Internal Waves Service Workshop 2026: building a global community around ocean internal waves

The Internal Waves Service (IWS) Workshop 2026 brought together an international community of experts in Cascais, Portugal, for three days of wide-ranging scientific exchange on one of the ocean's most complex and least understood phenomena. The IWS, an AIR Centre initiative led by Adriana M. Santos-Ferreira and João Pinelo, is developing a global service for near–real-time monitoring of internal waves at planetary scale using Sentinel-1 satellite data. The workshop brought together specialists in satellite Earth observation, in situ measurements, numerical modelling, and nonlinear fluid dynamics – an intentionally interdisciplinary group addressing the challenges of detecting, validating, and analysing internal waves globally. Discussions spanned physical processes, current scientific challenges, and future opportunities. A shared vision emerged as one of the workshop's defining outcomes: combining observations, theory, and artificial intelligence to move beyond detection toward a deeper quantitative and physical understanding of internal waves. This direction will make the IWS platform increasingly relevant and applicable to a broad scientific community. More than a scientific meeting, the event strengthened the collaborative network behind the initiative and opened new opportunites for international partnership, reinforcing the AIR Centre's commitment to building not just services, but communities. [PC, 20 April 2026]