Copernicus Core Services

Some of today’s most important environmental concerns relate to the composition of the atmosphere. The increasing concentration of the greenhouse gases and the cooling effect of aerosol are prominent drivers of a changing climate, but the extent of their impact is often still uncertain.

At the Earth’s surface, aerosols, ozone and other reactive gases such as nitrogen dioxide determine the quality of the air around us, affecting human health and life expectancy, the health of ecosystems and the fabric of the built environment. Ozone distributions in the stratosphere influence the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface. Dust, sand, smoke and volcanic aerosols affect the safe operation of transport systems and the availability of power from solar generation, the formation of clouds and rainfall, and the remote sensing by satellite of land, ocean and atmosphere.

To address these environmental concerns there is a need for data and processed information. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) has been developed to meet these needs, aiming at supporting policymakers, business and citizens with enhanced atmospheric environmental information.

The Service will consolidate many years of preparatory research and development that was funded by the European Union in the form of the series of MACC projects. MACC brought together partner organisations from across Europe with expertise in areas such as environmetal monitoring and forecasting, operational forecasting services, and research of atmospheric composition.

CAMS delivers the following operational services:

Daily production of near-real-time analyses and forecasts of global atmospheric composition

Reanalyses providing consistent multi-annual global datasets of atmospheric composition with a frozen model/assimilation system

Daily production of near-real-time European air quality analyses and forecasts with a multi-model ensemble system

Reanalyses providing consistent annual datasets of European air quality with a frozen model/assimilation system, supporting in particular policy applications

Products to support policy users, adding value to “raw” data products in order to deliver information products in a form adapted to policy applications and policy-relevant work

Solar and UV radiation products supporting the planning, monitoring, and efficiency improvements of solar energy production and providing quantitative information on UV irradiance for downstream applications related to health and ecosystems

Greenhouse gas surface flux inversions for CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O, allowing the monitoring of the evolution in time of these fluxes

Climate forcings from aerosols and long-lived (CO₂, CH₄) and shorter-lived (stratospheric and tropospheric ozone) agents

Anthropogenic emissions for the global and European domains and global emissions from wildfires and biomass burning

This presentation will provide an update on the state-of-play of CAMS, which is now operated under fully operational conditions. We will highlight in particular the importance of satellite data, which underpin the quality of the products delivered to the growing audience of CAMS users.

By aggregating both space and in-situ data observations with global-reach over land and seas, Copernicus can make an important contribution to the security needs of the EU and its Member States.  After a series of research activities running up to 2014, aimed at demonstrating space technology and mobilizing users, progress on the operationalization of security applications has been steady. This session will focus on the presentation of the Copernicus services being implemented through FRONTEX (*), on Border surveillance, the European Maritime Safety Agency , on maritime surveillance, and the plans ahead for supporting EU external actions through the EU Satellite Centre.

(*) The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union

Copernicus is the European Commission’s flagship Earth observation programme that delivers freely accessible operational data and information services. ECMWF has been entrusted to operate two key parts of the Copernicus programme, which will bring a consistent standard to the measurement, forecasting and prediction of atmospheric conditions and climate change.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) will routinely monitor and analyse more than 20 essential climate variables to build a global picture of our climate, from the past to the future, as well as developing customisable climate indicators for relevant economic sectors, such as energy, water management, agriculture, insurance, health….

C3S has now taken off, the technical infrastructure is being developed and the first industrial activities have been kicked off. Climate monitoring information is routinely produced and available at climate.copernicus.eu, while multi-model seasonal forecast products are being developed. In addition, a number of proof-of-concept sectoral climate services have been initiated. This paper will focus on the most recent achievements of the Service, with a focus on the description and expected outcome of the proof-of-concept activities as well as the definition of a roadmap towards a fully operational European Climate Change Service. 

The Copernicus service and space components need access to in situ data to produce and validate products where in the Copernicus Regulation, ´in situ data´ are defined as observation data from ground-, sea- or air-borne sensors as well as reference and ancillary data.

Consequently, operational integration of space and in situ data is key to the Copernicus programme and its end users. Since the start of the programme the importance of in situ data has been acknowledged, and the current Copernicus Regulation clearly reflects this by specifying the three components Copernicus is comprised of, namely space, services, and the in situ component that shall provide access to in situ data, serving primarily the Copernicus services. 

In situ data are often being handled directly by the services themselves, but coordination across all services is needed to deal efficiently with overlapping in situ data requirements, and ensure selected data sets are made available and distributed, in an reliable and sustainable way  to multiple services.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is responsible for the cross-cutting coordination of the Copernicus in situ component. To this end the EEA will, in collaboration with the Copernicus services and data providers, focus on three main areas: establish and maintain an overview across all Copernicus services of in situ data requirements and challenges, raise the awareness of the in situ component, and improve access to selected critical data sets. 

This presentation will aim at explaining the purpose and functioning of the Copernicus in situ component, and how it is being implemented. It will focus on common in situ data issues and challenges the Copernicus services are facing today, and on the mechanisms that may allow us to improve the situation, and gradually lead to a more sustainable in situ data infrastructure.

The objective of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service is to provide land-cover information to users in the field of environmental and other terrestrial applications.

The European component of the Copernicus land monitoring service builds upon a longstanding series of European land cover mapping products and bio-geophysical variables series of products derived from high resolution (+/- 20m) satellite imagery. The global land component provides a series of bio-geophysical variables on the status and evolution of land surface at global scale using mid and low spatial resolution data with a high update frequency cycle, and creating also long-term time series. The products are used to monitor the vegetation, the water cycle and the energy budget.

Since the mid 80-ies, the European Commission has established the Corine Land Cover (CLC) initiative, mainly supporting the Union environmental policies.  Since 2006 and next to CLC, a series of land cover characteristics products has been included in the portfolio under the name of High Resolution Layers.  These HRLs provide information on e.g. the level of soil sealing, tree cover density, extension of semi-natural grasslands or the presence of wetlands and water bodies. 

The availability of Very High Resolution imagery (+/- 2m) opened the path for a local component in land monitoring, focusing on areas of specific interest, such as functional urban areas (Urban Atlas), or highly biodiverse areas such as riparian zones along European river networks, or the Natura2000 sites.

Whereas the global component supports European policies at international level, and European commitments under international treaties and conventions, the Pan-European land monitoring products are well adapted to European-wide assessments.  Local land monitoring products support Union policies such as the regional funding for urban development policies (Urban Atlas) or the monitoring and assessment of ecosystems and their services (MAES) (Riparian Zones, Natura2000 sites).

The DG Joint Research Centre of the EC is implementing the Copernicus global land component, whereas the implementation of the pan-European and local components has been entrusted to the European Environment Agency (EEA).  In this presentation, we outline the key results from the Copernicus initial operations, their use in the EU Policies and the recent evolution of the Copernicus land service portfolio.  We briefly also discuss recommendations and the process for the mid term evolution of the Copernicus land monitoring services over the coming years.

The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical state and dynamics of the ocean and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and European regional seas. This service capability includes a description of the current situation (analysis), a prediction of the situation a few days ahead (forecast), and provision of consistent retrospective data sets for recent years (re-analysis). 

Mercator Ocean is the entrusted entity for the CMEMS implementation.  We rely on a strong European partnership with more than 50 marine operational and research centres in Europe involved in the service and its evolution. 

CMEMS provides a sustainable response to European user needs in four areas of benefit: (i) maritime safety, (ii) marine resources, (iii) coastal and marine environment, (iv) weather, seasonal forecasts and climate.  A major objective of CMEMS is to provide and maintain a competitive and state-of-the-art European service to meet public and private intermediate user needs, and thus explicitly and openly involve these users in defining the service they expect.

The CMEMS architecture includes production centres for observations (Thematic Assembly Centres – TACs) and modelling/assimilation (Monitoring and Forecasting Centres – MFCs) and a Central Information System (CIS).   CMEMS is highly dependent on the timely availability of comprehensive satellite and in-situ observations.  The Copernicus Sentinel missions (in particular S1, S3 and S6) have or will have strong impact on CMEMS products and services. 

An overview of CMEMS will be given including its organisation, its products and services and the users and applications it serves.  The essential role of satellite observations will be recalled and the expected impact of the Sentinel missions (in particular S1, S3 and S6) will be outlined.  The presentation will also address our service evolution strategy and long-term needs as far as satellite observations are concerned. 

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) is one of the six core Copernicus services. It consists of two main parts: EMS Early Warning Systems (EWS) and EMS Mapping.

The EWSs currently includes European Flood Alert System (EFAS) and the European Forest Fire System (EFFIS). The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) is the operational European system monitoring and forecasting floods across Europe. It provides complementary, flood early warning information up to 10 days in advance to its partners: the National/Regional Hydrological Services and the European Response and Coordination Centre (ERCC). The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) supports the services in charge of the protection of forests against fires in the EU countries and provides the European Commission services and the European Parliament with updated and reliable information on wildland fires in Europe.

The EMS Mapping provides all actors involved in the management of natural disasters, man-made emergency situations and humanitarian crises, with timely and accurate geospatial information derived from satellite remote sensing and completed by available in situ or open data sources. Copernicus EMS - Mapping is provided during all phases of the emergency management cycle, in two temporal modes, and free of charge for the users. It can be activated only by authorised users., which include National Focal Points (NFPs) in EU Member States and in countries participating in the European Civil Protection Mechanism as well as European Commission (DGs) and the European External Action Service (EEAS). The Copernicus EMS-Mapping is operationally available since April 2012.

The EMS Rapid Mapping consists of the on-demand and fast provision (within hours or days) of geospatial information in support of emergency management activities immediately following an emergency event. There are three categories of maps offered: Reference Maps, Delineation Maps (providing an assessment of the event extent) and Grading Maps (providing an assessment of the damage grade and its spatial distribution). The Rapid Mapping service was activated more than 150 times since its beginning in April 2012 with more than half of the activation for floods.

The EMS Risk and Recovery Mapping consist of the on-demand provision of geospatial information in support of Emergency Management activities not related to immediate response. This applies in particular to activities dealing with prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and recovery phases. There are three broad product categories: Reference Maps, Pre-disaster Situation Maps and Post-disaster Situation Maps. Since 2012 the service was activated 20 times.

Both Mapping modules are complemented with the Copernicus EMS – Mapping Validation, which is used for the verification of a sample of service outputs produced by the Rapid Mapping or Risk and Recovery Mapping services. The validation methodology is based on the validation protocol developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). This service is carried out independently from the Rapid Mapping and the Risk and Recovery Mapping services. The validation service is normally triggered by the European Commission, but it can be also suggested by the Authorised Users in specific cases. 14 validation exercises were carried out since 2012. The products of Copernicus EMS-Mapping are freely available on the dedicated portal.