earth online
  • All Categories (21)
  • Data (3)
  • News (8)
  • Missions (2)
  • Events (5)
  • Tools (1)
  • Activities (1)
  • Documents (1)
  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Tracking the world’s forests from space

    As human activities continue to threaten the planet’s forests, data delivered by satellites are boosting global efforts to conserve these crucial natural resources.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Space data support Earth’s ecosystems

    ESA’s Earth observation (EO) missions are making a critical contribution to monitoring transformations in our planet’s ecosystems, helping track changes in the vegetation, soil, and ocean that affect these systems.

  • News - Spotlight on EO community

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    Introducing Mirko Albani

    In this short introduction, ESA's Heritage Missions Programme Manager describes what he likes most about ESA's long term archive of satellite mission data and his role in the programme.

  • News - Success Stories

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    How Envisat helped to shape global understanding of Earth’s systems

    Twenty years have passed since a ground-breaking European spacecraft designed to deliver unprecedented insight into the planet’s changing environment was lofted into orbit.

  • Tools - Apps

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    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.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Global understanding of Earth's land surfaces greatly boosted by satellite data

    ESA perform land surface monitoring with a range of instruments onboard satellites acquiring optical and radar data. Collections of data from these missions are freely available for research purposes.

  • News - Infographics

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    Focusing on Envisat MERIS Full Resolution Level-2 data

    ESA's Envisat mission continued and expanded upon the legacy of its predecessors, the ERS (European Remote Sensing) satellites. Operating between 2002 and 2012, the satellite's 10 instruments acquired a decade of data for many applications.

  • Data - Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)

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    ERS-1/2 ATSR Gridded Surface Temperature [AT1/AT2_NR__2P]

    The Gridded Surface Temperature (GST) Product is the Level 2 full resolution geophysical product. The product contains gridded sea-surface temperature images using both nadir and dual view retrieval algorithms. The product includes pixel latitude/longitude positions, X/Y offset and the results of the cloud-clearing/land-flagging. It contains a single measurement data set the content of which is switchable, that is to say, the content of each pixel field will depend on the surface type. Specifically, the contents of the data fields will depend on the setting of the forward and nadir cloud flags and the land flag. The 3rd reprocessing of ATSR data was performed in 2013; the processing updates that have been put in place and the scientific improvements are outlined in full in the User Summary Note for the Third ERS ATSR Reprocessing.

  • Data - Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)

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    ERS-1/2 ATSR Gridded Brightness Temperature/Reflectance [AT1/AT2_TOA_1P]

    The Gridded Brightness Temperature/Reflectance (GBTR) product contains top of atmosphere (TOA) brightness temperature (BT) values for the infra-red channels and reflectance values for the visible channels. Values for each channel and for the nadir and forward views occupy separate measurement data sets. Additional MDS contain cloud and land/sea flags and confidence flags for each image pixel. The 3rd reprocessing of ATSR data was performed in 2013; the processing updates that have been put in place and the scientific improvements are outlined in full in the User Summary Note for the Third ERS ATSR Reprocessing.

  • Data - Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)

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    ERS-1/2 ATSR Averaged Surface Temperature [AT1/AT2_AR__2P]

    The Averaged Surface Temperature Product (AST) contains averaged geophysical data at two different resolutions, and with respect to two different averaging schemes: measurement data sets at resolutions of 0.5 by 0.5 degrees and 10 by 10 arcmin with respect to a latitude/longitude grid; other data sets contain data averaged over equal area cells of 50 by 50 km and 17 by 17 km aligned with the satellite ground track. Both top-of-atmosphere and surface data sets are provided. The surface temperature data sets provide, for sea cells, nadir and dual view sea surface temperatures, and for land cells, land surface temperature (currently 11 micron BT) and NDVI. Cloud data is also included. No ADS are included in the AST product; auxiliary data is contained within the MDS. The data sets of the AST product are arranged by surface type and resolution. The 3rd reprocessing of ATSR data was performed in 2013; the processing updates that have been put in place and the scientific improvements are outlined in full in the User Summary Note for the Third ERS ATSR Reprocessing.

  • News - Infographics

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    ERS - ESA’s first Earth observation satellites

    To mark the 30th anniversary of ERS, we've released a new infographic summarising the mission.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    ERS

    The ERS programme was composed of two missions, ERS-1 and ERS-2, which together observed the Earth for 20 years, from 1991 to 2011.

  • 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.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    Envisat

    Envisat was ESA's successor to ERS. Envisat carried ten instruments aboard for a wide range of Earth observing fields. The mission was operational from 2002 to 2012.

  • Document - Newsletter

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    Earth Online Newsletter - 09 February 2024

    This issue of the Earth Online Newsletter covers a selection of the latest news and events from ESA.

  • Activity - Projects

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    Dragon 2 Cooperation Programme

    The Dragon 2 Programme focussed on the exploitation of ESA, ESA's Third Party Missions and Chinese Earth observation data for science and applications development in land, ocean and atmospheric applications.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    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).

  • Event - Training

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    Advanced Training Course in Land Remote Sensing 2012

    The 2012 advanced training course focused on land remote sensing theory and applications.

  • Event - Conference

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    3rd ERS Symposium

    The ESA Directorate for Observation of the Earth and its Environment held the 3rd ERS Symposium, in 1997, where many of the results from the ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions were presented and discussed by the scientific community.