NASA’s Ambitions for Earth Observation

Last week, the White House allocated a $25.4 billion budget to NASA for the 2025 financial year, which runs from the 1st October 2024 to 30th September 2025, and this includes its Earth Observation ambitions. This represents $2.3 billion less than … Continue reading

Phytoplankton Blooming

Phytoplankton are microscopic organisations that live in both fresh and seawater and form one of the lowest levels of the aquatic food chain, with many marine creatures eating them. Phytoplankton contain chlorophyll, like plants, and therefore require sunlight to survive … Continue reading

Heat & Fire

Earlier this month the Copernicus Climate Change Service issued its July report, which showed that every month during 2019 has ranked within the top four warmest on record for that particular month. In June European average temperatures were the warmest … Continue reading

Optical Imagery is Eclipsed!

Last week’s eclipse gave an excellent demonstration of the sun’s role in optical remote sensing. The image to the left was acquired on the 21st August by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite, … Continue reading

The cost of ‘free data’

Last week, the US and Japan announced free public access to the archive of nearly 3 million images taken by ASTER instrument; previously this data had only been accessible with a nominal fee. ASTER, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection … Continue reading

Reprocessing Data Challenges of Producing A Time Series

Being able to look back at how our planet has evolved over time, is one of the greatest assets of satellite remote sensing. With Landsat, you have a forty year archive to examine changes in land use and land cover. … Continue reading

Ocean Colour Cubes

It’s an exciting time to be in ocean colour! A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the new US partnership using ocean colour as an early warning system for harmful freshwater algae blooms, and last week a new ocean colour … Continue reading