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20/12/2023
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This 12 months has been a whirlwind of fascinating Earth remark tales and information, spanning from dramatic volcanic eruptions to robust earthquakes to witnessing icebergs at the run. Sign up for us as we revisit one of the most maximum memorable tales from 2023.
10) We celebrated 25 years of Copernicus
‘Europe’s eyes on Earth’ began in 1998 as an concept for an operational environmental tracking programme. Twenty-five years later, Copernicus is in complete swing. With seven Copernicus Sentinel satellites in orbit, along side the contributing missions, terabytes of unfastened and open knowledge and data services and products are supplied day by day to masses of 1000’s of customers.The information assist deal with a few of these days’s key demanding situations corresponding to diminishing polar ice, meals safety, emerging sea ranges, herbal screw ups and, after all, local weather exchange.To rejoice the anniversary, flick through one of the most highlights dropped at you by means of Copernicus.
9) We noticed pungent seaweed from house
Sargassum noticed by means of Copernicus Sentinel-2
Sargassum is a big brown seaweed that floats in lots alongside the sea floor. It’s a very powerful habitat for marine species offering meals safe haven and breeding grounds. It additionally absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide via photosynthesis and converts it into natural carbon. Alternatively, when tonnes of it collects alongside coastlines, it rots – emitting toxins like hydrogen sulphide which produces a smelly scent.This 12 months’s bloom spanned greater than 8800 km from the shores of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico and weighed round 10 million tonnes – so massive that it was once visual from house. Photographs from Copernicus Sentinel-2 confirmed the Sargassum round 45 km off the west coast of Guadeloupe.It was once predicted to be the biggest ever recorded, however then all of a sudden shriveled.Learn the entire tale: Stinky seaweed bloom heads to Florida
8) We counted wildfires around the globe
International fires from ESA’s Global Hearth Atlas
This summer time, devastating wildfires unfold throughout Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria and Canada – inflicting large environmental and financial injury, in addition to human casualties.In gentle of the fires, ESA reopened its Global Hearth Atlas which gives insights into the distributions of particular person fires going down at each a countrywide and international scale.The dashboard makes use of night-time knowledge from the Sea and Land Floor Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) on board the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite tv for pc. Operating like a thermometer within the sky, the sensor measures thermal infrared radiation to take the temperature of Earth’s land surfaces which is used to stumble on the fires.In lots of of those outbreaks, the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Provider was once activated. The provider makes use of satellite tv for pc observations to assist civil coverage government and, in circumstances of crisis, the global humanitarian neighborhood, reply to emergencies.Learn complete tale: Counting wildfires around the globe
7) Ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland hit a document low
Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica
A record from the Ice Sheet Mass Stability Intercomparison Workout mentioned that between 1992 and 2020, the polar ice sheets misplaced 7560 billion tonnes of ice – similar to an ice dice measuring 20 km each and every aspect.The polar ice sheets have in combination misplaced ice in yearly of the satellite tv for pc document, and the seven best melting years have took place within the final decade. Melting peaked in 2019, when the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets misplaced a staggering 612 billion tonnes of ice.Scientists use knowledge from satellites corresponding to ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 to measure adjustments in ice quantity and waft, in addition to satellites that supply data on gravity, to figure out how a lot ice is being misplaced.Learn complete tale: Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica hits new document
6) We watched an iceberg higher than London become independent from
Radar photographs seize new Antarctic mega-iceberg
Glaciologists have monitored the numerous cracks and chasms that experience shaped within the thick Brunt Ice Shelf, which borders the Coats Land coast within the Weddell Sea sector of Antarctica, for years. It was once just a subject of time that the A-81 iceberg would become independent from.After a number of years of desperately clinging on, satellite tv for pc imagery showed the giant iceberg after all calved on 22 January from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf. The iceberg, which is round 1550 sq km – across the measurement of Larger London or 5 occasions the scale of Malta – is these days floating close to the ice fringe of the Ronne Ice Shelf, about 600 km from the place it calved.Regimen tracking from satellites gives exceptional perspectives of occasions taking place in faraway areas. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 challenge carries radar, which will go back photographs irrespective of day or evening and this permits us year-round viewing.Learn the entire tale: Massive iceberg breaks clear of Antarctic ice shelf
5) 2023 set to be most up to date 12 months on document
Heatwave throughout Europe
The WMO provisional State of the World Local weather record confirms that 2023 is about to be the warmest 12 months on document. Information till the tip of October displays that the 12 months was once about 1.40°C above the pre-industrial 1850—1900 baseline.The warming El Niño match, which emerged throughout the Northern Hemisphere spring of 2023 and advanced unexpectedly throughout summer time, is more likely to additional gas the warmth in 2024 as a result of El Niño most often has the best affect on international temperatures after it peaks.Information from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 challenge’s radiometer device display the land floor temperature on in July 2023. Land floor temperature is how scorching the ‘floor’ of Earth feels to touch. Air temperature, given in our day by day climate forecasts, is a measure of ways scorching the air is above the bottom.Hyperlink to complete tale: Europe braces for sweltering July
4) 3 Sentinel satellites mapped methane super-emitters
Sentinel-5P detected methane plumes
Methane is the second one maximum vital greenhouse fuel contributor to local weather exchange after carbon dioxide. Generally, methane emissions are monitored by means of the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite tv for pc. However this 12 months, scientists mixed knowledge from more than one satellites to observe methane from house for the first actual time.Researchers from the SRON Netherlands Institute for House Analysis noticed a continual methane emission from a leaking facility the usage of knowledge from the Tropomi device on Sentinel-5P. They then used a Sentinel-2 symbol to zoom in at the plumes’ origins and pinpointed the precise location of the leak, whilst Sentinel-3 confirmed the leak endured for 6 days.Combining the knowledge from those satellites permits researchers to zoom in with precision, figuring out, quantifying and tracking methane resources comparable to plumes noticed in Sentinel-5P’s international scans.Learn the entire tale: Trio of Sentinel satellites map methane super-emitters
3) Ozone hollow in 2023 was once one of the vital largest on document
Ozone hollow extension 2023
Just like the ocean ice round Antarctica which grows and retreats each and every 12 months, the ozone hollow fluctuates frequently.Observations from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite tv for pc point out that the ozone hollow or ‘ozone depleting house’ reached a measurement of round 26 million sq km on 16 September 2023 – making it one of the vital greatest seasonal holes ever noticed. That is kind of thrice the scale of Brazil.One imaginable reason why for this 12 months’s extraordinary ozone patterns might be related to the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in January 2022, which injected large amounts of water vapour into the stratosphere. In spite of the huge seasonal expansion this 12 months, the ozone hollow remains to be lowering in measurement general. Scientists these days expect that the worldwide ozone layer will achieve its customary state once more by means of round 2050.Learn the entire tale: Ozone hollow is going massive once more
2) We mentioned good-bye to a historical challenge – Aeolus
Adventure again to Earth: Aeolus’ historical reentry
This 12 months we mentioned good-bye to the Aeolus wind challenge – one in every of ESA’s maximum a success Earth remark missions. As an Earth Explorer, the satellite tv for pc was once designed as a analysis challenge and to exhibit new house generation.Surpassing clinical expectancies and exceeding its deliberate existence in orbit, the Aeolus wind challenge reentered Earth’s environment on 28 July at round 21:00 CEST above Antarctica. This was once the first-of-its-kind assisted reentry and set a brand new usual for the protected reentry of satellites and house particles mitigation.Learn the entire tale: Aeolus: a historical finish to a trailblazing challenge
1) We entered a brand new generation of satellite tv for pc meteorology
Lightning over Europe
The Meteosat 3rd Technology Imager no longer simplest delivered its first view of Earth this 12 months, but additionally supplied us with hanging animations of lightning – confirming its capacity of revolutionising the detection and prediction of critical storms.The Meteosat 3rd Technology Imager-1 is the 1st of six satellites that shape the entire MTG gadget. When totally operational, the gadget will supply essential knowledge for temporary and early detection of possible excessive climate occasions over the following twenty years.Its first symbol of Earth published a degree of element about climate over Europe and Africa no longer prior to now imaginable from 36 000 km away. Only some months later, the satellite tv for pc’s Lightning Imager was once switched on. The Lightning Imager is the first-ever satellite tv for pc device in a position to regularly detecting lightning throughout Europe and Africa and its functions promise to revolutionise the detection and prediction of critical storms.Learn the entire tales: New climate satellite tv for pc finds impressive photographs of Earth and Eu satellite tv for pc moves lightning
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