Monitoring the Earth’s vital constants
María Piles is a researcher at the Image Processing Laboratory of the University of Valencia.

I am María Piles, professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of Valencia, and I do my research in the Image Processing Laboratory. I have a PhD in Communications Engineering, and I have specialised in the field of remote sensing, in Earth observation satellites.
I am currently working on the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) project, a new Copernicus Sentinel Expansion Mission being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). The satellite will be launched in 2029 and will allow us to observe the Arctic and the changes that are happening all over the planet due to global warming.
In the CIMR mission in Valencia, we are a team of four people who are developing the algorithms for retrieving the humidity and temperature of the soil and the surfaces of flooded areas. We also coordinate with the satellite manufacturing team, which is very innovative at a technological level, as it has never before been possible to measure the microwave band because it requires a very large antenna. Now a technology has been developed that will allow folded mesh antennas to be sent into space and deployed once in orbit. Technologically, it is a very complicated challenge.
María Piles after the interview / Photo: Laura García.
Specifically, I am focusing on capturing the microwaves emitted by the Earth. From these, we are able to obtain the properties of the part of the planet that we are observing. We can determine the salinity and temperature of the sea and know about the thickness of the ice or snow cover. These properties are of great importance, since in the Arctic a large part of the area that was permanently frozen is melting. The CIMR project will provide us with vital observations to understand what is happening. The Earth is a system where everything is interconnected, and the fact that the Arctic polar ice cap is melting means that the water in the Arctic is getting fresher, changing its density and altering ocean currents. These changes can lead to changes in climate, such as more heat waves, or changes in precipitation. Everything is linked and we need observations to better understand what is happening and to prepare for it.
It is like measuring the vital signs on a planetary scale. We need them to better understand how the Earth is going to behave and if there are going to be major changes. For example, precipitation is now more extreme, but current models are not able to predict it correctly because it did not happen in the past. The more observations we have, the more we can learn about the behaviour of the Earth system, the better we can model it and make more accurate predictions.
Interview conducted by: Marta Gutiérrez and Anna Mateu. Editing: Marta Gutiérrez.