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….?