esaclimate

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European Space Agency's Climate Team, often posting about ESA's Climate Change Initiative programme - climate.esa.int

Six Southern Ocean maps show spring and summer changes in chlorophyll and phytoplankton groups from 1998–2014 to 2015–2024.
Across the tropical frontiers. Aerial imagery highlighting the diversity of tropical forest degradation and recovery processes happening in Ghana. Far left: agroforestry and secondary forest regrowth, middle: tree croplands and agricultural use, right: natural forest with less signs of human disturbance but rather individual disturbances. Credit: Johannes Wilk, GFZ (2025)
False-colour satellite image of active fires in northeast Portugal and northwest Spain on 16 August 2025, with smoke plumes and burned areas highlighted in red.
Maps of the four study regions considered in the work, for which Irrigation Water Use archives are available.
Text Image: Why should I apply for the ESA & EGU Mentoring Scheme? Here's what former participants say:
Moving satellite observations (GIF) of wildfires on the Iberian peninsula
Side by side maps of land surface temperature in London. Urban areas are shown with more pink and purple hotspots, especially in central London, while surrounding non urban areas appear cooler in yellow and orange.
Participants at the ESA and European Commission Joint Research Centre workshop on Earth Observation and the Global Goal on Adaptation, outside ESA ECSAT in Harwell, UK, June 2026.
Landcover map for the study area of both peninsulas
Promotional banner for the European Space Agency Climate Office’s PhD Mentoring Scheme, showing two people in conversation; includes EGU and eesa logos, notes one‑to‑one mentoring across Earth system and climate topics, and the URL climate.esa.int/mentoring.
ESA profile graphic with portrait of Dr Rachel McInnes, Director of the WCRP CORDEX International Project Office, on a dark Earth background.
Map visualisation of global lake surface temperature data
Map of Europe and Africa showing vegetation greenness (FAPAR) on 2012 06 26, with a color scale from 0.0 (light) to 1.0 (dark green). Data shown in a vertical swath over the continents.
MRBA60H: Harmonised Medium Resolution Burned Area dataset v6.0, 2003-2018. Comparison with other existing Medium Resolution datasets. Global gridded monthly datasets at 0.25-deg resolution
Global Above-Ground Biomass estimates for 2024, derived from the the CCI Biomass v7 product
Promotional ESA webinar graphic with a colored heatmap map of Europe. Text reads: “WEBINAR – SATELLITE RETRIEVALS OF LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE & RELATED APPLICATIONS.” Date/time: “17/06/2026 | 16:00 CEST.” Button: “REGISTER NOW.” ESA (European Space Agency) logo at top left.
Animation showing above-ground biomass change from 2005 to 2024 over Europe
Surface soil moisture and normalised indices per date of the product time series across the Occitanie and Tunisian study sites.
Multi-panel scientific figure comparing global wildfire smoke aerosol optical depth (AOD) in 2020: two world maps show modeled AOD (AOD_STAN) and satellite-observed AOD (AOD_VIIRS) with darker shading indicating higher smoke aerosol, plus side plots showing AOD versus latitude and model-to-satellite ratios; boxed regions highlight key fire areas such as the western U.S., South America, and central Africa.
Proposed mechanism for excitation of narrow band seismic signals. Oceanic forcing at periods of 16 s and 26 s (orange arrows) produces static (red arrows) and dynamic (black arrows) loading associated with seismic waves from primary microseisms (black lines). These loads act on fluid conduits that extend through the entire or part of the sedimentary layer and reach the seafloor at seepage structures. When the static and dynamic loading periods approach the resonance frequency of the crack, fluids may be set in motion (34), generating narrow-band Rayleigh waves.
Promo graphic for the UK Earth Observation Conference 2026, 15–17 September at the University of Warwick, with a stylised glowing Earth.
Six-panel transect maps of CCI+ VP CRDP-2 FAPAR for 2004, 2012, and 2019: whole transect (top) and best-quality pixels (bottom), with grey areas for missing or low-quality data
Four-panel plot for a Portugal forest fire: fAPAR and LAI time series show a sharp 2017 drop at the red star with gray uncertainty, plus seasonal cycles for 2017 and following years
ESA quote card with portrait of Christiaan van der Tol and text about combining measurements from multiple sensors, with validation using ground truth data
Visual showing a model of different permafrost layers and stored carbon age
Fire maps (January 2019 & December 2019) from Sentinel‑2 FIRE dataset for M'bomou, Central African Republic: red shades show day of month fires occurred (brighter = earlier), black = unburnt, grey = unobserved.
ESA webinar poster with leafy green forest canopy under blue sky, text: “Satellite retrievals of vegetation parameters” and date 20/05/2026
Promotional graphic for ESA sessions at EGU26 General Assembly. The image lists five sessions: "How can space data support countries' Paris Agreement commitments?" by Sophie Hebden (5 May, 10:50–11:10, ESA booth); "Climate from Space – recent insights from ESA's satellite-based Essential Climate Variable projects" by Sophie Hebden (6 May, 09:30–11:00, ESA booth); "ESA CCI Fire projects workshop" by Lucrecia Pettinari (6 May, 16:15–17:45, Room 2.61); "A Live JupyterLab Demo: Visualising ESA's Essential Climate Variables data for climate change applications" by Lisa Beck & Amina Maroini (7 May, 15:20–15:40 & 17:30–17:50, ESA booth); and "Long-term River Discharge from Space" by Angelica Tarpanelli & Sylvain Biancamaria (7 May, 19:00–20:00, Room 1.15/16). The graphic closes with: "… and many more ESA sessions across EGU2026 and at our booth!" Logos of EGU26 General Assembly and ESA are shown at the top.
Warm season (July–September) LSWT anomalies, relative to the average for the 1995–2020 reference period, for 265 lakes in Europe. Data: ESA CCI LAKES, C3S, EOCIS lake surface water temperature data record. Credit: C3S/ECMWF/EOCIS/University of Reading
Two side-by-side maps of Antarctica showing gravitational mass balance (linear trend in Gt/yr). The left map covers 2003–2019 and the right map covers 2020–2024. Both maps use a color scale from red (mass loss, –60 Gt/yr) to blue (mass gain, +60 Gt/yr). In the 2020–2024 map, larger and darker blue areas — particularly in East Antarctica — indicate an accelerated net increase in ice mass compared to the 2003–2019 period, as highlighted by annotations pointing to regions of increase. Red areas along the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica indicate continued mass loss in both periods. CREDIT ESA (data source: Kolbe et al, 2026).
Schematic of the different sea-ice-altimetry-related terms. Radar (Ku-band) and laser altimetry observations and their expected penetration into the snow pack are shown by the red and green beams, respectively. Not to scale. The shaded area denotes the uncertainty related to penetration of radar and slowdown of propagation speed, which depends on the snow conditions, and impacts (along with other things) the retrieved radar freeboard.
1990 high-resolution land cover map of the Gran Chaco, Paraguay, from multi-sensor HRLC dataset: large contiguous dark‑green forest patches, scattered yellow croplands and built areas, and a legend of land‑cover classes.
Satellite animation using Sentinel-2 imagery of a glacier avalanche in Tibet, showing snow and ice changes during Oct–Nov 2022, as well as an image from October 2025.
Visual showing a globe and the change in ground temperature at a depth of 2 metres between 1997 and 2019.
Open sea with dark blue waves, coastline and forested mountains on the horizon under a blue sky
Visual showing a globe and illustrating the extent of Arctic permafrost in 1997
Quote card with Annett Bartsch portrait and text: ‘Monitoring permafrost from space is challenging, but we can reveal the expanse of thaw, exploiting various types of satellite records"
Logo of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). The word "CORDEX" is displayed in large dark blue letters, with the "O" replaced by a green-blue gradient globe. Flowing lines in blue and green extend from the top right. Below, the full name "Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment" is written in dark blue.
ESA CCI webinar poster with icy permafrost landscape background and text 'Permafrost and climate change: insights from CCI data', date 22/04/2026
3D surface plot of global cloud uncertainty (%) by latitude and longitude, colored by cloud fraction (blue–yellow), with peaks showing higher uncertainty.
A world map showing the inland water bodies included in version 3.0, marked with red dots.
Conference audience at the Colocation meeting in Harwell facing a large screen with ESA logos and a presenter speaking at the front
Exterior view of the ESA ECSAT building on the Harwell Campus near Oxford, UK. A modern, white multi-storey office building with coloured window frames is shown on a sunny day, with the ESA logo on the facade and flags of ESA member states flying in front of the entrance. A green lawn and young trees are in the foreground.
Visual: 2020 peat fires in northeastern Yakutia. Credit: European Union. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed with Copernicus Browser.
Satellite over Earth using instruments to measure sea level, with solar panels and blue beam directed towards the ocean
Satellite over Earth using instruments to measure sea level, with solar panels and blue beam directed towards the ocean
Promotional banner for the CMIP 2026 Community Workshop, 9–13 March, Kyoto, Japan. The image shows Mount Fuji with a snow-capped peak, a traditional red Japanese pagoda on the right, and cherry blossom trees in the foreground. A stylised red sun and the event title are overlaid in the upper left corner.
Quote from scientist Anny Cazenave about sea level rise on a blue background
Four-panel visual: top row Sentinel‑3 SLSTR surface directional reflectances in blue; bottom row derived land surface temperatures in yellow–green.