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  • Documents (59)
  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    Featuring the power of Earth observation data at EGU

    The European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2024 brings together geoscientists from all over the world, aiming to provide a forum where scientists and early career researchers can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts, in all fields of geoscience.

  • News - General News

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    Go-to guide to Third Party Mission data offering

    ESA’s latest Third Party Missions Data Access Guide has been published, providing technical details and information on available data collections for all current or past Third Party Missions.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    EarthCARE pre-launch science workshop a success

    Held between 13 and 17 November 2023, in ESA’s Earth Observation facility in Frascati, Italy, the ESA-JAXA pre-launch EarthCARE science and validation workshop brought together nearly 250 participants, representing a vibrant worldwide scientific community that is eagerly awaiting the mission’s launch.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Cloud-free collections key for land monitoring

    Satellite imagery is a crucially important tool for monitoring the land, but cloud cover can often block parts of Earth’s surface from view, limiting subsequent analyses.

  • News - Success Stories

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    Commercial and international data for fire monitoring

    As climate change sparks a surge in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, satellite data disseminated through ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme are helping scientists to track and investigate these potentially damaging natural events.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    Last call for EarthCARE workshop abstracts

    The abstract submission deadline for the EarthCARE Pre-Launch Science and Validation Workshop is just a week away. If you would like to present your work at the workshop, submit your abstract by 10 July.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    Submit your abstracts for EarthCARE Pre-Launch Science and Validation Workshop

    Invitations are now open for the EarthCARE Pre-Launch Science and Validation Workshop, which will take place at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, from 13 to 17 November.

  • News - General News

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    Pioneering science missions: Summarising ESA’s Earth Explorers

    Designed for research purposes, ESA's Earth Explorer missions are dedicated to monitoring parts of Earth’s system. Learn more about the Earth Explorers in this video.

  • News - Infographics

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    EarthCARE - ESA's cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer mission

    Learn about ESA’s upcoming cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer mission – EarthCARE – in our latest infographic.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    How satellite data help to shape society

    Data from ESA’s Earth observation archives are improving understanding of the interactions between human activities and the environment, helping to power green economic development and boosting prosperity in Europe and beyond.

  • Event - Training

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    EO Summer School 5

    ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.

  • Event - Training

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    EO Summer School 3

    ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.

  • News - Infographics

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    What are the next Earth Explorers?

    Learn about the planned missions in the Earth Explorers programme - EarthCARE, Biomass, FLEX, and FORUM - which will further our understanding of Earth’s climate.

  • Event - Conference

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    Living Planet Symposium 2022

    Learn about the 2022 edition of ESA's Living Planet Symposium.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    Highlights from Living Planet Symposium

    As remote sensing scientists and data-users from around the world converged at the Living Planet Symposium (LPS) in Bonn recently, a common thread was evident in many scientific sessions and meetings – the right environmental data can accelerate our understanding of the rapid changes in Earth’s system.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Space data help to unravel the complexities of Earth’s atmosphere

    As the impacts of the climate crisis intensify, scientists are using ESA’s Earth observation archives to investigate atmospheric processes and their influences on the planet’s changing environment.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Satellite data central to ocean monitoring

    Over 95% of Earth’s water is found in our oceans, and yet sadly, oceans are under stress from climate change and pollution. Monitoring our oceans is vital for Earth’s survival and satellites are the primary means of long-term and independent observation of our vast ocean bodies and their associated coastal zones.

  • News - Data Release news

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    New Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data now available

    Within ESA’s Landsat offering, access to the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data is now available.

  • Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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    Landsat 8 Collection 2 European Coverage

    This dataset contains the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection 2 data, both Level-1 and Level-2, acquired since the beginning of the mission. Landsat-8 Collection 2 is the result of a reprocessing effort on the archive and on newly acquired products with significant improvement with respect to Collection 1 on data quality, obtained by means of advancements in data processing and algorithm development. Primarily, this involves a relevant improvement in the absolute geolocation accuracy (now re-baselined to the European Space Agency Copernicus Sentinel-2 Global Reference Image (GRI) but also includes updated digital elevation modelling sources, improved Radiometric Calibration (even correction for the TIRS striping effect), enhanced Quality Assessment Bands, updated and consistent metadata files and usage of Cloud Optimised Georeferenced (COG) Tagged Image File Format. Landsat-8 Level-1 products combine data from the two Landsat instruments, OLI and TIRS. The Level-1 products generated can be either L1TP or L1GT: L1TP - Level-1 Precision Terrain (Corrected) (L1T) products: Radiometrically calibrated and orthorectified using ground control points (GCPs) and digital elevation model (DEM) data to correct for relief displacement. The highest quality Level-1 products suitable for pixel-level time series analysis. GCPs used for L1TP correction are derived from the Global Land Survey 2000 (GLS2000) data set. L1GT - Level-1 Systematic Terrain (Corrected) (L1GT) products: L1GT data products consist of Level-0 product data with systematic radiometric, geometric and terrain corrections applied and resampled for registration to a cartographic projection, referenced to the WGS84, G873, or current version. The dissemination server contains three different classes of Level-1 products Real Time (RT): Newly acquired Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS data are processed upon downlink but use an initial TIRS line-of-sight model parameters; the data are made available in less than 12 hours (4-6 hours typically). Once the data have been reprocessed with the refined TIRS parameters, the products are transitioned to either Tier 1 or Tier 2 and removed from the Real-Time tier (in 14-16 days). Tier 1 (T1): Landsat scenes with the highest available data quality are placed into Tier 1 and are considered suitable for time-series analysis. Tier 1 includes Level-1 Precision and Terrain (L1TP) corrected data that have well-characterized radiometry and are inter-calibrated across the different Landsat instruments. The georegistration of Tier 1 scenes is consistent and within prescribed image-to-image tolerances of ≦ 12-metre radial root mean square error (RMSE). Tier 2 (T2): Landsat scenes not meeting Tier 1 criteria during processing are assigned to Tier 2. Tier 2 scenes adhere to the same radiometric standard as Tier 1 scenes, but do not meet the Tier 1 geometry specification due to less accurate orbital information (specific to older Landsat sensors), significant cloud cover, insufficient ground control, or other factors. This includes Systematic Terrain (L1GT) and Systematic (L1GS) processed data. Landsat-8 Level-2 products are generated from L1GT and L1TP Level-1 products that meet the <76 degrees Solar Zenith Angle constraint and include the required auxiliary data inputs to generate a scientifically viable product. The data are available a couple of days after the Level-1 T1/T2. The Level-2 products generated can be L2SP or L2SR: L2SP - Level-2 Science Products (L2SP) products: include Surface Reflectance (SR), Surface Temperature (ST), ST intermediate bands, an angle coefficients file, and Quality Assessment (QA) Bands. L2SR - Level-2 Surface Reflectance (L2SR) products: include Surface Reflectance (SR), an angle coefficients file, and Quality Assessment (QA) Bands; it is generated if ST could not be generated. Two different categories of Level-1 products are offered: LC with Optical, Thermal and Quality Map images, LO with Optical and Quality Map images (Thermal not available). For the Level-2 data, only LC combined products are generated.

  • News - Data Release news

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    New Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data available from January

    From the beginning of 2022, ESA will start the distribution of the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 products.