Sebastien Garrigues

Scientist - Land Data Assimilation
Research, CAMS Services, Coupled Assimilation

Summary:

Sébastien Garrigues is a full-time scientist in the Coupled Data Assimilation Team within the Earth System Assimilation Section of the Research Department at ECMWF. He has more than 25 years of research experience in Earth observation and land-surface modelling, with expertise in data assimilation and machine learning.

His research focuses on improving the representation of vegetation processes in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and CO₂ monitoring systems. His work has concentrated on the assimilation of new types of land-surface satellite observations into both physics-based Earth system models (Garrigues et al., 2026) and fully data-driven Earth system models.

One of his main achievements has been the development of machine-learning-based observation operators for the assimilation of microwave observations and Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) within the coupled Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). He is currently developing the assimilation of soil moisture and vegetation satellite observations in GraphDOP, a purely observation-driven forecasting system developed at ECMWF.

Professional interests:
  • Earth system science for NWP, hydrology, CO2  and atmospheric composition: 
    • Land surface: vegetation modelling, water and carbon cycles, surface-atmosphere coupling
    • Atmospheric composition: aerosol, biomass burning emission
  • Machine-learning: observation operator, observation-driven NWP system, parameter optimisation
  • Data assimilation: 
    • Land surface (soil moisture and vegetation): Microwave passive and active observations, Solar Induced Fluorescence, Leaf Area Index (LAI).
    • Aerosol 
    • Fire 
Career background:
  • 2023-present: Scientist - Land data assimilation - Assimilation of level-1 microwave and Solar Induced Fluorescence (SIF) observations in the coupled Integrated Forecast System (IFS)  and the observation-driven GraphDOP NWP systems- CORSO and CONCERTO (leader of WP on data assimilation) horizon Europe projects - ECMWF (Coupled data assimilation team, ESAS section, RD department) 
  • 2019-2023: Scientist - Atmospheric composition - Assimilation of satellite products for aerosol and biomass burning emission monitoring- Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) - ECMWF
  • 2018-2019:·Researcher (visiting scientist ) - Development and evaluation of a multi-source energy balance scheme in the JULES land surface model - Hydro-JULES fellow – Center for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Wallingford, UK
  • 2016-2018:· Researcher - Long-term evolution of evapotranspiration for Mediterranean regions : Impact of adaptations of crop managements in the context of climate change - Marie Curie/Agreenskill+ Awarded fellowship (Marie-Curie FP7 COFUND People Programme) - visiting scientist at Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading, Reading, UK and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Wallingford, UK.
  • 2010-2016: Researcher (tenured position) - Impact of global changes on the long-term evolution of the water balance of Mediterranean regions: uncertainty in evapotranspiration predictions - Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA, French National Agronomy Research), EMMAH (Modelling Agricultural and hydrological systems in Mediterranean environment), Avignon, France
External recognitions
  •  CEOS/WGCV/Land Product Validation group, 2005-2010 (co-chair 2008-2010)
  • CEOS/Atmospheric composition/aerosol and air quality group, 2019-2023
  • AEROSAT (International Satellite Aerosol Science Network), 2019-2023
  •  ICAP (International Cooperative for Aerosol Prediction), ECMWF point of contact, 2022-2023
  • Sentinel-3 Validation Team (S3VT) for atmospheric products, 2020-2022 
  • Sentinel-3 Optical Next Generation Ad Hoc Expert Group, 2022 -2023