NCEO scientists welcome the successful launch of ESA’s Sentinel-2B satellite, which, combined with the Sentinel-2A satellite, doubles the high-resolution optical coverage of the Copernicus monitoring system.
Professor Martin Wooster (NCEO and King’s College London) said: “With this new launch the two Sentinel-2 satellites will be able to deliver global coverage of the Earth every 5 days, which is by far the most repetitive available for an EO mission offering this combination of spectral coverage (VIS to SWIR in 13 bands) and spatial resolution (10 m to 60 m).”
Dr Mathias Disney (NCEO and UCL) said: “Over the next few years the unique combination of ESA’s Sentinel-2A and B platforms will give us perhaps our best view yet for detecting and monitoring dynamic processes such as fires, agriculture and land use changes. This will be particularly important for the UK, with our highly heterogeneous and changeable landscape. Sentinel-2A and B will also help see through the gaps in the occasional cloud we see over the UK.”
Disney added: “The above image shows the Northern UK, captured from the MSI instrument on board ESA’s Sentinel-2A platform in July 2015, showing Newcastle and Gateshead to the East. The colour scheme highlights dense vegetation as bright red (seen via the near-infrared capabilities of MSI), moorland/upland regions as brown, and urban regions as grey-blue. We can see how ‘green’ the UK is in summer.”
Dr Jose Gomez-Dans (NCEO and UCL) said: “The sensor on board the Sentinel-2 satellites will capture high spatial resolution data over most of the land surface every 5 days, and over a wide range of spectral bands. Coupled with a liberal data dissemination policy, the acquired data has the potential to revolutionise how we monitor fast evolving land surface dynamics over small patches, such as agriculture, deforestation and other kinds of disturbance.”
Professor Mathew Williams (NCEO and University of Edinburgh) noted that Sentinel-2 will be a key satellite for monitoring changes in forest biomass. “Sentinel-2 offers tremendous opportunities for monitoring forest change, and so supports efforts aimed at reducing deforestation and forest degradation, a key part of global action against dangerous climate change.”