<p>ESA’s Heritage Space Programme Manager describes the goals of the programme, some of the challenges involved in preserving and improving 40 years of historical Earth observation data, and his passion for curating this long-term archive.</p>
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This infographic provides a quick guide to learn how to access data or participate in activities offered through ESA's Announcement of Opportunity mechanism.

Quick guide to Announcement of Opportunity submission

The Earth Online website will be unavailable on 28 September, from 07:00 to 11:30 UTC.

Maintenance on Earth Online on 28 September

In the sprawling, urban area of Rome, where atmospheric composition is impacted by complex coastal weather and pollution, ESA supports a powerful observatory spread across several locations.

Rome supersite helps validate atmospheric space data

Measuring glacier mass changes from space is more accurate and comprehensive thanks to the CryoTEMPO-EOLIS CryoSat swath data products, which now cover glaciers worldwide.

Global glacier mass change data now available from CryoSat

A software maintenance has been scheduled on Tuesday, 26 September 2023 from 08:00 to 14:00 UTC.

ESA EO Services - maintenance on 26 September 2023

Daniel Heywood

Mission

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Earth Observation Satellite

TOPEX/POSEIDON

Joint Polar Satellite System - 2 planned for 2022

JPSS-2

Joint Polar Satellite System - 3 planned for 2026

JPSS-3

Joint Polar Satellite System - 4 planned for 2031

JPSS-4

Swarm-B

Swarm-A

Swarm-C

FY-3B

Nimbus-4

CloudSat

Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations

CALIPSO

GOSAT-2

GOSAT (Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite) is a JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) mission within the GCOM (Global Change Observation Mission) program of Japan. The GOSAT mission goals call for the study of the transport mechanisms of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).

GOSAT-1

NOAA-20

TIROS

TIROS-N

GMS (Japan Geostationary Meteorological Satellite)

GMS-5

GRACE SCA

GRACE LRR

PRARE

Spectrometers

Interferometric Radiometers

Interferometers

GRACE INTERFEROMETER

GRACE ACC

HRPAN

SAPHIR

ATMS

TRSR

SSTI

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.

Interviewing Mirko Albani

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