The city of Valencia, shown in grey in this image, boasts a rich history, going back to the Roman Empire, over 2000 years ago. It makes for a beautiful venue for IGARSS, the annual pinnacle of the IEEE and Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS). This year, the symposium highlights the needs “Observing, Understanding And Forecasting The Dynamics Of Our Planet” and its programme honours the IGARSS tradition of covering a broad range of remote sensing disciplines: from missions and sensors over analysis methods to land, marine, atmospheric and cryosphere applications. This edition focuses additionally on big machine learning, close range remote sensing, model assimilation and global essential variables.