On 28 May 2025, a massive rock/ice avalanche detached from the Birch Glacier above the village of Blatten in the Lötschental valley (Valais, Switzerland). About 10 million cubic metres of rock and ice broke free, surged downslope and reached the valley floor, destroying the village and temporarily blocked the Lonza River. The sequence of events …
Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves are electromagnetic plasma waves in near-Earth space, which play an important role in outer radiation belt dynamics. Specifically, these waves remove electrons from the outer radiation belt by scattering them into the Earth’s atmosphere. Energetic so-called “killer” electrons trapped in the outer belt pose dangers to satellites. Understanding the processes …
The goal of this project is to develop, implement and validate a GNSS-R module for the snow microwave radiative transfer model (SMRT). The objectives are to: 1) provide a review of existing applications of GNSS-R to cryosphere environments and summarize models for simulating GNSS-R delay doppler maps (DDMs); 2) develop a GNSS-R module for SMRT …
The project’s primary objective is to evaluate the potential of wave renewable energy sources in coastal zones of Europe, Mediterranean and archipelagos where the energy can be efficiently harnessed. To achieve this objective, the project is processing the whole CryoSat, Sentinel-3A, and Sentinel-3B missions data over specific coastal zones and using the advanced SAMOSA+ retracker …
Sen2Cor is the official ESA Sentinel-2 ground segment processor which performs atmospheric correction of Top of Atmosphere images (L1C) to return several outputs, including Surface Reflectance images (L2A) and a Scene Classification (SCL). The Scene Classification derived with the current version of the Sen2Cor provides pixel-based information on vegetated/non-vegetated areas, water, cloud probabilities, thin cirrus, …
Supporting the monitoring of the Earth’s condition by observing its changes and variability is the main target of the S2 mission. In the spirit of the S2 goals, AI4Sen2Cor is designed to extend the capability of the Sen2Cor_3 processor by applying a synergic approach that combines systematic AI-based algorithms with the existing and available Sen2Cor …
The UNITE project objectives are: to develop a protocol for estimating all-sky evapotranspiration and LST for the future thermal missions, exploring the high temporal resolution geostationary satellites, advancing the state of the art in ET modeling in water-limited ecosystems The planned activities are: Eddy covariance stations selection consolidation Download of eddy covariance data, consistency control …
Methane emissions from fossil fuel production are a major component of the anthropogenic methane emission budget. Emissions from this sector often occur as strong plumes from so-called point sources, which include infrastructure elements such as flares, compressor stations, storage tanks, or mine vents. Satellite remote sensing represents a key technology for systematic monitoring of methane …
AI for satellite interferometry (InSAR) to simplify data exploitation and interpretation by adding a classification layer to large inSAR point cloud databases. Over the years, InSAR has become a common approach to map and monitor ground displacement at different scales, from local to regional and national. At large scales, InSAR provides such a volume of …
This project is a proposal extension of the ESA STREAM project (SaTellite based Runoff Evaluation And Mapping, Contract Number 4000126745/19/I-NB) and it is addressed to investigate the possibility to extend at global scale the estimation of runoff and river discharge by using satellite observations. In particular the project will explore the feasibility to: provide long-term …
