News - General News

ESA's improved Earth system data records: what is in store for the future?

Fundamental Data Records (FDRs) are instrumental in advancing our understanding of Earth systems and for addressing societal challenges effectively. These long-term records contain uncertainty-quantified, calibrated and geo-located multi-instrument/multi-platform satellite sensor data spanning several decades to support climate-related applications.

News - Operational News

GOSAT – TANSO-FTS observations unavailability

Due to an inclination control manoeuvre of the JAXA GOSAT-1 satellite, the TANSO-FTS sensor observations have been suspended.

News - Success Stories

Satellites track the health of the ozone layer

ESA’s Earth observation activities are contributing to international efforts to monitor and preserve the layer of stratospheric ozone that blankets the planet.

Document - Proceedings

EO-Summer-School-4-Remote-sensing-of-sea-ice.pdf

This presentation from ESA's EO Summer School 4 describes the remote sensing of sea ice from the air and satellites

Event - Training

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 - Thematic area articles

Space helps monitor Earth’s changing biosphere

Earth’s biosphere is continually changing. Through its pioneering Earth observation missions, ESA is making critical contributions to monitor these changes and their impacts on Earth’s water and carbon cycles.

News - Events and Proceedings

Data preservation takes centre stage at Living Planet Symposium

Against the backdrop of the famed Rhine River, world-class scientists and Earth observation data-users are gathered this week in the historical city of Bonn, at the Living Planet Symposium (LPS).

News - Thematic area articles

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 - Success Stories

COP26 fuels interest in satellite data

As COP26 stimulates action to reduce global warming, the essential role of satellite data in understanding and monitoring climate change is apparent.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

AVHRR Level-1B Local Area Coverage Imagery

This collection is composed of AVHRR L1B products (1.1 km) reprocessed from the NOAA POES and Metop AVHRR sensors data acquired at the University of Dundee and University of Bern ground stations and from the ESA and University of Bern data historical archive. The product format is the NOAA AVHRR Level 1B that combines the AVHRR data from the HRPT stream with ancillary information like Earth location and calibration data which can be applied by the user. Other appended parameters are time codes, quality indicators, solar and satellite angles and telemetry. Two data collections cover Europe and the neighbouring regions in the period of 1 January 1981 to 31 December 2020 and the acquired data in the context of the 1-KM project in the ‘90s. During the early 1990’s various groups, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the Commission of the European Communities (CEC), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Science Team and ESA concluded that a global land 1 KM AVHRR data set would have been crucial to study and develop algorithms for several land products for the Earth Observing System. USGS, NOAA, ESA and other non-U.S. AVHRR receiving stations endorsed the initiative to collect a global land 1-km multi-temporal AVHRR data set over all land surfaces using NOAA's TIROS "afternoon" polar-orbiting satellite. On 1 April 1992, the project officially began up to the end of 1999 with the utilisation of 23 stations worldwide plus the NOAA local area coverage (LAC) on-board recorders. The global land 1-km AVHRR dataset is composed of 5 channels, raw AVHRR dataset at 1.1 km resolution from the NOAA-11 and NOAA-14 satellites covering land surfaces, inland water and coastal areas. Global Land 1 km AVHRR Data Set Project HRPT Ground Station Network (as of 1 April 1992) and Acquisition Areas for LAC Recorded Data Spatial coverage: Check the spatial coverage of the collection on a map available on the Third Party Missions Dissemination Service: AVHRR L1B 1.1 KM AVHRR L1B LAC Out-of-Europe.

Document - Product Handbook

AVHRR-Handbook.pdf

The AVHRR user handbook provides details about the content of the consolidated and harmonised data set archived at ESA facilities.

News - Success Stories

Forty years of heritage data highlight warming European lakes

In the last decade, climate change has taken centre stage in both the public and scientific arenas, as increasingly extreme weather and human impact on the environment have become more apparent.

Tools - Visualisation

EVDC Orbit Prediction Tool

The EVDC Orbit Prediction and Overpass Tool generates and visualises satellite's overpasses.

News - Operational News

GOSAT data dissemination schedule until 6 May 2020

The GOSAT product generation and distribution is currently impacted by changes at the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center.

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

GOSAT TANSO FTS and CAI full archive and new products

The TANSO-FTS instrument on-board GOSAT satellite features high optical throughput, fine spectral resolution, and a wide spectral coverage (from VIS to TIR in four bands). The reflective radiative energy is covered by the VIS and SWIR (Shortwave Infrared) ranges, while the emissive portion of radiation from Earth's surface and the atmosphere is covered by the MWIR (Midwave Infrared) and TIR (Thermal Infrared) ranges. These spectra include the absorption lines of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). The TANSO-CAI instrument on-board GOSAT satellite is a radiometer in the spectral ranges of ultraviolet (UV), visible, and SWIR to correct cloud and aerosol interference. The imager has continuous spatial coverage, a wider field of view, and higher spatial resolution than the FTS in order to detect the aerosol spatial distribution and cloud coverage. Using the multispectral bands, the spectral characteristics of the aerosol scattering can be retrieved together with optical thickness. In addition, the UV-band range observations provide the aerosol data over land. With the FTS spectra, imager data, and the retrieval algorithm to remove cloud and aerosol contamination, the column density of the gases can be the column density of the gases can be retrieved with an accuracy of 1%. The full ESA archive and newly acquired/systematically processed GOSAT FTS and CAI products are available in the following processing levels: FTS Observation mode 1 L1B, day (FTS_OB1D_1) FTS Observation mode 1 L1B, night (FTS_OB1N_1) FTS Special Observation L1B, day (FTS_SPOD_1) FTS Special Observation L1B, night (FTS_SPON_1) FTS L2 CO2 profile, TIR (FTS_P01T_2) FTS L2 CH4 profile, TIR (FTS_P02T_2) FTS L2 CH4 column amount, SWIR (FTS_C02S_2) FTS L2 CO2 column amount, SWIR (FTS_C01S_2) FTS L2 H2O column amount, SWIR (FTS_C03S_2) FTS L3 global CO2 distribution, SWIR (FTS_C01S_3) FTS L3 global CH4 distribution, SWIR (FTS_C02S_3) FTS L4A global CO2 flux, annual in text format (FTS_F01M4A) FTS L4A global CO2 flux, annual in netCDF format (FTS_F03M4A) FTS L4A global CO2 distribution (FTS_P01M4B) FTS L4A global CH4 flux, annual in text format (FTS_F02M4A) FTS L4A global CH4 flux, annual in netCDF format (FTS_F04M4A) FTS L4A global CH4 distribution (FTS_P02M4B) CAI L1B data (CAI_TRB0_1) CAI L1B+ (CAI_TRBP_1) CAI L2 cloud flag (CAI_CLDM_2) CAI L3 global reflect. distrib. clear sky (CAI_TRCF_3) CAI L3 global radiance distrib. all pixels (CAI_TRCL_3) CAI L3 global NDVI (CAI_NDVI_3). All products are made available as soon as processed and received from JAXA. To satisfy NearRealTime requirements, ESA also provides access to the FTS L1X products, which are the NRT version of FTS L1B products. The main difference between L1X and L1B is that L1X does not include CAM data, best-estimate pointing-location, and target point classification, but most of all the L1X products are available on the ESA server between 2 and 5 hours after acquisition. The L1X products remains on the FTP server for 5 days, the time for the corresponding L1B to be available. A document describing the differences between L1X and L1B products is listed in the available resources. For more details on products, please refer to below product specifications.

Mission - Third Party Missions

GOSAT Series

The GOSAT series is composed of two environment-monitoring satellites developed by JAXA dedicated to the observation of greenhouse gases.

Mission - Heritage Missions

NOAA POES

NOAA's AVHRR sensor is carried on the POES mission, a constellation of polar orbiting weather satellites.

Activity - Fiducial Reference Measurements

FRM4GHG: Reference Measurements for Ground-Based FTIR Greenhouse Gas Observation

Fiducial Reference Measurements for Ground-Based Infrared Greenhouse Gas Observations (FRM4GHG) is a European Space Agency (ESA) funded project.

Document - Product Document

NIES GOSAT Product Format Descriptions

Document - User Guide

SHARK Technical Reference Manual

The SHARK Technical Reference Manual provides detailed information on the organisation and workings of the SHARK Software Environment and the hardware on which it runs. SHARK is a standalone system that processes HRPT data transmitted from the TlROS-N/NOAA polar orbiting meteorological satellites.