News - Thematic area articles

Transforming space data into climate action

ESA’s Earth observation activities are playing a key role in the revitalised global drive to combat climate change.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

Sea Ice Thematic Data Product [ALT_TDP_SI]

This is the Sea Ice Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the ESA FDR4ALT project and containing the sea ice related geophysical parameters, along with associated uncertainties: snow depth, radar and sea-ice freeboard, sea ice thickness and concentration. The collection covers data for the ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions, and bases on Level 1 data coming from previous reprocessing (ERS REAPER and the Envisat V3.0) but taking into account the improvements made at Level 0/Level 1 in the frame of FDR4ALT (ALT FDR). The Sea Ice TDP provides data from the northern or southern hemisphere in two files corresponding to the Arctic and Antarctic regions respectively for the winter periods only, i.e., October to June for the Arctic, and May to November for the Antarctic. For many aspects, the Sea Ice TDP is very innovative: First time series of sea-ice thickness estimates for ERS Homogeneous calibration, allowing the first Arctic radar freeboard time series from ERS-1 (1991) to CryoSat-2 (2021) Uncertainties estimated along-track with a bottom-up approach based on dominant sources ERS pulse blurring error corrected using literature procedure [Peacock, 2004] The FDR4ALT products are available in NetCDF format. Free standard tools for reading NetCDF data can be used. Information for expert altimetry users is also available in a dedicated NetCDF group within the products. Please consult the FDR4ALT Product User Guide before using the data. The FDR4ALT datasets represent the new reference data for the ERS/Envisat altimetry missions, superseding any previous mission data. Users are strongly encouraged to make use of these datasets for optimal results.

Activity - Quality

SCIRoCCo

The SCIRoCCo project is an interdisciplinary cooperation of scatterometry experts aimed at promoting the continuing exploitation of ESA's unique 20 years' worth of ERS Scatterometer data.

Document - General Reference

Satellite-radar-in-agriculture-Experience-with-ERS-1.pdf

This document has been prepared by an ESA Specialist Panel charged with the task of reviewing research work and progress so far, and making recommendations for future developments and integration of satellite radar data into operational crop monitoring systems.

News - Data Release news

New reprocessing of datasets celebrates 30 years of ERS

The ERS programme celebrated its 30th anniversary on 17 July. Today, we are still exploiting ERS data and experts continue to work on improving the altimeter, radiometer and SAR data the programme acquired.

Tools - Apps

Heritage Missions app for iOS

Download the Heritage Missions application to discover what the missions were about, how it worked and what the elements of the space and ground segment that make these missions unique.

Tools - Apps

Heritage Missions app for Android

Download the Heritage Missions application to discover what the missions were about, how it worked and what the elements of the space and ground segment that make these missions unique.

Document - General Reference

Further-Achievements-of-the-ERS-Missions.pdf

This publication shows how with time the various uses of ERS data are developing and consolidating in key areas of science and economic exploitation.

News - Data Release news

FDR4ALT - ESA unveils new cutting-edge ERS/Envisat Altimeter and Microwave Radiometer Datasets

The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a comprehensive suite of innovative Earth system data records as part of the Fundamental Data Records for Altimetry project - FDR4ALT.

Document - Proceedings

ERS-Envisat Symposium

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

ERS-2 SCATTEROMETER Surface Soil Moisture Time Series and Orbit product in High and Nominal Resolution [SSM.H/N.TS - SSM.H/N]

Surface soil moisture records are derived from the backscatter coefficient measured by the Scatterometer on-board the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS-2) using the Technische Universität (TU) Wien soil moisture retrieval algorithm called WARP (WAter Retrieval Package). In the WARP algorithm, the relative surface soil moisture estimates, given in degree of saturation Sd, range between 0% and 100% are derived by scaling the normalized backscatter between the lowest/highest backscatter values corresponding to the driest/wettest soil conditions. Surface Soil Moisture - Time Series product: The products generated are the surface soil moisture time series, where for each grid point defined in a DGG (Discrete Global Grid) is stored the time series of soil moisture and its noise, the surface state flag, the geolocation and the satellite parameters. The spatial resolution of the products is about 25 km x 25 km (high resolution) or 50 km x 50 km (nominal resolution) geo-referenced on the WARP grid. The location of the points can be viewed interactively with the tool DGG Point Locator. Surface Soil Moisture - Orbit product: In addition to WARP, a second software package, referred to as WARP orbit, was developed in response to the strong demand of soil moisture estimates in satellite orbit geometry. The Level 2 soil moisture orbit product contains a series of Level 1 data information, such as the backscatter, the incidence angle and the azimuth angle for each triplet together with the surface soil moisture and its noise, normalized backscatter at 40° incidence angle, parameters useful for soil moisture, the geolocation and the satellite parameters. The soil moisture orbit product is available in two spatial resolutions with different spatial sampling distances: Spatial sampling on a regular 12.5 km grid in orbit geometry with a spatial resolution of about 25 km x 25 km (High resolution) Spatial sampling on a regular 25 km grid in orbit geometry with a spatial resolution of about 50 km x 50 km (Nominal resolution). The spatial resolution is defined by the Hamming window function, which is used for re-sample of raw backscatter measurements to the orbit grid in the Level-1 ground processor. Please consult the Product Quality Readme file before using the ERS-2 Surface Soil Moisture data.

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 May 2010

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 May 2004

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 Mar 2003

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 Jan 2011

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 Jan 2005

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 31 Aug 2009

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 30 Nov 2009

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 30 May 2011

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report

Document - Quality Report

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report 30 Jun 2002

ERS-2 AMI-SAR/AMI-Scatterometer Weekly Report