Space borne radar data facilitates continuous monitoring of almost any location on the earth (limitations in polar zones) with quite low costs. Almost weather-independent operation of radar systems enables a reliable and continuous record of data from earth’s surface. In the framework of an ESA pilot project (AO335), ENVISAT polarimetric SAR data of years 2004 and 2005 are examined for their us...

Retrieval of global upper tropospheric and stratospheric formaldehyde (H2CO) distributions from high-resolution MIPAS-Envisat spectra T. Steck, N. Glatthor, T. von Clarmann, H. Fischer, J. M. Flaud, B. Funke, U. Grabowski, M. Höpfner, S. Kellmann, A. Linden, A. Perrin, and G. P. Stiller Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany Laboratoire Interuniversit...

This paper presents an analysis of the global behaviour of Envisat sigma0 at both Ku and S band, including both temporal and spatial variation. Particular emphasis is placed on desert surface response and results are shown in support of the EarthCARE Cloud Profiling Radar calibration study. Burst echo data sets are included to illustrate the high spatial frequency behaviour of sigma0 at Ku band...

Three atmospheric-chemistry sensors form part of the ENVISAT payload that has been placed into orbit in March 2002. This paper presents reviews the end-toend performance of the GOMOS, MIPAS and SCIAMACHY observation systems and will discuss the product quality control assessment of these instruments. An important part of the quality assessment is the Geophysical Validation. At the ACVT Validati...

Estimation of snow moisture (total liquid water content) and the fraction of snow covered area (SCA) is investigated by applying multi-year ERS-2 SAR and Envisat ASAR data sets. Additionally, the feasibility of Envisat MERIS for the operative monitoring of SCA in boreal forests is discussed and analysed. An inversion approach for the moisture retrieval from SAR data is introduced. The results c...

From July 2002 to March 2004 the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) aboard the European Space Agency’s Environmental Satellite (Envisat) measured nearly continuously mid infrared limb radiance spectra. These measurements are utilised to retrieve the global distribution of the chlorofluorocarbon CFC11 by applying a new fast forward model for Envisat MIPAS and an ac...

This paper describes the results from the recently launched SAR satellites for the purpose of subsidence monitoring over underground coal mine sites in the state of New South Wales, Australia, using differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) technique. The quality of the mine subsidence monitoring results is mainly constrained by noise due to the spatial and temporal decorre...