Climate related applications require long-term, consistent observations, which can often be met by satellite data, through the use of heritage (historical) datasets. WGISS is working to identify historical/heritage datasets currently not accessible to users (e.g. because on old media, not kept online, etc.) and trigger potential joint recovery actions to extend climate data records.
At the biannual WGISS meetings, members are invited to present information on heritage datasets to be recovered in terms of:
- Dataset description and scientific relevance
- Dataset location and status of accessibility
- Dataset format, volume, etc.
- Availability of dataset related documentation, software, information
- Indication of priority based on uniqueness, applications, needs, impact
AVHRR Recovery Project
WGISS has worked to recover data from AVHRR from 1978 onwards, at 1 km resolution (Local Area Coverage – LAC), to complement the 4 km resolution data (Global Area Coverage – GAC).
LAC AVHRR data acquired at ESA network stations (Terranova, Nairobi, Manila, etc.) during the period 1992-1999 have been processed up to Level-1C and are disseminated via ESA systems as open data. ESA is now working to develop a 40+ year fundamental CDR of AVHRR data at 1 km resolution for Europe. All data will be processed into Level-1B and Level-1C data, and available freely and openly.
Heritage exabyte tapes wrapper built at ESA ESRIN laboratory to clean and wrap exabyte tapes avoiding damaging both the cassette and the internal tape.
Data in stitched format (.arch files) from USGS network stations have been identified, but are not processable due to an uncommon file format. WGISS is working with experts to convert the data into an accessible file format.
A full collection of (1981–2020) of AVHRR data over Europe from different platforms (NOAA POES and MetOp series) has been recovered, and is a unique source to retrieve Essential Climate Variables (ECV) to investigate climate change over the last 40 years.
WGISS has been working to pull together the global record, with support from NOAA, USGS, Argentina, Brazil, University of Hawaii, SANSA, ASI/UniRoma (Kenya coverage), ISRO and CSIRO. For the Hawaiian records, they were shipped as exabyte tapes to ESA, and a special device was constructed to roll/unroll the tapes at very slow speed and clean the tape surface from moisture.
Anyone in possession of archived AVHRR data is invited to contact the project lead, Mirko Albani (mirko.albani@esa.int). Updates on the project can be found in the WGISS meeting slides and minutes.
Metadata extracted from ESA L1C products to build a heat chart on data acquisition frequency per day. Red indicates a smaller number of scenes available, while green indicates a higher number of scenes (up to 50).