Course: CMDS Essentials Pack for Ocean Applications | self-paced learning | EUMETSAT

  • General

    Welcome to the EUMETSAT Marine Essentials Pack training page!

    Snapshot of globe with CHL


    Through this online learning platform called Moodle, you will find a range of educational resources aimed at helping you gain the skills required to become comfortable, independent and adept at:

    • Understanding the data and data products that the CMDS provides (timeliness, resolution, data formats, variables).
    • Selecting most relevant and appropriate products from the CMDS for specific tasks.
    • Accessing/downloading data and products provided in the CMDS.
    • Knowing how to work with CMDS data in SNAP and Python (Jupyter Notebooks).
    • Applying the satellite data products from the CMDS for tailored applications.
    We will introduce you to the Copernicus Marine Data Stream (CMDS), provide you with the background knowledge of the Copernicus programme, satellites and instrumentation, data access and formats, and tools and software necessary to begin working with this data for marine applications.

    This online training is designed to 'stand alone' without the addition of virtual classrooms, so we ask that you please direct any questions or queries to helpdesk@eumetsat.int with 'Marine Essentials Pack' in the subject line.


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  • Instructions: Clicking on the section name will show / hide the section.

  • 1
    In this short 8-minute video, you will learn more about:
    1. The Copernicus programme
    2. EUMETSAT's role within Copernicus
    3. The Copernicus Marine Data Stream (CMDS)
    4. Where to find your marine data!

    It's worth getting a clear idea of the Copernicus Marine Landscape here - the information will prove highly relevant when it comes to your workflows, in terms of who collects the marine data you want, and where you can find it.

     


    Hayley Evers-King joins Lauren Biermann for an informal discussion to help simplify the Copernicus Marine Landscape, talking us through the different missions, mechanisms and agencies  working together under the Copernicus Programme and European Commission banner. .


    What is the Copernicus Programme?

    Copernicus is the European Union's Earth Observation (EO)  Programme, looking at Earth and our environment. The information services that they provide are free and openly accessible to all users.
    • The Programme is coordinated and managed by the European Commission (EC).
    • It is implemented in partnership with Member States, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), EU Agencies, and Mercator Océan.

    Copernicus offers information services based on satellite EO and non-satellite in situ data. Toward the former, Copernicus is served by a set of dedicated satellites (the Sentinel families) and contributing missions (other existing satellites).

    What is EUMETSAT’s role?

    EUMETSAT provides data, products and support services to the Copernicus information services and user communities, with a focus on marine, atmosphere and climate. This involves delivering Earth observation data services to Copernicus from the Sentinel satellites, from its own Metop and Meteosat missions, from the ocean-monitoring Jason-3 satellite, and from missions of its international partners (e.g. USA, China, India and Japan). EUMETSAT is responsible for operating the Sentinel-3 satellites, with ESA support, and delivering the marine data and will also operate and deliver products from the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-6 satellites, and Sentinel-5 instruments. In addition, upon request of the EC, EUMETSAT will also be responsible for delivering data and products from Sentinel missions to third parties around the world.

  • 2
    This 30-minute video will give you a brief overview of Sentinel-3, including:
    1. The sensors aboard Sentinel-3, namely SLSTR, OLCI and SRAL
    2. The data they each collect, namely SST, Ocean Colour and Sea Surface Height
    3. Data levels delivered by the EUMETSAT Marine Service
    4. Timeliness of data offered

  • 3

    Here, we will introduce you to several ways you can access Sentinel-3 data available through the CMDS. The method you choose will depend on a number of factors, including:

      1. The type of data you need (quick look images, netcdf files, what resolution and at what level of timeliness)
      2. How regularly you need this data (for an individual application, or more regularly?)
      3. The facilities and resources you have available (do you have sufficient internet capacity to download the data?)


      Links: CODA User Manual ; codarep.eumetsat.int ; archive.eumetsat.int ; https://www.wekeo.eu/


      Short videos on how you can access and order Sentinel-3 data and products from the EUMETSAT Copernicus Online Data Access (CODA) and Data Centre portals:

      All archived data can be accessed through the Data Centre Online Ordering Client, used for searching, selecting and ordering products.

       You can read a little more about the Data Centre aims, history and data collections here.


      What's coming up next? Take a sneak peek at the upcoming EUMETSAT Data Store for a single point access to both new and archived data records:
      How we deliver data is changing! As part of our growing big data services, the EUMETSAT Data Store provides users with a single point of access to our data records. In this video, Ben Loveday provides a very comprehensive walk-through of the web-user interface.

    • 4

      What is SNAP?

      The European Space Agency (ESA) have developed a series of toolboxes for working with data from the Sentinel satellites. These can be downloaded from the Sentinel Toolbox Exploitation Platform (STEP).

      Functionalities of SNAP that we will explore together will primarily involve image display and navigation, mask definition and display, band arithmetic, and spectral view. However, there are many more functionalities, including:
      • Layer management to view and manipulate multiple product layers as well as images from WMS servers/ESRI shape files.
      • Subsetting and exporting to different file formats.
      • Plots and statistics for defined regions of interest.
      • Graph Processing Framework (GPF): for creating user-defined processing chains.
      • Reprojection and ortho-rectification to a variety of map projections.
      • Geo-coding and rectification using ground control point.
      • Multithreading and Multi-core processor support.

      How do I get SNAP installed on my computer?
      SNAP is available for Windows, Mac and UNIX systems. To download and install, just follow the following steps or watch the video below:
      1. Visit this page and select the download of the Sentinel Toolboxes suitable for your operating system.
      2. Open the downloaded file and follow the installation instructions. You can opt to only install the toolboxes you want. For this course you will only need the Sentinel-3 toolbox, but you may wish to install all. If you wish to install other toolboxes after the initial installation you can follow the guidelines here to install from within SNAP.
      3. Once installed, open the software by clicking on the icon in your relevant install location (e.g. in ‘All Programs’ in Windows, ‘Applications’ in Mac, or the equivalent dependent on your UNIX system). You can also open from the command line, information on the SNAP command line interfaces is here.
      4. We recommend you update all the plugins once installed. You can do this from the top menu under Help>Check for updates.


      Did you know?

      The Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) also supports numerous sensors beyond the Sentinels (Including MERIS, MODIS, Landsat8). Though SeaDAS (developed by NASA) has a similar graphical user interface, SNAP builds on the legacy of the VISAT BEAM software developed for use with data from the ENVISAT satellite.


      Now, we will show you how to make the most of the SNAP toolboxes in order to visualise your Sentinel-3 OLCI and SST data

      SNAP screenshot

      Your introduction to using SNAP
      In this video, Ana demonstrates how to visualise Level-1 OLCI data using a number of tools, including colour manipulation, pin manager and spectrum view.


    • 5

      SNAP fundamentos:

      Flagging:


    • 6

      Installing Python for Processing Data

      For this training, we will be showcasing the use of Python, a programming language, for data visualisation and analysis. In preparation for this. Below you will find a series of short videos outlining the steps you need to take.  To make the installation of Python as easy as possible we are going to use the Anaconda system.  The link to the Anaconda website, referenced in the video is here.

       Once you have installed Anaconda we will need to install some Python libraries or Modules. The list of modules that are required for the course are below with example commands for installation. 

      Modules to install (required):
      • numpy
      • scipy
      • cartopy
      • matplotlib
      • xarray
      • netcdf4
      • ipython
      • jupyter
      Modules to install (optional):
      • rasterio
      • plotly
      • earthpy

      The video below walks you through the process needed. Please work your way through the list installing packages. Don't worry if you run into problems, the forum at the end of this section is there for you to use if you need any assistance..
       

      Step 3: Downloading the Training Code

      For this training, we will be using a system called Jupyter Notebooks. Jupyter allows us to show code and explanatory text in the same page.  The code is also runnable, allowing you to get experience with executing Python code in a self-contained environment. So that you have access to all the same resources during the course, the next video will walk you through downloading and extracting a zip file of Jupyter notebooks. Excellent beginners guide to GIT: https://product.hubspot.com/blog/git-and-github-tutorial-for-beginners.

      The code can be downloaded from Github here.

      For the final part of this section we are going to combine all the work we have done in the previous videos and test the installation to see if it works:


    • 7
      Please follow this link to the EUMETSAT short course on Ocean Colour
    • 8

      Please follow this link to the EUMETSAT short course on the Temperature of the Oceans.

    • 9
      Please follow this link to the EUMETSAT short course on Altimetry.
    • 10

      Feel free to take this quick and easy quiz to test your knowledge of which Sentinel-3 datasets best match the following scenarios.