Author: Julien Chimot

A very happy new year to all followers, colleagues, and partners who trust & collaborate with us on developing the unique Near Real Time (NRT) Atmosphere portfolio Copernicus Sentinel-3 exclusively procured by EUMETSAT!

And here the 1st 2023 maps of NRT aerosols & fires (day & night)!

2022 was a very intensive year of many works to keep improving our unique products, with notably:
– the release of our NRT aerosols collection 3.0 https://lnkd.in/eGDf79a6.
– the (soon coming) NRT fires Collection 2.1 https://lnkd.in/escn328V
– our new Cloud masking,
– and the unique Sentinel-3 water vapor H2O COWA product from the Ocean & Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) transferred to all European meteorology centers https://lnkd.in/esrBC-_v

But this is not over! In, 2023 we kick-off new developments & projects to enhance their science maturity.

Stay tuned for more news in the next months!

More information:

• Announcement of Collection 2.0 of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Fires here
• Announcement of Collection 3.0 of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Aerosols here
• METIS platform – Live images of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Fires here
• METIS platform – Live images of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Aerosols here
• The Copernicus program from the European Commission here
• Sentinel-3 Atmosphere portfolio led by EUMETSAT here

Fire bulletin during November with Copernicus Sentinel-3 in Near Real Time (NRT) led by EUMETSAT.

The animation below shows all the fires detected this month operationally by Sentinel-3 A+B satellites, over America, during night (black background), and day (white background) times. The color bar refers to the fire radiative power (FRP) (in MW) integrated at 0.5 deg resolution.

Several regions in South-America between northern Argentina, Bolivia and the Brazilian Amazon have been experiencing unusually late active fires. Only infrequent few hot spots can be observed in North-America.

Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Level 2 (L2) Fires is entirely led by EUMETSAT & procured in less than 3h. Latest information on Collection 2.0 available on our website.

More information:

• Announcement of Collection 2.0 of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Fires here
• METIS platform – Live images of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Fires here
• The Copernicus program from the European Commission here
• Sentinel-3 Atmosphere portfolio led by EUMETSAT here

At EUMETSAT, we continuously evolve our satellite products: an iterative cycle of Science => Operational => Science => Operational… to enhance the quality.

Very happy to announce the public release of Collection 3.0 of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Near Real Time (NRT) Aerosol product, operationally available from 3.11.2022 on-wards!

We have worked hard the last 12 months to address new developments expressed by some of our users, or identified from expert analyses on our side. Everything is described in our webpage & user product notice. Check out here.

Additional documentation (updated ATBD & Validation report) to be published very soon!

A major achievement is the design and implementation of a new classification – Naive Probabilistic – mask (cloud, snow, aerosol) to increase the coverage of aerosol events over oceans & as highlighted by our colleagues from the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS).

Additional achievements are:
– the implementation of a Quality Indication (QI) ranking system per aerosol pixel.For example, previous animation show the best QI (= 3).
– the improvement in vegetation and bare soil modelling allowing a reduction of a bias over all land surfaces.

Check out all new maps, on EUMETSAT METIS website. And report us your feedback. We continue some evolution. Stay tuned for new works coming in the next quarters!

Overall, a joint work achieved internally at EUMETSAT, in partnership with Swansea University thanks to the Copernicus / EUMETSAT ACES project.

Big kudos to all EUMETSAT scientific, system engineers, and operator Colleagues for their involvement in this operational deployment! And great thanks to all experts who have listened to our ideas and give us feedback and endorsements such as the Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature (SLSTR) Quality Working Group (QWG), Sentinel-3 Validation Team (S3VT) Atmosphere, and CAMS!

Let’s continue our partnership!

More information:

• Announcement of Collection 3.0 of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Aerosols here
• METIS platform – Live images of Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Aerosols here
• The Copernicus program from the European Commission here
• Sentinel-3 Atmosphere portfolio led by EUMETSAT here

Fires in Western Europe, Spain, France (e.g. Gironde and La Teste De Buch) are not only dangerous for the immediate surrounding population. But their emission of fine particles aerosols is of high concern. These smoke pollution can spread over long distance & impact on human health.

Here an illustration with Copernicus Sentinel-3 Near Real Time (NRT – i.e. < 3h) Aerosol product from the EUMETSAT OSSAR-CS3 processor.

All information at: https://eumetsat.int/S3-nrt-l2-aerosol-product-collection-2-released-soon.

Public pictures available at #METIS: https://metis.eumetsat.int/aod

Stay tuned for the coming Collection 3 this Fall 2022!

Fires are hitting us in Western Europe, especially in Spain, Portugal, and France. This is a very concerning situation for all surrounding population. We provide in Near Real Time (NRT – i.e. < 3h) information to all operational users thanks to OFRaP-CS3, the reference Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT Fires processor of EUMETSAT.

More information:

• OFRaP-CS3 v4,0 – Baseline Collection 2 & how we monitor NRT Fires with Sentinel3, check out here: https://eumetsat.int/release-collection-2-s3-nrt-fire-radiative-power
• All the maps in NRT on our METIS Fire Radiative Power (FRP) platform: https://metis.eumetsat.int/frp

Stay tuned for Collection 2.1 upgrade, scheduled this Fall!

These days, in April 2022. quite a high load of dust particles can be clearly observed in the Mediterranean basin. They are notably visible with Copernicus Sentinel-3, see example of pictures from the Level 2 (l2) Near Real Time (NRT) aerosol product (by EUMETSAT from the OSSAR-CS3 Processor v3.0 – Collection 2.0)

These aerosols mostly originate from Sahara and travel toward South Europe.

More information?

• Webpage on aerosol particles here
• Copernicus Sentinel-3 NRT aerosol product Collection 2 from OSSAR-CS3 Processor v3.0 by EUMETSAT here

Here we go for a 2nd year working from home again with EUMETSAT and Copernicus Sentinel-3 !

Although we have some hopes for a better health situation during 2021, it is clear we will have to continue to face turbulent moments.

I wish you All a very happy new year. Good luck to everyone going back to work! Let’s hope for a smooth transition from virtual meetings towards more and more real human interaction!

More information on:

• The European Meteorological Satellite Agency EUMETSAT here
• The Sentinel-3 mission here
• The European Copernicus program here

There is not only one type of clouds, but many of them, with diverse properties leading to various ways to visualize them when looking at our satellite measurements. Here an example with the Copernicus Sentinel-3 (S3) A Sea & Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) over Amazonia.

The Red-Green-Blue (RGB) picture below, of 30.11.2020 over Amazonia, combines the ShortWave InfraRed (SWIR) 1.6 um and the visible (674 & 550 nm). Water clouds with small droplets largely reflect at all channels & appear white. Snow & ice clouds strongly absorbs SWIR & appear cyan.

What about their altitude?

SLSTR has a special channel at 1.3 um in which water vapor (H2O) so much absorbs that no signal at the top of the atmosphere may be measured. Unless clouds at a very high altitude are present, shielding then a large fraction of the H2O column in the atmosphere. Consequently, a bright signal spikes up and elevated clouds shine!

From the picture above, snow & ice clouds are primary the highest one! Anything else lower, such as surface and fractional low clouds, seems “invisible”. They cannot be “seen”.