMAR) of the Federal University of Ceará and its Earth Observation Laboratory, with in-kind local support by the Federal University of Bahia and the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo, as well as in kind and financial support from domestic and international space science and research agencies [the French Centre National des Etudes Spatiales, European Space Agency (ESA), the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, the US Office of Naval Research Global].