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- Documents (319)
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
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 - 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 - Spotlight on EO community
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.
Activity - Projects
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 - 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.
Event - Training
2nd Advanced Training Course on Ocean Remote Sensing 2009
This advanced training course focused on ocean remote sensing theory and applications.
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.
News - Success Stories
ERS Heritage Data allow for 30 years of science
At their time of launch thirty years ago, the two ERS satellites were the most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft ever developed and launched by Europe.
News - Infographics
ERS - ESA’s first Earth observation satellites
To mark the 30th anniversary of ERS, we've released a new infographic summarising the mission.
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.
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.
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.
Data - Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)
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.
Data - Data Description
ERS-1/2 ATSR Meteo Product [AT1/AT2_MET_2P]
The data is a fast delivery Meteo product designed for use by meteorological offices, and contains averaged BT and SST at 10 arc minute resolution. The single MDS comprises the fields of MDS#3 (SST record, 10 arc min cell) of the AST product, with the addition of Average Brightness Temperature (ABT) fields (BT/TOA sea record, 10 arc min cell) to make it more self-contained. 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 - Data Description
ERS-1/2 ATSR ARC L2P/L3U [UPA-L2P_GHRSST/L3U_GHRSST]
The L2P product contains full resolution dual-view Sea Surface Temperature (SST) values. These SST use the ARC SST retrieval and cloud screening which differ from the methods used to produce the Gridded Surface Temperature (ATS_NR__2P) products. In addition to SST, the L2P products contain the ATSR Saharan Dust Index (ASDI) and the clear-sky probability estimated by the ARC cloud detection algorithm. The L2P processor also generates L3U products; these are the L2P products averaged onto a regular grid at 0.1 degree resolution (they are therefore similar to the AR / Meteo Envisat-format products). The L2P and L3U products are provided in NetCDF-4 format following GHRSST Data Specifications (GDS) v2. The L2P/L3U archive has been reprocessed with a new processor based upon the ARC SST; the changes are outlined in full in the L2P Reprocessing User Note.
Data - External Data (Restrained)
ERS-1/2 ATSR ARC Level 3 products [AT1/AT2_AVG_3PAARC]
The recommended ATSR Level 3 products for Sea Surface Temperature (SST) applications are the ARC (ATSR Re-processing for Climate) Level 3 products. ARC reprocesses the ATSR multi-mission archive using new cloud detection and SST retrievals to produce a homogenous record of sea surface temperature. The main ARC objective is to reduce regional biases in retrieved SST to less than 0.1 K for all global oceans while creating a very homogenous record with a stability (lack of drift in the observing system and analysis) of 0.05 K per decade. ARC products are available for ATSR-1, ATSR-2 and AATSR. ARC products are provided in netCDF format and contain data for both the skin SST and the SST estimated for depths of 0.2 and 1.0 m (corresponding approximately to drifter and moored buoy depths). The AATSR estimated depth SSTs are adjusted to a local equatorial crossing time of 10:30 (approximately half an hour after observation), to provide continuity with ATSR-1 and ATSR-2 data. The ARC project was led by Chris Merchant (University of Reading, formerly of the University of Edinburgh) and funded by NERC and the UK Government.
Data - Fast Registration with approval (Restrained)
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)
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.