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 - Success Stories

Trailblazing ERS-2 mission enables climate change applications

As ESA’s ERS-2 satellite approaches Earth’s atmosphere for reentry, it’s time to reflect on the mission’s great achievements in powering climate-related applications.

Document - Proceedings

Second-EPS-MetOp-RAO-Workshop.pdf

Proceedings of the 2nd EPS/MetOp RAO Workshop held from 20-22 May 2009 in Barcelona, Spain.

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.

News - Success Stories

Satellites track the health of the ozone layer

ESA’s Earth observation activities are contributing to international efforts to monitor and preserve the layer of stratospheric ozone that blankets the planet.

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.

Document - General Reference

Meteosat-Second-Generation.pdf

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

Document - General Reference

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.

Document - Technical Note

Long-Term-Monitoring-of-GOME-Diffuser-Reflectivity-and-Dark-Signal-Analysis-v2.pdf

This document provides an update on the diffuser degradation analysis of the GOME instrument aboard ERS-2, using the monthly calibration data from June 1995 and August 2001.

Document - Technical Note

Long-term monitoring of the GOME thermal environment - 1995-2002

Event - Conference

Living Planet Symposium 2022

Learn about the 2022 edition of ESA's Living Planet Symposium.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

Land Ice Thematic Data Product [ALT_TDP_LI]

This is the Land Ice Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the ESA FDR4ALT project and containing estimates of ice sheet surface elevation and associated uncertainties. The collection covers data for three different missions: ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat, and based 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 Land Ice TDP focuses specifically on the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, providing these data in different files. For many aspects, the Land Ice Level 2 and Level 2+ processing is very innovative: Improved relocation approach correcting for topographic effects within the beam footprint to identify the Point of Closest Approach Homogeneous timeseries of surface elevation measurements at regular along-track reference nodes. 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.

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.

News - Spotlight on EO community

Interviewing Mirko Albani

ESA’s Heritage Space Programme Manager describes the goals of the programme, some of the challenges involved in preserving and improving 40 years of historical Earth observation data, and his passion for curating this long-term archive.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

Inland Waters Thematic Data Product [ALT_TDP_IW]

This is the Inland Waters Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the ESA FDR4ALT project and containing improved Water Surface Height (WSH) data record from the ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions estimated using the ICE1 retracking range for its better performance on the hydro targets. 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.

News - Success Stories

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

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 - Technical Note

GOME-Software-Databases-for-Level-1-to-2-Processing.pdf

This technical note contains summary descriptions of the climatological and spectroscopic databases required for the execution of the GOME Level 1 to 2 Data Processing Chain.

Document - Product Cal/Val Plan/Report

GOME-Ozone-Fast-Delivery-and-value-added-products-Validation-Document.pdf

This document gives an overview of the results of the validation of the ERS GOME Fast Delivery level 2 data (vertical ozone columns). Validation is an important part of the the GOFAP project and involves the assessing of the quality of the Fast Delivery vertical ozone columns by independent means and provides an estimate of the random and systematic errors.