earth online
  • All Categories (52)
  • Data (5)
  • News (7)
  • Missions (4)
  • Events (4)
  • Tools (2)
  • Activities (2)
  • Documents (28)
  • Document - General Reference

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    WATS - Water Vapour and Temperature in the Troposphere and Stratosphere.pdf

    This report describes the WATS mission, one of the candidate Earth Explorers in the second cycle in 2001.

  • Document - Technical Note

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    WALES - Water Vapour Lidar Experiment in Space

    This report describes the WALES mission, one of the candidate Earth Explorers in the second cycle in 2001.

  • 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.

  • Document - General Reference

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    The Nine Candidate Earth Explorer Missions - Earth Radiation Mission

    This report for assessment addresses the Earth Radiation mission when it was selected with other nine Earth Explorer missions as a potential candidate for Phase A study.

  • Document - General Reference

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    The Nine Candidate Earth Explorer Missions - Atmospheric Dynamics MIssion

    This report for assessment addresses the Atmospheric Dynamics mission when it was selected with other nine Earth Explorer missions as a potential candidate for Phase A study.

  • Document - General Reference

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    The Nine Candidate Earth Explorer Missions - Atmospheric Chemistry Mission

    This report for assessment addresses the Atmospheric Chemistry mission when it was selected with other nine Earth Explorer missions as a potential candidate for Phase A study.

  • Document - General Reference

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    The four Candidate Earth Explorer Core Missions - Earth Radiation Mission

    This report describes the Earth Radiation Mission, one of the four Candidate Earth Explorers in 1999.

  • Document - General Reference

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    The four Candidate Earth Explorer Core Missions - Atmospheric Dynamics Mission

    This report describes the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission, one of the four Candidate Earth Explorers in 1999.

  • Mission - Earth Explorers

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    Swarm

    Swarm is dedicated to creating a highly detailed survey of Earth’s geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution as well as the electric field in the atmosphere using a constellation of three identical satellites.

  • Document - General Reference

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    SPECTRA-Surface-Processes-and-Ecosystem-Changes-Through-Response-Analysis.pdf

    This report describes the SPECTRA mission, one of the candidate Earth Explorers in the second cycle in 2001.

  • Data - External Data (Restrained)

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    SciSat-1: ACE-FTS and MAESTRO

    SCISAT-1 data aim at monitoring and analysing the chemical processes that control the distribution of ozone in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. It provides acquisitions from the two instruments MAESTRO and ACE-FTS. MAESTRO: Measurement of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation. Dual-channel optical spectrometer in the spectral region of 285-1030 nm. The objective is to measure ozone, nitrogen dioxide and aerosol/cloud extinction (solar occultation measurements of atmospheric attenuation during satellite sunrise and sunset with the primary objective of assessing the stratospheric ozone budget). Solar occultation spectra are being used for retrieving vertical profiles of temperature and pressure, aerosols, and trace gases (O3, NO2, H2O, OClO, and BrO) involved in middle atmosphere ozone distribution. The use of two overlapping spectrometers (280 - 550 nm, 500 - 1030 nm) improves the stray-light performance. The spectral resolution is about 1-2 nm. ACE-FTS: Fourier Transform Spectrometer. The objective is to measure the vertical distribution of atmospheric trace gases, in particular of the regional polar O3 budget, as well as pressure and temperature (derived from CO2 lines). The instrument is an adapted version of the classical sweeping Michelson interferometer, using an optimised optical layout. The ACE-FTS measurements are recorded every 2 s. This corresponds to a measurement spacing of 2-6 km which decreases at lower altitudes due to refraction. The typical altitude spacing changes with the orbital beta angle. For historical reasons, the retrieved results are interpolated onto a 1 km "grid" using a piecewise quadratic method. For ACE-FTS version 1.0, the results were reported only on the interpolated grid (every 1 km from 0.5 to 149.5 km). For versions 2.2, both the "retrieval" grid and the "1 km" grid profiles are available. SCISAT-1 collection provides ACE-FTS and MAESTRO Level 2 Data. As of today, ACE-FTS products are available in version 4.1, while MAESTRO products are available in version 3.13.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

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    SCISAT-1

    SCISAT-1 is designed to make observations of Earth's atmosphere and its main instruments are an optical Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and an ultraviolet spectrophotometer.

  • Document - Product Readme Note

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    Retrievals-for-the-Atmospheric-Chemistry-Experiment-Fourier-Transform-Spectrometer.pdf

    This paper describes the approach developed for the retrieval of atmospheric temperature and pressure from the troposphere to the lower thermosphere as well as the strategy for retrievals of volume-mixing ratio profiles of atmospheric species.

  • Document - General Reference

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    PREMIER-Report-for-Mission-Selection-An-Earth-Explorer-to-observe-atmospheric-composition.pdf

    The objective of the PREMIER mission is to quantify the processes controlling global atmospheric composition in the mid/upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (5-25 km height range), which is a region of particular importance for climate change.

  • News - Data Release news

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    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.

  • Document - General Reference

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    Meteosat-Second-Generation.pdf

    This flyer summarises in short the aims, applications and technology of the MSG mission.

  • Document - General Reference

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    Meteosat-Second-Generation-The-Satellite-Development.pdf

    This publication provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the MSG programme, the mission objectives, the design and development of the MSG spacecraft.

  • News - Infographics

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    Key facts about Canada's ozone-studying SCISAT mission

    Learn about the SCISAT mission in our new infographic.

  • 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.