Mission & Mandate

Products related to energy and water cycle

The CM SAF provides satellite-derived geophysical parameter data records suitable for climate monitoring. It provides Climate Data Records (CDRs) for Essential Climate Variables (ECV), as required by the Global Climate Observing System implementation plan in support of the UNFCCC. Several cloud parameters, surface albedo, radiation fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface, as well as atmospheric temperature, humidity and precipitation products form a sound basis for climate monitoring of the atmosphere. The products are either derived retrospectively from carefully inter-calibrated radiances or with low to medium time latency from near real time radiances. The CM SAF products are derived from observations of several instruments on-board operational satellites in geostationary and polar orbit, which are provided by EUMETSAT, NOAA and JMA. The products have mostly been validated against ground-based data sets, both in situ and remotely sensed. The accomplished accuracy for products derived with low to medium time latency is sufficient to monitor variability on diurnal and seasonal scales. Products based on inter-calibrated radiance data can also be used for climate variability analyses at inter-annual and inter-decadal scales. A central goal of the current 3rd Continuous Development and Operations Phase of the CM SAF (2017–2022) is to further improve all CM SAF data records to a quality level that allows more accurate studies at longer time scales.

RH / Nov2020