Ocean remote sensing from meteorological satellites at OSI SAF

The OSI SAF (Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility) is a dedicated EUMETSAT centre for processing satellite data at the ocean-atmosphere interface. It’s a consortium constituted of Météo-France, as a leading institute, and four cooperating institutes: MET Norway, DMI (Denmark), Ifremer (France), KNMI (Netherlands). 

Utilizing specialist expertise the consortium processes and distributes near real-time products related to key parameters of the ocean-atmosphere interface as well as climate data records of these parameters. Main products are: Winds, Sea and Ice Surface Temperature (SST/IST) and Sea Ice Parameters at both poles: Concentration, Edge, Type, Emissivity and Drift.

The applications of products are numerous. The most general ones are the assimilation into models, the validation of models, oceanography, research and environmental monitoring. The presentation will showcase OSI SAF ocean remote sensing products from meteorological satellites both from the polar and geostationary orbit.  The presentation will focus on the latest developments.

In the next few years, existing Sea Ice, Wind and SST Climate Data records will be improved and extended. It will also be the occasion to discuss the expectations of international colleagues and to describe the plans to exploit the capabilities offered by the future MTG and Metop-SG satellites.