Group for Earth Observation

No 60 - December 2018

The Operational Land Imager on the NASA/USGS satellite Landsat-8 acquired this image of the so-called
Camp Fire in Butte County, northern California, at 10.45 am local time on November 8, 2018.
Image: NASA / USGS

Useful User Groups
Weather Satellite Reports
This group provided weekly reports, updates and news
on the operational aspects of weather satellites.
https://groups.io/g/weather-satellite-reports
SatSignal
This end-user self help group is for users of David
Taylor’s Satellite Software Tools, including the orbit
predictor WXtrack, the file decoders GeoSatSignal and
SatSignal, the HRPT Reader program, the remapper
GroundMap, and the manager programs - MSG DataManager, GOES-ABI Manager, AVHRR Manager etc.
https://groups.io/g/SatSignal
MSG-1
This forum provides a dedicated area for sharing
information about hardware and software for receiving
and processing EUMETCast data.
https://groups.io/g/MSG-1
GEO-Subscribers

GEO MANAGEMENT TEAM
Director and Public Relations
Francis Bell,
Coturnix House, Rake Lane,
Milford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5AB,
England.
Tel: 01483 416 897
email: francis@geo-web.org.uk
General Information
John Tellick,email: information@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Newsletter Editor
Les Hamilton,
email: geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

This is the official group is for subscribers of the Groupfor Earth Observation (GEO), aimed at enthusiasts
wishing to exchange information relating to either GEO
or Earth Observation satellites.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/
GEO-Subscribers/info

Meteor M N2-2 Launch Delay
Last issue we reported that Russia’s next Meteor weather
satellite, Meteor M‑N2-2, was provisionally set for launch
this December.
However, the WMO’s OSCAR website now states that thelaunch is now likely for March 2019. You can keep up todate with any changes to this date at the following URL
https://www.wmo-sat.info/oscar/satellites/view/483

Technical Consultant (Hardware)David Simmons
email: tech@geo-web.org.uk
Webmaster and Website Matters
Alan Banks,e-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Shop Manager
Nigel Evans(Assistant: David Simmons),
email: shop@geo-web.org.uk
Management TeamDavid Anderson Rob Denton
Clive Finnis
Carol FinnisPeter GreenDavid Taylor

2

www.geo-web.org.uk

Les HamiltonT

he past three months have been particularly eventful weatherwise, with major hurricanes
and cyclones wreaking havoc on coastal states in both North America and Asia, notto mention severe weather events in Europe, with ﬂash ﬂooding in the Malaga provinceof Spain and storms bringing Rome to a standstill by depositing some 30 centimetres ofhailstones on its main thoroughfares.

B

ut what is so surprising is that GEO Newsletter readers close to these events havenot sent in a single eye-witness report. It would be really appreciated if readers could
contribute to the GEO Newsletter by providing news reports on such events, possibly
accompanied by photographs and relevant satellite imagery they have themselves received,
for future issues.

Material will always be welcome, by email, togeoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

We are fortunate this quarter to have been forwarded an article by Olga Denisenko who
works for EOS Data Analytics, the USA-based company which provides a unique solution
to Earth Observation image processing and analysis. Brieﬂy, EOS Platform provides everything
you need for online image processing in a browser. It is actually a set of four mutually integrated
cloud products for searching, analysing, storing, and visualising geospatial data: Landviewer,
Processing, Vision and Storage. Individually, each serves a unique function, but together they
provide a powerful toolset in the GIS ﬁeld. You can read the article on page 7.
All four tools of EOS Platform may be tested, free of charge athttps://eos.com/platformI

t is in open beta now, and the the EOS Team would be very grateful for feedback.
LandViewer, reviewed in GEOQ 56 (December 2017), is being updated on a regular basis,
based on feedback from users and general EO market needs. Feedback can be emailed toEsupport@eos.com

OS have also recently launched a free online video course for EOS Platform users: there arevideo lessons about LandViewer, and the rest of the tools. If you’re interested, the course isavailable at:https://www.geo.university/courses/the-eos-platform

F

inally, an apology is due to Robert Moore, whose piece on Kamchatka (page 12) lurked outof sight somewhere on my PC for more than six months before I came across it.
Contents
GEO Darmstadt Visit
GEO Outreach
New EOS Platform
Quarterly Question
Copernicus 20 Years On
Kamchatka and its Volcanoes‘Camp Fire’ destroys Paradise
September 2018 ‘Medicane’
Activity at Krakatau
Vredefort Crater
Arctic Sea Ice reaches 2018 Minimum
Volga River Delta and the Caspian Sea
Metop-C Takes to the Skies

Francis Bell
Francis BellEOS Data Analytics Team
Francis Bell
European Space Agency
Robert Moore
Les Hamilton
Joh Tellick
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Earth Observatory
Les Hamilton

www.geo-web.org.uk

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6
7
10
11
12
12
13
16
18
19
20
21

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Francis Bell

This formal photograph shows the GEO contingent inside the entrance hall of EUMETSAT’s HQ together
with their Director General plus other EUMETSAT staff on the occarion of our 2007 visit.

Since GEO’s initial visit to EUMETSAT’s HQ in Darmstadt,
Germany in 2007 we have repeated the event on a four
yearly cycle. As best I can judge, each visit has been very
worthwhile with our members being technically informedby visiting the very heart of EUMETSAT’s satellite control
facilities and, just as importantly, meeting the people
running their systems.

Personal travel arrangements and accommodation mustbe left to the individual visitors to arrange and financethemselves. In the past a small group of hotels withinwalking distance of the EUMETSAT HQ and ESOC have
proved popular. It may be possible that a GEO group
discount for these hotels can be negotiated but this isdependent of arrangements still to be agreed.

I’m very pleased to announce that EUMETSAT haveagreed to GEO’s request to visit their HQ again on
Thursday July 4, 2019. The fine details of such a visit still
have to be arranged but I expect it will be a full day visit,
which will include a tour of their buildings, including theiroperations centre, some formal sessions of presentations
and, hopefully, as in the past, a pleasant lunch.

If you wish to register for this Darmstadt visit please send
your name and address by email to Robert Denton, a GEO
Management Team member, at the following email address
g4yrz@wxsat.org

On the following day, Friday July 5, 2019, I hope wecan arrange a visit to the European Space Operations
Centre (ESOC), which is also in Darmstadt, plus a visit
to the large satellite ground station at Usingen about 30
kilometres farther north. I emphasise that these Friday
visits still have to be arranged, so at this time they cannot
be guaranteed; however, we have managed to include
ESOC and Usingen events in our previous visits toDarmstadt.
There should be no charge for the formal visits to
EUMETSAT, ESOC or Usingen but you may be asked fora small contribution to cover transport, administration costs
plus local guides. These still have to be determined but
perhaps €20 should be enough.

4

The ESOC building in Darmstadt.
Photographs inside the buildings were not allowed.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Our visiting GEO group, together with local staff, standing outside some of the ‘T-Systems’ communication dishes at the Usingen Ground Station.

The operations room inside EUMETSAT’s HQ together with our visiting
GEO group just visible in the background.

You do not have to be a GEO member to take part in thisvisit: just have a dedicated interest in weather satellites
and Earth observation. There is no specific time scale forregistration because the event is in mid 2019, six months
away, but please register as soon as your have decided
you wish to be included in the visit.
Further details relating to this visit will be forwarded tothose people who register for the visit as they become
available.
Member Input
EUMETSAT have asked me if there are any specific topics
we would like to be informed about during the formal

Part of the Ground Station at Usingen. At the time the photograph wastaken the two dishes shown were carrying EUMETCast transmissions,although there have been subsequent changes to their use.

presentation part of our visit. Personally I may not be
up-to-date enough to make such a request but have told
EUMETSAT that I will forward to them suggestions fromour members.

If you have any topics which you thinkwould be particularly beneficial to ourgroup please let me know at
francis@francisbell.com

and I will forward these to EUMETSAT.
The photographs above were taken during a previous visit
to Darmstadt and Usingen.

www.geo-web.org.uk

5

Francis Bell

Some of the audience attending the GEO presentation to the Echelford Amateur Radio Society

It’s quite rewarding to receive positive feedback
from the radio rally events which GEO attends.
This time it was the spring of 2018, when we
had a stand at the East London Radio andComputer Rally held at Kempton Park, west
London. As usual it was a busy day with ourstand displaying our literature and computerslide shows of recorded weather satellite images.

room in a large sports pavilion close to the edgeof the river in Walton on Thames.

One of the visitors to our stand was John
Osborne, who turned out to be the secretaryof the Echelford Amateur Radio Society (EARS).
He was sufficiently interested in what wewere demonstrating that, after the show, he
contacted me and asked if GEO could givea presentation to his local radio club about
weather satellite reception in general, andparticularly on the use of SDR dongles for live
signal reception.

From some of the questions we were asked
I think some of their members were going
to try for their own reception. Any follow-on
membership of GEO is unknown but theliterature distributed during the evening gave
suitable references to our website and the GEOSubscribers YAHOO Group at
https://groups.yahoo.com/
neo/groups/GEO-Subscribers/info

As requested, David Simmons and I attended
one of their club meetings. The location was a6

As expected of radio amateurs, those attending
the meeting seemed very knowledgeable and,as best I could judge, soon had a grip of thetechnical issues relating to weather satellite
reception.

for follow-on interest.
My thanks go to David Simmons for his support
and for attending this presentation with me.

www.geo-web.org.uk

New EOS Platform
lets you run Image Processing Tasks in a Browser
EOS Data Analytics Team

Figure 1 - The EOS Platform Welcome Screen
Most of your image analysis tasks that used torequire ENVI or Erdas Imagine software are now
available online thanks to EOS Platform. This new
game-changing cloud service launched by EOS
Data Analytics provides GIS professionals with aone-stop solution for search, analysis, storage, andvisualisation of large amounts of geospatial data.
With EOS Platform you get access to a suite offour mutually integrated EOS products, which
together provide a powerful toolset for geospatial
analysts. Image data is stored in cloud-based EOS
Storage and is available for image processing or
remote sensing analysis at any time: this can be a
raw user file, imagery obtained from LandViewer

Figure 2 - A parking lot in Portugal, imagedby the WorldView-3 satellite.

or an output file from EOS Processing.
There are at least two reasons why image
processing is the platform’s major asset: theprocessing of large data amounts runs online andoffers as many as 16 workflows with even morecoming soon. On top of that, users can get the best
cartographic features of EOS Vision for vector datavisualisation and, to be announced in the future,
its analysis.
Data Diagnostic platform
When it comes to raster data, you can work witha variety of satellite and airborne datasets in
LandViewer, EOS Processing, and EOS Storage.

Figure 3 - The same parking lot after applying
the vehicle detection algorithm.

www.geo-web.org.uk

7

Users can also upload their own GeoTiff, JPEG or
JPEG 2000 files, and apply GIS data processing
algorithms via API or from the web interface. EOS
Vision is your tool for vector data operations withmultiple formats support (ESRI Shapefile, GeoJSON,
KML, KMZ).
LandViewer can be found at:https://eos.com/landviewer
The Complete Image Processing Package
EOS Processing offers a great experience with its
sixteen processing workflows, including the popularraster tools (merge, reprojection, pansharpening),
remote sensing analytics, photogrammetry, andproprietary feature extraction algorithms that can’t
be found anywhere else.
Get your data ready for the upcoming LiDAR analysis
and 3D modelling, as they’ll become available soon.

• It is possible to estimate the parking lot trafficof largest shopping centres with car detection
algorithm (Figures 2,3).
The Best of Spectral Analysis
Products within EOS Platform support almost all
remote sensor types, and the user can choose from along list of spectral indices to calculate on the fly.
Aside from the complete set of vegetation indices(NDVI, ReCI, ARVI, SAVI, AVI, etc.), there are also
indices to outline landscape features (water, snow
and ice - NDWI, NDSI) and burned areas (NBR).
The greatest thing is that here you get the freedomof experimenting with spectral bands and cancreate custom band combinations that best fit yourpurposes (Figure 4).
Customise and Analyse

Such pre-processing tasks as cloud detection orradiometric calibration help you refine raw data
for further analysis: you can correct images foratmospheric effects and obtain the real groundradiance or reflectance values.

The user-friendly interface of EOS Processing makes
it easy to manage processing workflows dependingon the user’s business needs. You can set theparameters for processing and repeatedly use suchcustomised workflow to automate high-frequency
analytical tasks. Future updates will add an ability
to create custom algorithms from the available dataprocessing operations.

Object Detection, Change Detection, andClassification

Agriculture, Forestry, Oil and Gas, and more
Industries

The convolutional neural networks, pretrained by
EOS Data Analytics to extract features from imagery,
let you apply state-of-art methods to detect objects
and track changes from space.

A tandem of EOS products offers a muchneeded solution for individuals, businesses, andorganisations across numerous industries.

• Having only a set of multi-temporal images andchange detection workflow, you can track how
illegal deforestation progresses over time.
• Edge detection can show the exact boundaries ofyour agricultural lands down to the last pixel.

With vegetation indices and crop classification
features, agronomists can continuously monitor
crop conditions to detect plant diseases, pests
and droughts. Forestry specialists can assess firedamage, monitor forest health, track and enforce
logging restrictions.

Figure 4 - AOI - Texas, USA. NDVI of an area calculated from Landsat 8 image taken in October 20158www.geo-web.org.uk

Classification ofconiferous vs.
deciduous forestsin Ukraine using a
Sentinel-2 image.

Figure 5This is the originalsatellite image.

Figure 5aThis is how the image
appears after applying
an algorithm to highlightareas of coniferous
forest.

Figure 5bThis is how the image
appears after applying
an algorithm to highlightareas of deciduous
forest.

EOS Platform is a great choice
for regional and urban planning,helping users to identify land
cover classes to generate avegetation map. It can also makea complete list of urban features
like buildings, roads, and othermajor features in a region.
The platform can tackle disastermanagement by measuring flood

extent and finding fire boundaries.
When it comes to oil and gas, it
is capable of identifying oil rigs
and assessing their environmental
impact.
EOS Data Analytics uses cloudbased services to address different
industries with a single platform,
scientifically proven analytics,
scale-ups, and it builds products

www.geo-web.org.uk

that could add value to remotesensed data to deliver expert-level
results for your business.
Unlock the full potential of
Earth observation data with EOS
Platform, directly in your browser
athttps://eos.com/platform

9

Francis Bell

Image: ESA

Quarterly Question 59
My thanks to those readers who responded to
Quarterly Question 59 with the question relating
to volcanoes located in Italy. The question
contained images of Mount Vesuvius and Mount
Etna but specifically asked for the name of another
Italian volcano which lies on an imaginary straightline between Vesuvius and Etna with the note that
this third volcano has been particularly active andnewsworthy this year.
The answer was Mount Stromboli which islocated on an island just off the mainland coastof Italy. As best I know there are only three active
volcanoes in Europe: I have visited two of them,and may perhaps visit the third at some time in
the future.
Quarterly Question 60
If you are in their system, ESA regularly
disseminate to you an ‘Image of the Week’ whichis also available on their Internet site. I usuallyfind these images and the informative text
accompanying them interesting. For this particular
image I did not need to read the text to identify the10

country illustrated because I instantly recognised
its characteristic coastal outline, having visited its
west and east coasts several times.
This Quarterly Question is straightforward: ‘Name
the country shown in this satellite image’. Emailanswers to me by February 28, 2019, atfrancis@geo-web.org.uk
The Quarterly Question has been provoked by
the image I received from ESA which I personally
did recognise, but to help others in identification,note that the image shown is about 3,000 km
wide, 2,500 km from north to south and with aconventional north/south orientation. The straightlines which make up some of the north andsoutheast boundaries of the country are politicalboundaries with adjacent countries otherwise
the outline is geographical. The country is not an
island but attached to other land masses to thenorth and south.
Some notes from ESA which accompanied theimage are shown overleaf, slightly edited by myself
to remove the name of the country.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Zooming in on the LandscapeAs part of a scientific collaboration with the country’s
Space Agency and other local scientific public entities,
ESA has combined images from the Copernicus
Sentinel-2 mission to produce a detailed view of thedifferent types of vegetation growing across this entire
country. The high-resolution land-cover map combines
images captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2 between 2016
and 2018.
Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite constellation built for the
EU’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
Each identical satellite carries a multispectral imager thatcan distinguish different types of vegetation and crops.
It can also be used to determine numerous plant indicessuch as the amount of chlorophyll and water in leaves tomonitor changes in plant health and growth.
The mission has a myriad of uses, one of which is toprovide information to map land cover so that changes
in the way land is being used can be monitored. Thanks
to this Copernicus mission and to ESA’s Climate Change
Initiative Land Cover project, this country’s land coverhas been mapped at a resolution of 10 metres/pixel.
Land-cover mapping breaks down the different typesof material on Earth’s surface, such as water bodies,different forms of agriculture, forests, grasslands andartificial surfaces. This information is important forunderstanding changes in land use, modelling climatechange, conserving biodiversity and managing natural
resources. This is a valuable source for scientific studies
and practical applications alike.

Daniela Jurado from the country’s National
Commission for the Knowledge and Use of
Biodiversity said:“Having access to such a detailed map is not only
useful for scientific research such as understanding
fluxes associated with the carbon cycle, but also formanaging our natural resources and for conserving
biodiversity. It is also important for land-use
management and for monitoring urban expansion.”
Alejandra Aurelia López Caloca, from the Centre for
Research in Geospatial Information Sciences added:“Indeed, this new map reveals a lot about ourcountry. It is very helpful for studying the growthof cities and how rural areas are transitioned into
urban environments. In addition, it is going to be areal help to understand where bodies of water are
highly dependent on precipitation and to pinpoint
those areas that are at risk of flooding. “The newmap allows us to identify the status land cover,
specifically the agricultural kind so this will really help
us understand how our land is being farmed.”
ESA has been coordinating global land cover maps
since 2002 through its GlobCover and Climate Change
Initiative Land Cover projects at a resolution of 300
metres. But with the Copernicus Sentinel-2 pair now inorbit, land cover can be mapped at a resolution of 10
metres. In the same vein, a land-cover map of otherareas is also now available.

Copernicus 20 Years On
It was in 1998 that the manifesto that gave rise toEurope’s Copernicus environmental programme wassigned. With seven Sentinel satellites already in orbit
delivering terabytes of data every day, Copernicus is thebiggest provider of Earth observation data in the world.
This manifesto proposed that an operational
environmental monitoring programme be created,
and today, 20 years later, Copernicus is in full swing,
providing services that use satellite data to help address
today’s challenges such as urbanisation, food security,
rising sea levels, diminishing polar ice, natural disasters
and, of course, climate change.
A very important principle is that all satellite data offeredthrough Copernicus are completely free of charge andopen to anyone in the world.
While the European Union is at the helm of Copernicus,
ESA develops, builds and launches the dedicatedSentinel satellites. It also operates some of the missions
and ensures the availability of data from third party
missions. EUMETSAT also plays a role in operating
the ocean part of the Sentinel-3 mission, and it will be

responsible for Sentinel-4, Sentinel-5 and Sentinel-6
when they are launched.
To date, there are seven Sentinel satellites in orbit: a pairof Sentinel-1 radar satellites, a pair of Sentinel-2 opticalsatellites, a pair of Sentinel-3 satellites carrying a suite of
instruments, and the single-satellite Sentinel-5P mission
to monitor air pollution.
There are already 150 000 users registered with ESA’s
data hub, but since the data are available to anyone, thereal number, although unknown, is much higher.
The next three Sentinel missions are currently being
built and there are another six mission concepts being
assessed. These new missions and the developmentof new markets for data will take Copernicus into the
future and while the success of the first 20 years has
undoubtedly been thanks to the strong partnerships
between the EU, ESA and service providers, theprogramme is evolving alongside a fast-changing
landscape for Earth observation.
Source: ESA

www.geo-web.org.uk

11

Kamchatka and its Volcanoes
Robert Moore

The geology and wildlife of the Kamchatka peninsula makeit, for me, one of the most fascinating parts of the globe
but it is perhaps the part I am least likely to visit. Ice andsnow-bound in the winter and cloud-covered for much of
the year, it is worth watching out for good satellite images.
Ice is a major feature of the area (at roughly the same
latitude as Scotland). The sea ice and land ice interact
with the ocean in ways that produce weather patterns
totally different from anything seen in our eastern Atlantic
environment.
Metop-A produced a fine image on March 25, 2018, andwith the peninsula being snow covered at that time of theyear, many of Kamchatka’s spectacular volcanoes wereeasy to see. The volcanoes are Kamchatka’s best-known
feature and the range is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Three of these volcanoes are clearly visible in the METOP
image:• The eastern ‘eye’ of the ‘face’ half-way up the image isKluchevskaya, a perfectly conical volcano, currently
erupting. It is the largest active volcano in the northernhemisphere.
• Just to the north of it is Shiveluch, another very active
volcano that had a massive eruption during 2017.
• To the south, just inland from the small spur protruding
to the east is Zhupanovsky. This volcano had been
quiet since 1959, but became active again in 2015,
resulting in some interesting changes to its shape!
There is detailed information, superb pictures and satellite
imagery of these three and all the other volcanos in thepeninsula athttps://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=300540
where you can also refer to maps which are very helpful in
identifying features in the satellite images.

Kamchatka and its Volcanoes
Image © EUMETSAT 2018

Another very useful site if you want to explore this remoteregion from your desktop, ishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanoes_of_Kamchatka‘Camp Fire’ destroys Paradise
On the morning of November 8, 2018, California
experienced its most destructive ever wildfire. The
blaze—a satellite view of which appears on the front
cover—was first reported around 6.30 am local time nearCamp Creek Road in Butte County, and spread rapidly
on the back of near 80 kilometres per hour winds which
prompted the Butte County Sheriff’s Office to order theevacuation of the town of Paradise and a number ofother threatened communities.

residents fleeing the inferno. By evening the same day,the fire had destroyed 20,000 acres, while over fifty
thousands residents had been evacuated from Paradise,
Concow and other threatened communities nearby.

In the event, the fire advanced so rapidly that the
majority of Paradise’s 27,000 residents were unable toevacuate before the fire arrived, and firefighters had tocease firefighting and turn their attention to rescuing

Three weeks following the event, with the fire at last fully
contained, 88 fatalities had been recorded while over
200 persons were still unaccounted for.

12

By the following morning, the devastation had spread
across one hundred thousand acres, and more than 80%
of all buildings in Paradise had been destroyed. These
numbered over 7000 structures, including five schools.

www.geo-web.org.uk

September 2018 ‘Medicane’
John Tellick

Figure 1 - The ‘medicane’ starts developing in the Mediterranean Sea in this Metop-B image dating from 08:30 UT on September 28, 2018
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Several years ago, whilst viewing
a Meteosat VIS image from theMediterranean region, I was
astonished to see a perfectly
formed ‘hole in the middle’hurricane in the Adriatic. I phoned
one of our meteorologist members
who said it was not a hurricane(you don’t get them in the
Mediterranean) but a well formed
intense area of low pressure.
Listening to a recent BBC weather
forecast the presenter, mentioning
a storm in the Mediterranian,used the term ‘Medicane’.
So straight away I checked thelatest MSG HRV image and, sureenough, a storm was brewing, as
illustrated in the above Metop-B
image.
Figures 2 to 5 on the following
page show the rapid developmentof the storm in just five hours. A
day later (figure 6) it’s virtually
all over. The storm has lost its
intensity but it’s remnants cover
the whole of Greece.
The following text explanation has
been summarised from Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia URL appears at
the foot of this page, from whereinterested readers can learnmuch more detailed information./
Mediterranean tropical-like
cyclones, sometimes referred to
as Mediterranean hurricanes or‘medicanes’, are meteorologicalphenomena observed in the
Mediterranean Sea. Theiroccurrence has been described as
not particularly rare. Tropical-likesystems were first identified in the
Mediterranean basin in the 1980’s
when widespread satellite coverage

first identified these low pressure
areas sporting a prominent central‘eye’.
Due to the dry nature of theMediterranean region, theformation of tropical andsubtropical cyclones is infrequent,
with only 100 recorded tropicallike storms between 1947 and2011. Most systems remain
at or below tropical storm
intensity, but on a few rareoccasions, some storms havebeen observed reaching thestrength of a Category1 hurricane,i.e. sustained winds of at least
74 mph (119 kph). No agency,
however, is officially responsible
for monitoring the formation anddevelopment of ‘medicanes’. A
chart showing windspeeds for thisstorm appears at the foot of thenext page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_tropical-like_cyclone
www.geo-web.org.uk

text continues on page15

13

Figure 2 - Meteor HRV image of the storm at 05:45 UT on September 29
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Figure 5 - Meteor HRV image of the storm at 11:00 UT on September 29
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Figure 3 - Metop-A image of the storm at 08:10 UT on September 29
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Figure 6 - Meteor HRV image of the storm at 14:00 UT on September 30
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Figure 4 - Meteor HRV image of the storm at 09:30 UT on September 29
Image © EUMETSAT (2018)

Figure 7 - Windspeed chart for the September 2018 ‘medicane’
Map by Andrej Flis - Input data by Meteo France.
www.severe-weather.eu

14

www.geo-web.org.uk

Tropical cyclogenesis typically occurs within
two separate regions of the sea. The first region,encompassing areas of the western Mediterranean,
is more conducive for development than the other,
the Ionian Sea to the east. However, on very rareoccasions, similar tropical-like storms may also
develop in the Black Sea. The rough mountainous
geography of the region raises additional difficulties
despite being favourable for the developmentof severe weather and convective activity ingeneral, and only with abnormal meteorologicalcircumstances can a ‘medicane’ form. Numerous
studies have been conducted on the impact of
global warming on Mediterranean tropical cyclone
formation, generally concluding that fewer yet more
intense storms would form.
The development of tropical or subtropical cyclones
in the Mediterranean Sea can usually only occur
under somewhat unusual circumstances. Low
wind shear and atmospheric instability induced
by incursions of cold air are often required. A
majority of ‘medicanes’ are also accompanied byupper-level troughs, which provide the energy
required for intensifying atmospheric convection—
thunderstorms—and heavy precipitation. The
baroclinic properties of the Mediterranean region,
with high temperature gradients, also provides therequired instability for the formation of tropical
cyclones. Another factor, rising cool air, provides
necessary moisture as well. Warm sea surface
temperatures (SSTs) are mostly unnecessary,
however, as most ‘medicanes’ derive their energy
from warmer air temperatures. When thesefavourable circumstances coincide, the genesisof warm-core Mediterranean tropical cyclones,

often from within existing cut-off cold-core lows, ispossible in a conducive environment for formation.
The development of tropical-like cyclones in
the Mediterranean can occur year round, withactivity historically peaking between the months of
September through the following January.
Damaging Medicanes
Several notable and damaging ‘medicanes’are
known to have occurred. In September 1969,a North African Mediterranean tropical cyclone
produced flooding that killed nearly 600
individuals, left 250,000 homeless, and crippled
local economies.
A ‘medicane’ in September 1996 that developed in
the Balearic Islands region spawned six tornadoes,
and inundated parts of the islands.
Several ‘medicanes’ have also been subject toextensive study, such as those of January 1982,
January 1995, September 2006, November 2011,
and November 2014. The January 1995 storm is
one of the best-studied Mediterranean tropical
cyclones, with its close resemblance to tropical
cyclones elsewhere and availability of observations.
The ‘medicane’ of September 2006 is well-studied,
due to the availability of existing observations
and data. In November 2011, the NOAA’s Satellite
Analysis Branch monitored a ‘medicane’, named
Rolf by the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin),though it ceased doing so the following month. In
2015, NOAA resumed issuing advisories for tropicalsystems in the Mediterranean region. In 2018, adeveloping storm killed four people in Tunisia due
to flooding rains.

NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of the ‘medicane’ at 10:05 UT on September 29, 2018.
Image: NASA

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Activity at Krakatau
NASA Earth Observatory
Activity at the Indonesian volcano Anak Krakatau is not
unusual; eruptions have occurred sporadically over the
past few decades. And before that, it was the site of
the infamous, deadly eruption of 1883. It is somewhat
unusual, however, for satellites to obtain cloud-free views,
as they did in September 2018.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired the wideview (figure 1) on September 24. The MultiSpectral
Instrument (MSI) on the European Space Agency’s
Sentinel-2 acquired the more detailed image (figure 2) on
September 22. Both images show volcanic ash and steam
streaming southwest over the waters of the Sunda Strait.
Local sources reported that this eruption has beenongoing since June 19, 2018, with ash plumes having
been observed rising to altitudes up to 1800 meters. As of
September 24, the eruption had not yet affected air travelin southeast Asia, according to news reports. The local
alert status remained at ‘caution’, which is the secondhighest level.

Figure 1 - Location of Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait
NASA image by Joshua Stevens, using MODIS data from NASA
EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

The plume was also visible from the International Space
Station, from where European Space Agency astronaut
Alexander Gerst snapped a photograph of the plume on
September 24 (figure 3).

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You can view more of Alexander’s photographs from theISS on Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/astro_alex/and Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/astro_alex_esa/

Figure 2 - Sentinel-2 image of the plume on September 22, 2018
Image: modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018) processed by theEuropean Space Agency.

Story by Kathryn Hansen

Figure 3 - The plume from Anak Krakatau, photographed from the ISS
Photo ESA / Alexander Gerst

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Reader Keith Fraser sent in this APT image from NOAA 15, acquired on September 12, 2018. It depicts
Category‑4 Hurricane Florence, still two days out in the Atlantic, with the eye particularly prominent.

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Vredefort Crater
NASA Earth Observatory

Vredefort crater, imaged NASA’s Landsat‑8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) on June 27, 2018.
Image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

About two billion years ago, anasteroid measuring at least ten
kilometres across hurtled toward
Earth. The impact occurred
southwest of what is now
Johannesburg, South Africa, andcreated a temporary dent in thesurface, 40 km deep by 100 km
wide. Almost immediately after
impact, the crater became wider andshallower as the rock below started
to rebound and the walls collapsed.
The world’s oldest and largest
known impact structure was formed.
Scientists estimate that when therebound and collapse ceased,
Vredefort Crater measured
somewhere between 180 and 300
kilometres wide. But more than twobillion years of erosion has made its
exact size hard to pin down.
“If you consider that the original
impact crater was a shallow bowl,
such as you would serve foodin, and you were able to slice
horizontally through the bowl
progressively, you would see thatit’s diameter will decrease witheach slice you take off,” stated

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Roger Gibson of University of the
Witwatersrand, and an expert on
impact processes. “For this reason,
we are unable to categorically fix
where the edge now lies.”
According to Gibson, the uplift at thecentre of the impact was so strongthat a 25 km section of Earth’s crust
was turned on end. The various layersof upturned rock eroded at different
rates and produced the concentric
pattern still visible today. Vredefort
Dome, which measures about 90 km
across, was observed on June 27,
2018, by the Operational Land Imager(OLI) on Landsat 8.
Notice that only part of the ring is
now because areas to the south havebeen paved over by rock formations
that are less than 300 million years
old. The young rock formations havebegotten fertile soils that are intensely
cultivated.
The darker ring in the centre ofthis image, known as the Vredefort
Mountainland, has shallow soils withsteep terrain not suitable for farming,

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so it remains naturally forested. Alongthe ridges in Mountainland you cansee white lines: these are the hardest
layers of rock, such as quartzite,
which resist erosion. The outer part ofMountainland has exposed rocks thatare roughly 2.8 billion years old; thisis the Central Rand Group, source ofmore than one-third of all gold minedon Earth.
Visitors to the impact site today canwitness geologic time by traversing
just 50 km from Potchefstroom toward
Vredefort. The journey takes you
from shallow crustal sedimentaryrocks deposited between 2.5 and2.1 billion years ago, ending with 3.1
to 3.5 billion-year-old granites andremnants of ocean crust that wereonce about 25 km below Earth’s
surface.
“Such exposed crustal sections
are incredibly rare on Earth,” said
Gibson. “The added bonus here isthat the rocks preserve an almost
continuous record spanning almost
one-third of Earth’s history.”
Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Arctic Sea Ice Reaches 2018 Minimum
NASA Earth Observatory
After starting the year with record lows in January andFebruary, Arctic sea ice extent fell during September
to the equal the sixth lowest average extent during the
40-year satellite record. According to researchers at the
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the actual
minimum extent was achieved on both September 19
and September 23, the latter date one of the latest
seasonal minima on record. In the Antarctic, the annual
maximum sea ice extent was reached on October 2,
this the fourth lowest austral maximum in the satellite
recordAnalyses of satellite data showed that the Arctic ice cap
shrank to 4.59 million square kilometres (Mkm2), equal
sixth lowest summertime minimum on record. Arctic
sea ice follows seasonal patterns of growth and decay,
thickening and spreading during the fall and winter andthinning and shrinking during the spring and summer.
But in recent decades, increasing temperatures have
led to significant decreases in summer and winter sea
ice extents. The decline in Arctic ice cover will ultimately
affect the planet’s weather patterns and the circulationof the oceans.
The map above shows the minimum Arctic sea ice
extent measured on September 19, 2018, defined as
the total area in which the ice concentration is at least
15%. The yellow outline shows the median September
sea ice extent from 1981–2010. The lower image is amosaic compiled by the Canadian Ice Service using
data collected between September 18 and 24 by
the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Aqua and Terrasatellites.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens,using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The 2018 minimum is 1.63 Mkm2 below the 1981–2010
average ice minimum. NASA scientists have calculated
that Arctic sea ice has lost roughly 54,000 km2 of ice foreach year since the late 1970s—equivalent to losing a
chunk of sea ice the size of Maryland and New Jersey
for every year.
One of the most unusual features of this year’s melt
season has been the reopening of a polynya-like hole in
the ice pack north of Greenland, where the oldest andthickest sea ice of the Arctic typically resides.
“The combination of thin ice and southerly warm winds
helped break up and melt the sea ice in this region,”
said Melinda Webster, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center. “This opening mattersfor several reasons. For starters, the newly exposedwater absorbs sunlight and warms the ocean, which
affects how quickly sea ice will grow in the following
autumn. It also affects the local ecosystem, such as
seal and polar bear populations that rely on thicker,
snow-covered sea ice for denning and hunting.”

Polar mosaic courtesy of the Canadian Ice Service.

October 24 will mark the 40th anniversary of the launchof the Nimbus-7 satellite, which began the long-term,
consistent record of measurements of polar ice extent anddistribution from space.
“In view of the significant regional and interannual
variability, if we didn’t have the satellite record there
would be a great deal of uncertainty as to what the fullchange in the Arctic sea ice cover has been”, statedNASA scientist Claire Parkinson. “But the 40-year recordof satellite measurements reveals quite definitively that
the Arctic sea ice coverage has decreased substantially.”
Story by Maria-José Viñas, NASA’s Earth Science News Team, with Mike
Carlowicz, NASA Earth Observatory.

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19

Volga River Delta and the Caspian Sea
NASA Earth Observatory

Image: NASAOn July 2, 2018, the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a spectaculartrue-colour image of Russian’s Volga Delta as it
pours into the Caspian Sea.
The Volga River drains more than 1.3 million
square kilometres of catchment area, including
farmland, industrial sites, wildlands and cities. At
its terminus, the braids of the Volga fan outward,
creating a broad, fertile delta as it flows into thesaline Caspian Sea. More than 500 channels
carry the river through the delta and into the sea.
The fertile Volga Delta sustains a rich fishingindustry as well as being home for endangered20
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endemic species including several speciesof sturgeon. It is an important breeding
and migratory route for birds as well as thenorthernmost natural location where the lotus(Nelumbo nucifera) thrives. Lotus are more
typically found in the tropics.
The swirling couloirs in the northwestern sectionof the Caspian Sea are created by a combinationof sediment from the Volga and from land
runoff flowing into the waters and from growthof phytoplankton. These plant-like microscopicorganisms often reproduce in large numbers
when temperature, hours of daylight, andnutrients are suitable, resulting in huge bloomsthat can easily be seen from space.

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Les Hamilton
Metop-C, the third and final member of the first-generation
Metop satellites, was launched at 0.47 UT on November
7, 2018 to continue the provision of data for weather
forecasting from polar orbit. Like its two predecessors,
Metop-C was launched atop a Russian Soyuz ST-B rocket
fitted with a Fregat-M upper stage, but whereas previous
launches took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan, this one blasted off from Europe’s Spaceportin French Guiana. A special feature of launch preparationin Guyana was the separate transportation of the threestages of the launch vehicle and the space head, whichwere crated and airlifted out from Baikonur in threemassive Antinov cargo planes, and their subsequentassembly on the launcher using a mobile service tower.

An artist’s view of the Metop-A spacecraft in orbit
Image credit: ESA, EUMETSAT

Some 60 minutes following lift-off, the Fregat upper stage
delivered the four tonne Metop-C satellite into orbit andcontact was established soon thereafter via Yatharagga
Ground Station in Australia.
The Metop satellites have been developed by ESA undera co-operation agreement to form the space segment of
the Eumetsat Polar System, Europe’s contribution to a
multi-orbit polar system shared with the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the UnitedStates.

The Metop-C payload module is unloaded from the aeroplane’s stern.
Image: EUMETSAT

The anticipated operational life span of each Metop was
five years, and it was originally envisaged that eachsuccessive Metop satellite would take over from its
predecessor. But, thanks to the extraordinary longevity
shown by Metop-A and Metop-B, and the continuing highquality of the products they disseminate, the mission
will continue as a three-satellite constellation, further
increasing the wealth of data for weather forecasting. Thisis expected to continue until the de-orbiting of Metop-A,
currently planned for 2022.
In-orbit commissioning of Metop-C and its payloads by
EUMETSAT is now under way in partnership with ESA,
CNES and NOAA, and should be complete by the end ofJanuary 2019. Then, once EUMETSAT has fully validated
the output products, it is planned to release real-time data
to users during spring 2019.

Metop-C being transported to the launchpad
Photo ESA-CNEA-Arianespace

Metop-C will also ensure the smooth transition with the
Eumetsat Polar System - Second Generation, developedin cooperation with ESA, with the objective of launching
the first MetOp Second Generation satellite in 2022

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The Soyuz launcher being positioned on the launchpad
Photo ESA-CNEA-Arianespace

Metop-C Launch
Photo ESA-CNEA-Arianespace

The Soyuz rocket sits atop its launchpad, ready for the installation of
the Metop-C weather satellite, one day prior to its launch from French
Guiana’s Kourou Space Centre, on November 7, 2018.
Credit: Arianespace

The Metop satellites make up the space segment of the
EUMETSAT Polar System, delivering data for modern
weather forecasting, as well as climate and environmental
monitoring. Metop-C carries a total of twelve instruments, eightof which monitor Earth’s environment, plus four additional
data dissemination packages. A brief overview of the mainfeatures of each of these is summarised below.

Metop Instrument Overview
The Metop satellites carry a set of seven ‘heritage’ instruments
provided by the United States’ National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the French Space
Agency (CNES), and a newer generation of five European
instruments that offer improved sensing capabilities to both
meteorologists and climatologists.
Several of the instruments measure similar aspects of theatmosphere, namely temperature and humidity, but use avariety of measuring techniques to acquire their data. Thisapproach is crucial for numerical weather prediction, which
not only requires high-quality observations but also needs
huge amounts of data from different sources to feed into
the models.

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With its sophisticated array of instruments and diverse
measuring techniques Metop can provide outstanding data
sets to advance the field of meteorology, which ultimately
improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and ourunderstanding of climate change.

The European Instruments

Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI)
IASI is one of the most advanced on-board instruments
measuring infrared radiation emitted from the surfaceof the Earth to derive data of unprecedented accuracy
and resolution on humidity and atmospheric temperature
profiles in the troposphere and lower stratosphere.
The Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS)MHS acquires measurements at various altitudes ofatmospheric humidity, including rain, snow, hail and sleet,
and temperature by measuring microwave radiation
emitted from the surface of the Earth.
The Global Navigation Satellite System Receiver for
Atmospheric Sounding (GRAS)
GRAS is a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiverthat operates as an atmospheric-sounding instrument,
providing a minimum of 500 atmospheric profiles per
day through a process of GPS radio occultation. GRAS
supplies atmospheric soundings of the temperature andhumidity of the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT)Space Environment Monitor (SEM-2)

ASCAT, an enhanced follow-on instrument to the highly
successful scatterometers flown on ESA’s ERS-1 and
ERS-2 satellites, measures wind speed and direction
over the ocean. Its six antennas allow for simultaneous
coverage of two swaths on either side of the satellite
ground track, providing twice the information of theearlier instruments. ASCAT also contributes to activities
in areas as diverse as land and sea ice monitoring, soil
moisture, snow properties and soil thawing.

SEM-2, provided by NOAA, is a spectrometer thatprovides measurements to determine the intensity of the
Earth’s radiation belts and the flux of charged particles
at the satellite’s altitude. It also supplies knowledge ofsolar terrestrial phenomena and warnings of solar windoccurrences that may impair long-range communication,
high-altitude operations, damage to satellite circuits andsolar panels, or cause changes in drag and magnetic
torque on satellites.

Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2)

Search And Rescue Processor (SARP-3)

GOME-2 is a spectrometer that collects light arrivingfrom the Sun-illuminated Earth’s atmosphere or a directview to the Sun and decomposes it into its spectral
components. The recorded spectra are used to derive a
detailed picture of the atmospheric content and profileof trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, water
vapour, oxygen and bromine oxide.

SARP-3, provided by CNES, receives and processes
emergency signals from aircraft and ships in distress anddetermines the name, frequency and time of the signal.
These preprocessed data are then fed into the Search
And Rescue Repeater (SARR) instrument for immediatetransmission to Search and Rescue Satellite (SARSAT)
distress terminals on the ground.

The Heritage Instruments

Search And Rescue Repeater (SARR)

These are identical instruments with those carried by theearlier NOAA AVHRR satellites (NOAAs 15-19).

SARR, provided by the Canadian Department of
Defence (through NOAA), receives and down-links
emergency signals from aircraft and ships in distress andprovides a down-link for data received by the Search andRescue Processor (SARP-3). SARR receives distressbeacon signals on three separate frequencies, thentranslates and retransmits them to Local User Terminals
on the ground. These terminals process the signals,
determine the location of the beacons, and forward theinformation to a rescue mission control centre.

Advanced Microwave Sounding Units (AMSU-A1 andAMSU-A2)
The AMSU instruments measure scene radiance in the
microwave spectrum. The data from these instruments
are used in conjunction with the High-resolution
Infrared Sounder (HIRS) instrument to calculate theglobal atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles
from the Earth’s surface to the upper stratosphere.
The data are also used to provide precipitation andsurface measurements including snow cover, sea ice
concentration and soil moisture.
High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/4)

Acknowledgement
Thanks are due to ESA for making the above information
available through its website.

HIRS/4 is a 20-channel radiometric sounder measuring
radiance in the infrared (IR) spectrum. Data from
HIRS/4 are used in conjunction with data from the
AMSU instruments to calculate the atmosphere’s verticaltemperature profile, as well as pressure from the Earth’s
surface to about 40 kilometres altitude. HIRS/4 data arealso used to determine ocean surface temperatures,
total atmospheric ozone levels, precipitable water, cloudheight and coverage and surface radiance.
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR/3)
AVHRR/3 provides day and night imaging of land, waterand clouds and measures sea surface temperature,ice, snow and vegetation cover by scanning the Earth’s
surface in six spectral bands in the range 0.58 - 12.5
microns.
Advanced Data Collection System (A-DCS)
A-DCS, provided by CNES, provides worldwide in-situ
environmental data collection and Doppler-derived
location services with the basic objective of studying andprotecting the Earth’s environment. A-DCS, also known
as Argos, is an advanced version of the system presently
operated jointly by NOAA and CNES.

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This photograph, taken on October 15, 2018 from the ISS by cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, shows the Uluru Rock formation, which lies some 300
kilometres southwest of Alice Springs in the south of Australia’s Northern Territory. Uluru, one of the most amazing attractions of our planet, was formed
about 680 million years ago, and is considered to be the biggest single rock in the world.
Image: Roscosmos / Oleg Artemyev

This is a section from a Meteor M2 LRPT image received on November 20, 2018 by Joachim Scharrer from Hannover in Germany. Joachim
received the signals using an RTL SDR-Dongle, SDRsharp and a selfbuild QFH-Antenna, followed by processing in MeteorGIS.

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On October 28, northwest Europe felt its first taste of winter when a surge of Arctic air descended over the region.
This Meteor M2 image was received in Aberdeen, Scotland by Les Hamilton.

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