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 - Thematic area articles

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.

Document - General Reference

The-Changing-Earth-New-Scientific-Challenges-for-ESAs-Living-Planet-Programme.pdf

This article is extracted from ESA Bulletin Nr. 129.

Document - General Reference

The Science and Research Elements of ESA Living Planet Programme

This document presents the plans for the Earth Explorer element of the European Space Agency's 'Living Planet' Programme for Earth Observation.

Document - General Reference

The Nine Candidate Earth Explorer Missions - Topography Mission

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

Document - General Reference

The International Charter- Space and Major Disasters

The Charter is an important step forward in linking the needs of disaster and relief organisations with space technology solutions to help mitigate the effects of disaster on human life, property and the environment.

News - Operational News

Temporary interruption to Envisat AATSR dissemination service

A planned downtime will affect the access to the ftp dissemination server for the Envisat AATSR data during the period 13-15 February 2024.

Data - Campaigns (Open)

SPARC

ESA's SPectra bARrax Campaign (SPARC) activity was part of the preparatory study for a proposed ESA Earth Explorer mission called SPECTRA. The objective was to collect a CHRIS/PROBA reference dataset for SPECTRA-related studies.

News - Thematic area articles

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.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

Sea Ice Thematic Data Product [ALT_TDP_SI]

This is the Sea Ice Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the ESA FDR4ALT project and containing the sea ice related geophysical parameters, along with associated uncertainties: snow depth, radar and sea-ice freeboard, sea ice thickness and concentration. The collection covers data for the ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions, and bases 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 Sea Ice TDP provides data from the northern or southern hemisphere in two files corresponding to the Arctic and Antarctic regions respectively for the winter periods only, i.e., October to June for the Arctic, and May to November for the Antarctic. For many aspects, the Sea Ice TDP is very innovative: First time series of sea-ice thickness estimates for ERS Homogeneous calibration, allowing the first Arctic radar freeboard time series from ERS-1 (1991) to CryoSat-2 (2021) Uncertainties estimated along-track with a bottom-up approach based on dominant sources ERS pulse blurring error corrected using literature procedure [Peacock, 2004] 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.

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.

Document - General Reference

Remote-Sensing-and-Humanitarian-Aid-A-life-saving-combination.pdf

This article was published in the ESA Bulletin Nr. 122 and describes how Earth Observation activities may answer to the requirements of humanitarian and aid workers.

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 - Proceedings

Microwave Remote Sensing Applied to Vegetation - EARSeL Workshop

Document - Proceedings

MERIS and (A)ATSR Workshop 2005

Proceedings of the MERIS and (A)ATSR Workshop held from 26-30 September 2005 at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy

Document - General Reference

Mapping-Forest-Fire-Damage-with-Envisat.pdf

This article was published in the ESA Bulletin Nr. 120 and describes how remote sensing from space (and ESA's ENVISAT environment satellite, launched in March 2002, in particular) is suitable for forest-fire-related studies.

Event - Conference

Living Planet Symposium 2022

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

Event - Conference

Living Planet Symposium 2019

ESA's Living Planet Symposia are amongst the biggest Earth observation conferences in the world. Scientists present their latest findings on Earth's environment and climate.

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.