The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) Third Party data contains a broad range remotely sensed data acquired by satellite for use by the Earth Observation Scientific community supported by NCEO. The Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) has archived and provides access to extensive Earth observation datasets under strict licensing conditions. Please see the individual dataset records for conditions of use.

The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) has a proud tradition of being involved with some of the most successful international collaborations in the Earth observation. This Collection contains dataset generated and/or archived with the support of NCEO resource or scientific expertise. Some notable collaboration which generated data within this collection are as follows: The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program. The program goal is to provide stable, long-term, satellite-based Essential Climate Variable (ECV) data products for climate modelers and researchers. The EUSTACE (EU Surface Temperature for All Corners of Earth) project is produced publicly available daily estimates of surface air temperature since 1850 across the globe for the first time by combining surface and satellite data using novel statistical techniques. FIDUCEO has created new climate datasets from Earth Observations with a rigorous treatment of uncertainty informed by the discipline of metrology. This response to the need for enhanced credibility for climate data, to support rigorous science, decision-making and climate services. The project approach was to develop methodologies for generating Fundamental Climate Data Records (FCDRs) and Climate Data Records (CDRs) that are widely applicable and metrologically rigorous. The “BACI” project translates satellite data streams into novel “essential biodiversity variables” by integrating ground-based observations. The trans-disciplinary project offers new insights into the functioning and state of ecosystems and biodiversity. BACI enables the user community to detect abrupt and transient changes of ecosystems and quantify the implications for regional biodiversity. The UK Natural Environment Research Council has established a knowledge transfer network called NCAVEO (Network for Calibration and Validation of EO data - NCAVEO) which has as its aim the promotion and support of methodologies based upon quantitative, traceable measurements in Earth observation. The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget 1 & 2 instruments (GERB-1 and GERB-2) make accurate measurements of the Earth Radiation Budget. They are specifically designed to be mounted on a geostationary satellite and are carried onboard the Meteosat Second Generation satellites operated by EUMETSAT. They were produced by a European consortium led by the UK (NERC) together with Belgium, Italy, and EUMETSAT, with funding from national agencies. GloboLakes analysed 20 years of data from more than 1000 large lakes across the globe to determine 'what controls the differential sensitivity of lakes to environmental perturbation'. This was an ambitious project that was only possible by bringing together a consortium of scientists with complementary skills. These include expertise in remote sensing of freshwaters and processing large volumes of satellite images, collation and analysis of large-scale environmental data, environmental statistics and the assessment of data uncertainty, freshwater ecology and mechanisms of environmental change and the ability to produce lake models to forecast future lake conditions. This SPEI collaboration consists of high spatial resolution Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) drought dataset over the whole of Africa at different time scales from 1 month to 48 months. It is calculated based on precipitation estimates from the satellite-based Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) and potential evaporation estimates by the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM).

This NCEO Core data set collection contains data generated by the National Centre for Earth Observation core scientific programmes. NCEO is a National Environment Research Council (NERC) research centre with more than 80 scientists distributed across leading UK universities and research organisations and led by Professor John Remedios at the University of Leicester. NCEO provides the UK with core expertise in Earth Observation science, data sets and merging techniques, and model evaluation to underpin Earth System research and the UK’s international contribution to environmental science. NCEO scientists work strategically with space agencies, play significant roles in mission planning, and generate internationally-recognised data products from 20 different satellite instruments.

Theme 5 - Cryosphere and Polar Oceans - of the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) is aimed at resolving uncertainties in future climate and sea-level arising from behaviour of the cryosphere. The data brings together altimetry, interferometry and gravimetry from satellites, coupled with numeric models. Ice thickness data used by Katharine Giles, Seymour Laxon and Andy Ridout in their paper "Circumpolar thinning of Arctic sea ice following the 2007 record ice extent minimum" (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, L22502, doi:10.1029/2008GL035710, 2008) are part of this dataset along with others to be submitted to the NEODC at a later time.

This is an in-situ dataset of estimates of particulate organic carbon (POC) based on all the current (2021-09-22) profiles of optical backscattering (BBP) collected by (BGC)Biogeochemical-Argo floats. The dataset spans from 2010-06-01 to 2021-09-22 and covers the upper 2000 dbars of the water column (continuous profiles have been binned in 41 vertical bins). The dataset was produced by first devising a new set of automatic tests to quality control the large BBP dataset available (>31M records over >130k profiles). The QCed BBP was then converted into POC using an empirical algorithm (average of the POC: BBP slopes of Cetinic et al., 2012)

Theme 5 (Cryosphere and Polar Oceans) of the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) is aimed at resolving uncertainties in future climate and sea-level arising from behaviour of the cryosphere. This dataset holds timeseries of Greenland glacier velocity fluctuations and Greenland glacier calving front fluctuations as maps and backscatter intensity images for the period March-July 2011. Timeseries of Antarctica glacier velocity and calving front fluctuations are expected later this year. The velocity fields and backscatter data were transformed to map coordinates using the GLAS/ICESat 1 km Laser Altimetry Digital Elevation Model of Greenland which is provided at Polar Stereographic grids (DiMarzio, J., Brenner, A., Schutz, R., Schuman, A. & Zwally, H.J. (2007)).

This dataset has been produced as part of the Theme 5 (Cryosphere and Polar Oceans) in the National Centre for Earth Observation which aims to use new EO data to quantify changes in the mass balance of the cryosphere and to develop new models to represent the relevant processes in coupled climate prediction models. This dataset holds timeseries of Greenland glacier calving front fluctuations as maps and backscatter intensity images for the period March-July 2011. The dataset consists of 38 SAR backscatter images acquired every 3 days between the 12th March and 1st July 2011 during the ERS-2 3-day campaign. The backscatter data were transformed to map coordinates using the GLAS/ICESat 1 km Laser Altimetry Digital Elevation Model of Greenland which is provided at Polar Stereographic grids (DiMarzio, J., Brenner, A., Schutz, R., Schuman, A. & Zwally, H.J. (2007): GLAS/ICESat 1 km laser altimetri digital elevation model of Greenland. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Centre. Digital media).

The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO): Monthly global Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) dataset contains POC concentrations gridded on both sinusoidal (SIN) and geographic (GEO) grid projections at 4 km spatial resolution for 1997-2020. The POC dataset has been produced using the Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative Remote Sensing Reflectance (Rrs) products, Version 4.2. The dataset includes the Rrs at 443 nm and 555 nm with pixel-by-pixel uncertainty estimates for each wavelength. For more details on the algorithm and its validation, please see papers by Stramski et al. (2008) and Evers-King et al. (2017). Please note that the validation of the POC algorithm is a continuing process. To increase the accuracy of POC algorithms, further in situ POC data need to be collected with high spatial and temporal resolution.

The BICEP/NCEO: Monthly global Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) v5 datasets contain POC concentrations (mg m^-3) with per pixel uncertainties estimates gridded on both geographic and sinusoidal projections at 4 km spatial resolution for the period of 1997 to 2020. The POC products were generated as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Biological Pump and Carbon Exchange Processes (BICEP) project with support from the National Centre of Earth Observation (NCEO). The POC datasets have been produced by using a modified empirical band ratio algorithm by Stramski et al. (2008): 292*Rrs(490)/Rrs(560)^-1.49. Additional variables that were used for the calculation of the POC products are also provided in the datasets, including the Remote Sensing Reflectance (Rrs) at 490 nm and 560 nm obtained from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative version 5 dataset (OC-CCI v5). For more details on the algorithm and its validation, please see the BICEP Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) and validation report (https://bicep-project.org/Home). A related dataset based on the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative v4.2 data is also available (see link in the related records section).

The BICEP/NCEO: Monthly global Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) v4.2 datasets contain POC concentrations (mg m^-3) with per pixel uncertainties estimates gridded on both geographic and sinusoidal projections at 4 km spatial resolution for the period of 1997 to 2020. The POC products were generated as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Biological Pump and Carbon Exchange Processes (BICEP) project with support from the National Centre of Earth Observation (NCEO). The POC concentrations were estimated using an empirical Remote Sensing Reflectance (Rrs) band ratio algorithm by Stramski et al. (2008): 203.2*Rrs(443)/Rrs(555)^-1.034. This algorithm has shown a relatively good performance in the recent global inter-comparison study conducted by Evers-King et al. (2017). Additional variables that were used for the calculation of the POC products are also provided in the datasets, including the Rrs at 443 nm and 555 nm obtained from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative version 4.2 dataset (OC-CCI v4.2)(Sathyendranath et al., 2020). In addition to the papers by Stramski et al. (2008) and Evers-king et al. (2017), for more details on the algorithm and its validation, please see the BICEP Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) and validation report (https://bicep-project.org/Home). This version of the dataset is an updated version of the previous 'NCEO: Monthly global Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) (produced from the Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative, Version 4.2 dataset)'. A related product based on the Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative v5.0 data is also available (see the link in the related records section).