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  • Data (1)
  • News (11)
  • Missions (1)
  • Events (11)
  • Activities (1)
  • Campaigns (4)
  • 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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    An overview of the Biomass mission

    In this video, Klaus Scipal - Biomass and SMOS Mission Manager - talks about ESA's upcoming Biomass mission.

  • News - Spotlight on EO community

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    Introducing the Biomass and SMOS Mission Manager

    In this video, Klaus Scipal describes his role as Mission Manager of Biomass and SMOS, and what he enjoys about his involvement with these dedicated science missions.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Remote sensing data map impacts of natural hazards

    As climate change increases the frequency and severity of natural disasters, remote sensing data can warn about extreme events and help tackle emergency situations.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

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    Scientists to showcase value of Earth observation data at EGU

    Remote sensing scientists are getting ready to present innovative and exciting applications of satellite data at the European Geosciences Union general assembly which will take place from 24 to 28 April in Vienna, Austria.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Monitoring water on Earth's surface

    ESA's Earth observation satellites are playing a leading role in furthering our understanding of how Earth's terrestrial hydrosphere is being influenced by humankind.

  • 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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    An overview of ESA's Biomass Earth Explorer satellite

    Learn about ESA's upcoming Biomass mission, which is dedicated to gathering information about the global distribution of forest biomass, in our latest infographic.

  • News - Success Stories

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    Studying forest biomass from space

    Forestry expert Maurizio Santoro, senior researcher at Gamma Remote Sensing and one of the leaders of ESA projects related to the Climate Change Initiative (CCI), explains how the use of various data.

  • Event - Training

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    EO Summer School 6

    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 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 4

    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

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    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.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Satellite data boost global understanding of land surface

    Understanding our changing land surface is essential in the study of climate change. Satellites are used to monitor changes to the material that covers Earth’s surface, so-called land cover, such as vegetation and water.

  • 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.

  • Event - Workshop

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    Space and the Arctic 2009 Workshop

    Temperatures in the Arctic are rising at an unprecedented rate. This workshop looked at the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and explore how space-based services might help to meet those needs.

  • Event - Training

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    4th Advanced Training Course in Land Remote Sensing

    ESA organised the 4th Advanced Training Course in Land Remote Sensing which took place in Athens, Greece from 1 to 5 July 2013

  • Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

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    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.

  • Mission - Earth Explorers

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    Biomass

    The objective of the Biomass mission is to determine the global distribution of forest biomass.

  • Campaign

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    AfriSAR 2015

    During the AfriSAR 2015 campaign, shared between ONERA (dry season, July 2015) and DLR (wet season 2016), Pol-InSAR and TomoSAR airborne data set were collected over four test sites over Africa, therefore covering different forest structures.