People

Dr Darren Ghent

NCEO Leader and Research Fellow for Land Surface Temperature

School/Department: National Centre for Earth Observation; Physics and Astronomy, School of

Email: djg20@leicester.ac.uk

Research

My research interests include the retrieval, validation and exploitation of land-surface temperature (LST), both the products from Earth Observation and the simulations of land-surface models; the interactions between the land-surface and the atmosphere; and climate feedbacks on various spatial and temporal scales including the evaluation of land-surface models and constraining their estimation of hydrological fields through data assimilation. As one of the World-leading scientists on LST I lead several major international projects to advance the science of LST, and to develop impactful outputs from this. My research considers the societal impacts of heat related climate events such heatwaves and droughts, and how actionable information from thermal remote sensing data can be used for climate resilience and adaption.

Publications

Supervision

I manage the Surface Temperature (ST) Group in Leicester and therefore supervise the following postdocs and PhD students:

  • Dr Karen Veal
  • Dr Mike Perry
  • Dr Jasdeep Anand
  • Dr Rocio Barrio Guillo
  • Dr Agnieszka Soszynska
  • Dr Ben Courtier
  • Dr Ritika Shukla
  • Abigail Waring
  • Charlotte Paton (PhD student)
  • Anna Kelly (PhD student)

I also supervise both 4th and 3rd year Project Students 

Activities

I lead several large international research projects and I am the Leicester lead on numerous other projects:

Current Projects

  • PI on the ESA LST CCI Project
  • PI on the ESA LSTM Mission Performance Consolidation Study
  • PI on the ESA TIRCALNet Study
  • PI on the Sentinel User Preparation (SUP) MULTIWATER Project
  • Sentinel-3 LST Lead Scientist on OPT-MPC
  • Co-I on the Copernicus Ground-Based Observations for Validation of Copernicus Land Products (GBOV) Project
  • Co-I on the ESA LSTM Level 2 Processor/Product Development And Associated Cal/Val Project
  • Co-I on the Sentinel User Preparation (SUP) Urban LST Project
  • LST lead on the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Land Biosphere Domain
  • LST lead on the UK Earth Observation Climate Information Service (EOCIS) Project
  • LST lead on the UK  Advanced Surface Temperature Radiometer and Development of Global Network (ASTeRN) Project
  • LST lead on the ESA NGS-ASLSTR Sentinel 3 - Next Generation Optical Phase 0/A Scientific Support Study For ASLSTR
  • LST lead on the ESA FLEX DISC Project
  • LST lead on the ESA EO Africa EOMAJI Project
  • LST advisor on the ESA QA4EO Project for AATSR ARD
  • LST lead on the X-ECV projects MOTECUSOMA and X-FIRES
  • LST lead on the EU Horizon Europe OptFor-EU Project
  • LST lead on the EU Horizon Europe NUBICOS Project
  • PI on the UKSA Development of Urban Satellite based Thermal Indices (DUSTI) Project
  • Academic PI on the CEOI CLEAR Instrument for the UK EO Marine & Climate Mission Programme

Past Projects

  • LST lead on the ESA EO Science for Society Restore-IT Project (2022 – 2022)
  • Co-I on the Copernicus Space Component Validation for Land Surface Temperature, Aerosol Optical Depth and Water Vapour Sentinel-3 Products (LAW) Project (2019 – 2022)
  • Sentinel-3 LST Validation Scientist and Algorithm Manager on S3MPC (2014 – 2021)
  • PI on  ESA TIR TRP Project in support of LSTM Phase A/B1 (2017 – 2020)
  • LST advisor on the ESA TerrA-P Project (2020 - 2022)
  • PI on the CSSP-China VEgetation near Real time Detection And moNiToring for China (VERDANT) Project (2020 – 2021)
  • Co-I on the  Sea Ice Surface Temperature Retrieval and Validation for Copernicus S3 SLSTR Project (2019 – 2020)
  • Science advisor on the ESA E2E Simulator Project (2018 - 2020)
  • Co-I on the STFC-GCRF Thermal infrared technologies for supporting environmental assessment and decision making in the Ganges Basin (2016 – 2019)
  • Co-I on the ESA Passive Optical Missions Study (2019)
  • Project Scientist of the ESA DUE GlobTemperature Project (2015 – 2019)
  • Co-I on the EU H2020 EUSTACE Project (2014 – 2019)
  • Co-I on the  STFC ODA Institutional Award - Monitoring water availability and agricultural practises in India’s agricultural heartlands with thermal infrared technologies (2018)
  • Co-I on the Agri-Tech in China Newton Network (2018)
  • Co-I on the CEOI Pathfinder project; (2017 - 2018)
  • PI on the ESA  TIRI-SIM Project (2016 – 2017)
  • Visiting Scientist on the CM SAF CDR Project (2017)
  • Validation Scientist on the SEN4LST Project (2012 – 2015)
  • Validation Scientist on the Long Term Land Surface Temperature for ATSR (2010 – 2013)
  • Researcher on the S3 L2 ADF Project (2011 – 2012)
  • Researcher on NERC e-STRESS Project (2013 – 2016)
  • Researcher on NERC SWELTER-21 Project (2010 – 2013)
 

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