International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Operational use of ENVISAT at the Danish Meteorological Institute Preliminary Results and Experience from the first two months Keld Q. Hansen DMI
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Why use ENVISAT?
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 HISTORY: Main Operation area: Cape Farewell (all offshore & inshore routes) February 1999: Aircraft and helicopter as primary data source satellite data used complementary Test of operational use of SAR – data
Yes, IF we have SAR data from TWO satellites OK frequency and coverage => potential skipping of poor data OK frequency and coverage => potential skipping of poor data the satellites can be backup for each other the satellites can be backup for each other Can we skip the aircraft completely? International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 March 1999 Radarsat primary data source for ice mapping (offshore) Helicopter used inshore June-July (surface melt water) : ice recco aircraft in service in combination with Radarsat
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Winter 2003/04: contract with Kongsberg Satellite Station on delivery of 250 Envisat scenes/year (= data from Tromsø and Gatineau). The operational setup is complicated by the fact that we need direct broadcast and taped data to cover all areas of interest. Only limited evidence of ENVISAT’s operational capability. We decided to only use ENVISAT outside DMI primary mapping area The launch of ENVISAT (March 2002) was expected to realize this future opportunity….. but time went by …. Summer 2003 first ice season without ice recco aircraft BUT only ONE satellite… luckily the ice season was the lightest in 50 years
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Planning of SAR scenes: ENVISAT: DESCW (developed by ESA) designed for multi purposes inflexible (shifting scenes is difficult) not user friendly (100’s of mouse clicks) time consuming RADARSAT: SPA (Swath Planning Application) single purpose simple flexible saves swathplans in various formats at the same time
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Statistics for SAR data received at DMI: RADARSATFeb04Mar04Apr04* Planned Received NRT ENVISATFeb04Mar04Apr04* Planned51414 Received NRT4 6 8 * Status April 16
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Experienced ENVISAT NRT Problems Scene is cancelled example 15th April 2004: “Order cancelled by ESA due to conflict”. (message received 2 hours after satellite pass) Scene is delayed Scene does not cover 500 km Scene is shifted north-south
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 ENVISAT Processing at DMI: Image contrast / brightness have to be improved, 16 bits 8 bits ENVISAT ASAR 12 April UTC RADARSAT SCANSAR Wide 11 April UTC
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Status Mid-April 2004: Radarsat is still the primary data source in the Cape Farewell area. Envisat complementary. May 2004: Test of Envisat operational capability outside Cape Farewell area No Radarsat data ordered !!!!
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 Future… We expect stable delivery of data to be accomplished – we need more than 95 % success rate. We would like to reduce time from order to actual satellite pass, do anybody have experience with emergency planning ? We need to improve image contrast / brightness (DMI, ESA ?) Continuous dialogue on faster and stable NRT delivery with the purpose of improving the service (KSAT, ESA) We look forward to user friendly swath planning software (ESA) Aircraft backup back up in 2004 RADARSAT is an excellent backup for ENVISAT ENVISAT has until now NOT proved backup potential
International Ice Charting Working Group V – Hamburg April 2004 ESA….?