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Envisat making sharpest ever global Earth map

5 May 2005

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A mosaic of global land cover from Envisat's MERIS instrument. The same sensor is to be used as the basis of ESA's GLOBCOVER project to creating the most detailed land cover map ever. For this mosaic a total of 1561 orbits taking place over the period May, July, October and November 2004 have been used to screen the clouds. The colour composite has been obtained by merging MERIS spectral bands 2, 3, 5, 7.

Credits: ESA

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This chart is a comparison of different mosaics of the same site in Siberia acquired using the 30-metre spatial resolution Landsat ETM+, the around ten times greater resolution MERIS and the 1-km resolution SPOT 5 VGT. What is clear is that MERIS delivers a level of detail closer to the former than the latter, making it a useful basis for the GLOBCOVER mapping project.

Credits: JRC

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This diagram shows the amount of MERIS Full Resolution mode data acquired worlwide from 4 December 2004 up until 5 April 2005. MERIS Full Resolution data are currently acquired for an average of 150 minutes daily.

Credits: ESA

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The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission previously produced the one-km-resolution Global Land Cover 2000 (GLC 2000) map produced from SPOT 5 Vegetation Instrument data for the year 2000. The new global land cover maps produced during ESA's GLOBCOVER will be compatible with GLC 2000, serving as an update.

Credits: JRC

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ESA's ten-instrument Envisat environmental satellite has been observing the Earth for more than three years. Picture by EADS Astrium.

Credits: EADS Astrium