In this video, Tommaso Parrinello - CryoSat Mission Manager - talks about ESA's ice mission and some of its achievements after more than 10 years of operations.

An overview of the CryoSat mission

New datasets have been released for the Cryo-TEMPO thematic products.

Brand new Cryo-TEMPO Baseline-B boosts CryoSat research

New CryoTEMPO EOLIS baseline 2 point and gridded products are now available monthly as of January 2023.

New CryoTEMPO-EOLIS baseline 2 point and gridded products

Learn about how RADARSAT scans Earth's surface in our new infographic.

Discover how RADARSAT scans Earth's surface

ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) was the second Earth Explorer launched in 2009. Over 13 years on, having already vastly exceeded its predicted lifetime and initial objectives, the mission has been further extended until at least the end of 2025.

Overachieving SMOS mission primed for continued success

Admin Eversis

Upcoming

Status

Current

Past

Conference

Event type

Meeting

Training

Workshop

Chris Mortimore

Sessions

admin admin

Data Innovation and Science Cluster

Projects subtype

EO Science for Society

National

Space Situational Awareness

Support To Science Element

A Fast Registration request must be submitted to access these data collections. Following user authentication, access to the data are provided within two working days.

Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)

Data Access Type FedEO

Procedures requiring evaluation

Access to these data collections are provided through services external to ESA. Learn more about access conditions on the data providers’ websites.

External Data (Restrained)

A Fast Registration request must be submitted to access these data collections. Access is provided as soon as the request is submitted.

Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

These data collections are free and open to access for anyone with an active account in ESA’s EO Sign In system.

EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

Access to these data collections is free and open to everyone.

Open access (Open)

A Project Proposal must be submitted to access these Third Party Mission data collections, describing the proposed use of the data and the team involved in the project.

Project Proposal (Restrained)

Data Service Requests must be submitted to access ERS-1/2 and Envisat (A)SAR level zero data.

Data Service Request (Restrained)

External Data

Fast Registration with Approval

EO Sign In Authentication

Open Access

Data Service Request

Fast Registration with immediate access

Project Proposal

Earth Observation Satellite

TOPEX/POSEIDON

JPSS-2

JPSS-3

JPSS-4

Swarm-B

Swarm-A

Swarm-C

FY-3B

Nimbus-4

CloudSat

CALIPSO

GOSAT-2

GOSAT-1

NOAA-20

TIROS

TIROS-N

GMS-5

Star Camera Assembly (SCA) precisely determines the two GRACE satellite's orientation by tracking them relative to the position of the stars.

GRACE SCA

Instrument

The Laser Retro-Reflector (LRR) is mounted on the Earth-facing panel of Envisat close to the RA-2 antenna to support satellite ranging for precise orbit determination and RA-2 range measurement calibration. Laser tracking provides the distance between the spacecraft and the station and is assimilated in precise orbit determination. It will be used extensively during the commissioning phase and regularly during the mission to verify the stability of the positioning system.

Laser Retro-Reflector consisting of four corner cubes mounted in a small pyramid on the underside of the spacecraft. They provide a means of tracking the GRACE satellites from the ground for backup and orbit verification.

GRACE LRR

Precise orbit determination relies on the data from the GPS receivers providing full global coverage of orbit data. The alternative method of Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is used as a supporting and independent means for orbit determination. Its limitation is the rather poor global and temporal coverage, but the SLR data is free from ambiguities and directly related to the terrestrial reference frame.

Each of the Swarm satellites is equipped with a Laser Retro-Reflector (LRR) of novel design for external calibration and validation of the onboard GPS receiver. A basic requirement for LRR is to enable the worldwide SLR station network to track the satellite with high accuracy and with a sufficiently high link budget under both night and daytime ranging conditions.

The PRARE (Precise Range and Range-Rate Equipment) instruments, carried aboard ERS-1 and ERS-2, were developed for precise satellite range determination leading to higher-accuracy altitude measurements.

PRARE

A spectrometer is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the spectral components are somehow mixed. In visible light a spectrometer can for instance separate white light and measure individual narrow bands of colour, called a spectrum, while a mass spectrometer measures the spectrum of the masses of the atoms or molecules present in a gas. The first spectrometers were used to split light into an array of separate colours. Spectrometers were developed in early studies of physics, astronomy, and chemistry. The capability of spectroscopy to determine chemical composition drove its advancement and continues to be one of its primary uses. Spectrometers are used in astronomy to analyse the chemical composition of stars and planets, and spectrometers gather data on the origin of the universe. Hyperspectral radiometer—An advanced multispectral sensor that detects hundreds of very narrow spectral bands throughout the visible, near-infrared, and mid-infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This sensor’s very high spectral resolution facilitates fine discrimination between different targets based on their spectral response in each of the narrow bands. A device that is designed to detect, measure, and analyse the spectral content of incident electromagnetic radiation. Conventional imaging spectrometers use gratings or prisms to disperse the radiation for spectral discrimination.

Spectrometers

Interferometric radiometers are passive imaging instruments for imaging radiation emission from a target scene.

Interferometric Radiometers

By combining different radar images of the same location – a technique known as interferometry – tiny millimetre-scale ground motion can be identified.

Interferometers

A technology demonstration that uses laser interferometry to measure fluctuations in the separation between the two GRACE spacecraft.

GRACE INTERFEROMETER

The accelerometer serves to measure all non-gravitational accelerations on the GRACE satellite due to air drag, solar radiation pressure or attitude control activator impulses initiated by the attitude and orbit control system (AOCS).

GRACE ACC

The Accelerometer measures the Swarm satellite's non-gravitational acceleration in its respective orbit. The instrument helps scientists to study factors that cause non-gravitational accelerations such as air drag, winds, Earth albedo, and direct solar radiation pressure on the spacecraft.

HRPAN

SAPHIR

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), a cross-track scanner with 22 channels, provides sounding observations needed to retrieve profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture for civilian operational weather forecasting as well as continuity of these measurements for climate monitoring purposes. Like the long heritage of its predecessors, ATMS combines all the channels of the preceding AMSU-A1, AMSU-A2, and AMSU-B sensors into a single package with considerable savings in mass, power, and volume.[Source: NPP home page, http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/atms.html].

ATMS

TRSR

The SSTI (Satellite to Satellite Tracking Instrument)is a state-of-the-art GPS receiver that has been designed to operate in a low-Earth orbit environment. The objective is to provide the SST-hl (Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking - high/low) contribution to the gravity field recovery, by the simultaneous tracking of up to 12 GPS satellite signals. In addition, SSTI provides data for precise orbit determination; it is also used for real-time on-board navigation and attitude-reference-frame determination. The SSTI instrument is based on the Lagrange architecture, a flight-proven device of Laben, Milan, Italy, a unit of Thales Alenia Space, Italy

SSTI

GAP (GPS Attitude and Positioning Experiment) instrument objective is to measure S/C velocity and attitude as well as TEC (Total Electron Content) of the ionosphere. The relative phase delay of signals in both the L1 and L2 bands from a GPS satellite occulted by the limb ionosphere provide large-scale (1000's of km) information on how the total electron content responds to magnetospheric perturbations. GAP consists of two components:
- GAP-A: Three single-frequency (L1) GPS receivers and four patch antennas. This package is being used to provide an accurate absolute time reference, spacecraft 3-D attitude, and post-processed spacecraft position and velocity.
- GAP-O: The objective is to provide ionospheric tomography observations.

GNSS

A tenth of Earth’s land surface is permanently occupied by ice sheets or glaciers, but the domain of the cryosphere – that part of the world where snow and ice can form – extends three times further still. The cryosphere is an important regulator of global climate, its bright albedo reflecting sunlight back to space and its presence influencing regional weather and global ocean currents. Some 77% of the globes freshwater are bound up within the ice – but the cryosphere appears disproportionately sensitive to the effects of global warming.

Imaging radar systems like those of ERS and Envisat pierce through clouds or seasonal darkness to chart ice extent, possessing sensitivity to different ice types – from kilometres - thick ice sheets to new-born floating ‘pancake’ ice – supplemented by optical observations. Radar altimeters gather data on changing ice height and mass: in 2009 ESA launched CryoSat as the first altimetry mission specifically designed to accurately measure the thickness of sea ice and land ice margins.

Cryosphere

Thematic area

There are three processes by which glaciation affects the landscape - erosion, transportation and deposition. Meanwhile, freeze-thaw describes the action of glacial meltwater on joints, cracks and hollows in rock. When the temperature reaches freezing point, the water inside cracks freezes, expands and causes the cracks to widen. When the temperature rises, the water thaws and contracts and this eventually causes rocks to break up. An ice sheet is a mass of glacial land ice extending more than 50,000 square kilometres. Two ice sheets on Earth, between them containing 99% of fresh water on Earth, cover most of Greenland and Antarctica.

Glaciers and Ice Sheets

Sea ice is ocean water that freezes - to the sea floor (fast ice), floating on the surface (drift ice) or packed together (pack ice). Because of vast amounts of water added to or removed from the oceans and atmosphere, the behaviour of polar ice packs have a significant impact of the global changes in climate.

Sea Ice

Snow and ice are features of some of the most inaccessible parts of the world. While 10% of Earth’s land surface is permanently occupied by ice sheets or glaciers, the cryosphere – where snow and ice can form – extends three times further. The cryosphere is an important regulator of global climate, its bright albedo reflecting sunlight back to space and its presence influencing regional weather and global ocean currents. The cryosphere appears disproportionately sensitive to the effects of global warming. Monitoring the environmental conditions of the polar regions includes the study of animal migration, ice mass balance, fresh water ice, snowpack conditions and monitoring of icebergs.

Snow and Ice

Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, is soil, sediment, or rock that remains at or below 0°C for at least two years. The enormous permafrost areas of the world show seasonal change which has impact on not only vegetation and hydrological cycles, but also on the planning and safety of huge gas and oil pipelines which traverse these areas. Frozen ground data are critical to understanding environmental change, validating models, and building and maintaining structures in seasonal frost and permafrost regions.

Frozen Ground and Permafrost

Earth’s land surface represents the most varied terrain in the whole of the Solar System, gradually transformed by geological motion, atmospheric weathering and sustained biological activity. Its evolution continues to this day, helped along by humanity: deserts expand, forests are cleared and cities grow. Satellite instruments allow land cover to be classified on an objective global basis, and identify land cover change. They can pinpoint wilderness areas under threat from sprawling settlements, for example, or track patterns of soil erosion. And land cover classification sharpens the accuracy of climate models: pinning down the contributions of localised carbon ‘sources’ and ‘sinks’ for example, or the varied albedos of differing biomass or mineral surfaces. Other types of instruments contribute more radiometers such as Envisat’s AATSR takes the temperature of Earth’s land, while radar altimetry and synthetic aperture radar interferometry build up accurate three-dimensional maps of its surface contours.

Land Surface

Conduction and convection are the two common modes of heat transfer in Earth. Conduction arises from interactions between neighbouring atoms, whereas convection transports heat by fluid movement resulting from the interaction between gravity and thermally induced density changes.

Surface Radiative Properties

Earth’s centre is a dense metallic sphere with a solid inner part and a liquid outer part, mainly of iron and nickel. Surrounding the core is a mantle of iron-rich silicates containing sonic metallic iron – around the mantle is the crust. Even in the Himalayas, the crust represents less than 1 percent of the Earth's radius. Our immediate contact is with the uppermost layer of crust: oceans, mountains and sedimentary systems. Radioactive decay in the crust and mantle produces about 80 percent of the heat flowing to Earth's surface; the remainder is from cooling of the core.

Surface Thermal Properties

Remote-sensing techniques can be used to carry out landscape assessments to assess large areas for archaeological potential, including environments where it is not feasible to deploy topographic or geophysical surveys. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is an excellent way of capturing surface data over entire landscapes. This technique can penetrate vegetation cover to record the ground surface.

Landscape

In Earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location.

Erosion and Sedimentation

Geomorphology is the study of landforms - Earth has many varieties of landforms. How landforms are different from one another is fundamental to geomorphology, which lies at the interface between geology and many other disciplines working to understand surface processes. The applications of geomorphic knowledge can range from engineering projects dealing with the physical properties of landforms to geological studies of the record of past climate change.

Geomorphic Landforms and Processes

Soils are the dynamic skin of Earth, formed by the interaction of minerals, organic materials, organisms, water and air. Soil moisture, the water contained within soil particles, is an important player in Earth's water cycle. It is essential for plant life and influences weather and climate. Soil properties that have been measured using remote sensing approaches include mineralogy, texture, soil iron, soil moisture, soil organic carbon, soil salinity and carbonate content. In sparsely vegetated areas, successful use of space borne measurements using optical, passive and active microwave instruments has occurred.

Soils

Soil moisture, the water contained within soil particles, is an important player in Earth's water cycle. It is essential for plant life and influences weather and climate. Satellite readings of soil moisture will help scientists better understand the climate system and have potential for a wide range of applications, from advancing climate models, weather forecasts, drought monitoring and flood prediction to informing water management decisions and aiding in predictions of agricultural productivity.

Soil Moisture

Soil properties that have been measured using remote sensing approaches include mineralogy, texture, soil iron, soil moisture, soil organic carbon, soil salinity and carbonate content. In sparsely vegetated areas, successful use of space borne measurements using optical, passive and active microwave instruments has occurred.

Soil Texture

Soil properties that have been measured using remote sensing approaches include mineralogy, texture, soil iron, soil moisture, soil organic carbon, soil salinity and carbonate content.

Soil Classification

Soil constituents consisting of a wide range of organic (carbonaceous) substances, including living organisms, carbonaceous remains of organisms which once occupied the soil, and organic compounds produced by current and past metabolism in the soil.

Organic Matter

Satellite instruments allow land cover to be classified on an objective global basis, and identify land cover change. They can pinpoint wilderness areas under threat from sprawling settlements, for example, or track patterns of soil erosion.

Soil Erosion

Any measure of the carbon content of the soil, in organic fractions or inorganic fractions.

Carbon

Permafrost

Remote sensing can be used for land-cover characterisation, mapping, and monitoring from the local to the global scale. The availability and accessibility of accurate and timely land-cover data sets play an important role in many global change studies, highlighting the need for better land-use and land-cover change information at multiple scales. A synthesis of current knowledge in remote sensing of land-use and land-cover science promotes more effective use of Earth observation data and technology to assess, monitor, and manage land resources.

Land Use and Land Cover

Product Handbook

Document type

Campaign Report

Newsletter

Availability Report

Quality Report

Algorithms Theoretical Baseline Document

Detailed Processing Model

Frequently Asked Questions

Input Output Data Definition

Product Specifications

Product Readme Note

Product Cal/Val Plan/Report

CryoSat

Oceans

Terrestrial Hydrosphere

In continuation of the CryoVEx campaign in 2011, ESA initiated a second Arctic post-launch campaign in 2012 to further calibrate and validate CryoSat data products.

Data Coverage (Year)	2012
Geographic Site	Arctic
Field of Application	Sea and land ice. Radar and laser altimetry

CryoVEx 2012

Overview

Data

newsletter

Cookies & Privacy