A new global snow extent product

One of the goals of the ESA project GlobSnow is to
develop a global product and a near-real-time service
for Snow Extent (SE) and carry out snow mapping of
the whole seasonally snow-covered Earth for the years
1995–2010 based on the optical sensors ERS-2 ATSR-2
and Envisat AATSR data. A laboratory processing chain
has been developed for testing and improving SE
products in an iterative process based on a dialogue with
a user group. The final version of the laboratory
processing chain will function as a reference system for
the implementation of an operational system for
production of the full time series of products as well as
near-real-time products produced on a daily basis. The
first version of the global SE product set spanning 15
years is expected to be ready by the end of 2010 and
will be made freely available.