Meteosat satellite imagery archive provides geostationary observations of the Northern Atlantic, Europe, and North Africa. Data includes visible, thermal infrared, and water vapor infrared bands, with the oldest record dating from November 11, 1999. The archive is maintained by SCIOPS, with data originally from the European Space Agency and Eumetsat.
Use Cases
- Analyze cloud cover dynamics over Europe using the visible band image time-series.
- Track sea surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Atlantic using the thermal infrared band data.
- Study atmospheric water vapor transport patterns from the water vapor infrared channel imagery.
- Create composite visualizations of weather systems by combining visible and infrared band images.
- Validate regional climate models against long-term observational data from the thermal wavelength archive.
Strengths
- Archive contains imagery dating back to November 1999, providing a multi-decade record.
- Data includes three spectral channels: visible, thermal infrared, and water vapor infrared.
Limitations
- Images are provided in JPEG format, which is lossy and may not be suitable for precise quantitative analysis.
- Specific spatial resolution, file sizes, and total image count are not disclosed.
Provenance
- Source
- European Space Agency (ESA) and Eumetsat, mirrored from the University of Nottingham archive.
- Collection Method
- Satellite images transmitted every half hour to a ground station, processed, and then archived.
- Time Range
- From November 11, 1999 onward.
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Northern Atlantic, Europe, and North Africa.