Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem empowers early-career scientists to do global scale earth observation data analysis

Early career scientists rarely have the resources to work with earth observation data at continental to global scale. This is caused by a combination of factors: large scale data analysis often involves teamwork, connecting data scientists, code developers, IT specialists, statisticians and geoscientists. Young researchers are rarely able to coordinate such a team. Meanwhile, all scientists can have relevant ideas or pose powerful research questions that merit investigation. Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem provides a public, free platform for large-scale processing of earth observation data. It combines instant access to all Sentinel satellite imagery with cloud-based processing in the form of API requests and a powerful browser-based viewing interface. This new approach is enabled by storing the data in a different way: uncompressed formats such as JPEG2000, COG or ZARR support subsetting and querying the image rasters without first unzipping the file, thereby allowing direct streaming of only the area and bands that the user requests. Additionally, this means that most calculations and visualization tasks can be carried out on the server side, directly within the request process. The backend tasks of data storage and management are taken care of by the system, while the user can concentrate on the research itself.

Copernicus Data Space Ecosytem supports several API families. OGC API-s directly enable the creation of Open Geospatial Consortium compatible map products such as WMS, WMTS, WFS or WCS services. These can be accessed with GIS software or displayed in web map tools. OData, STAC, and OpenSearch are Catalog API-s, supporting the querying and of datasets in preparation for analysis. Sentinel Hub is an API family that can handle queries, raster operations, and raster-vector integration for deriving statistics. The main advantages of Sentinel Hub API-s are their efficient use and integration with advanced visualization in the Copernicus Browser.

OpenEO is a fully open-source data analysis framework designed specifically to support FAIR principles. It is independent from data formats with its own data cube format, and can be edited using several coding languages. openEO connects to all STAC-compliant repositories, enabling integration between Sentinel data and other sources. Processing tools include many mathematical operations, but also standard machine learning processes. The system is designed with upscaling in mind: the command structure is the same for small and large areas, with storage and asynchronous processing managed by the backend.

Both API families come with a comprehensive scheme of tutorials and documentation to allow step-by-step learning, and an online Jupyter Lab virtual machine facility. Therefore, early-career scientists with a basic understanding of programming can quickly learn to apply their domain knowledge, while creating solutions that are easy to share and replicate.

All in all, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem is a transformative tool for earth observation, significantly lowering the bar for applying earth observation at large scale in the geosciences.