New CEOS ARD Compliant Surface Reflectance Products: Sentinel-2 and EnMAP

The CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) has concluded their assessment of ESA’s Sentinel-2 Level-2A and DLR’s EnMAP Surface Reflectance (SR) products, finding that both are CEOS ARD compliant at the Threshold level.

CEOS Analysis Ready Data (ARD) are satellite data that have been processed to a minimum set of requirements and organized into a form that allows immediate analysis with a minimum of additional user effort and interoperability both through time and with other datasets. 

The CEOS Virtual Constellations have created a set of Product Family Specifications (PFS) that detail specific ‘Threshold’ and ‘Target’ requirements for general metadata, per-pixel metadata, radiometric and atmospheric corrections, and geometric corrections. These PFS undergo annual review, and the Sentinel-2 and EnMAP products were both assessed against v5.0 of the SR PFS.

The EnMAP mission is yet to be launched (currently targeted for April 2022), and hence this will allow for products to be immediately distributed as CEOS ARD.

To learn more about CEOS Analysis Ready Data, please see this video from the 2021 CEOS Plenary: