Search

EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1986, supplies weather and climate-related satellite data, images and products throughout the year for EU Member States and other users worldwide. The optical Earth Observation satellites launched and operated by EUMETSAT, both current and planned ones, have different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions; sensor models and acquisition geometries. While the number and the diversity of the satellite missions increase, the requirement of novel methods and up-to-date reference data for geometric accuracy assessment of the imagery also grows. This paper aims at reporting the results of a study investigating the availability for suitable satellite imagery to be employed as reference data for the geometric quality assessment (GQA) of MSG SEVIRI Level 1.5 image products. The reference datasets need to have superior spatial resolution, wide global coverage, and spectral compatibility with respect to the SEVIRI sensor, which has 12 spectral bands with 1 km and 3 km spatial resolutions. The SEVIRI sensor works with whiskbroom principle at a geostationary orbit and collects data at 5 minutes (rapid scan) and 15-minutes (full scan) intervals. Although preliminary investigations on reference data were performed by using images of different satellite sensors during the study, in-depth investigations were performed with MERIS global image mosaic and Landsat imagery. The progress and different problems observed in the images are reported here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Copernicus programme, is a European initiative for the implementation of information services based on observation data received from Earth Observation (EO) satellites and ground based information. In the frame of this programme, ESA is developing the Sentinel-2 optical imaging mission that will deliver optical data products designed to feed downstream services mainly related to land monitoring, emergency management and security. To ensure the highest quality of service, ESA sets up the Sentinel-2 Mission Performance Centre (MPC) in charge of the overall performance monitoring of the Sentinel-2 mission. TPZ F and DLR have teamed up in order to provide the best added-value support to the MPC for calibration and validation of the Level-2A processor (Sen2Cor) and products. This paper gives an overview over the planned L2A calibration and validation activities. Level-2A processing is applied to Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) Level-1C ortho-image reflectance products. Level-2A main output is the Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) corrected reflectance product. Additional outputs are an Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) map, a Water Vapour (WV) map and a Scene Classification (SC) map with Quality Indicators for cloud and snow probabilities. Level-2A BOA, AOT and WV outputs are calibrated and validated using ground-based data of automatic operating stations and data of in-situ campaigns. Scene classification is validated by the visual inspection of test datasets and cross-sensor comparison, supplemented by meteorological data, if available. Contributions of external in-situ campaigns would enlarge the reference dataset and enable extended validation exercise. Therefore, we are highly interested in and welcome external contributors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]