ESA map reveals European shipping routes like never before



 
Animation comprised of a NO2 map placed on top of a shipping route map to show the routes clearly correspond to the pattern of detected NO2. (See the high-res version).

The shipping route map derived from the analysis of Wide Swath Medium resolution mode products from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument on ESA's Envisat satellite between 2002 to 2009. The NO2 map shows yearly average tropospheric nitrogen dioxide measurements for 2008 as performed by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the NASA EOS-Aura satellite. OMI represents the Dutch contribution to the mission. ESA is supporting OMI as a Third Party Mission, which means it uses its multi-mission ground systems to acquire, archive and distribute data from this instrument.

Shipping lanes off the coast of Portugal
 
Ship maps processed using Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data acquired before and after the amendment on the existing separation scheme for Cape Rocaand and Cape São Vincent (Portugal) was implemented on 1 July 2005. The amendment was passed by the Maritime Safety Committee, responsible for international shipping regulations.

Ship distribution in European harbours
 
Ship map based on Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data that features the shipping routes converging to main European harbours with anchorage areas, where ship distribution densifies (denoted by dense blue dots).



Release date: 4 February 2010