1. Introduction

1.1. Project background

The SEOM Sentinel-3 for Science, Land Study 1: SNOW (referred as ‘S3-SNOW’ in the following) is “to develop, implement and validate algorithms for deriving several key snow parameters from Sentinel 3 optical satellite data, appropriate for addressing ESA’s Cryosphere challenge C3 : “Seasonal snow, lake/river ice and land ice, their effect on the climate system, water resources, energy and carbon cycles: the representa<on of terrestrial cryosphere in land surface, atmosphere and climate models”. See [1] for details.

As a successor of S3-SNOW, a new one-year project named SICE (Sentinel-3 snow and ice products) was established in 2019, with the particular goal to determine a dry/wet snow and clean/polluted bare ice spectral and broadband optical albedo 1 km daily product for land ice (glaciers, ice caps, ice sheet). Within SICE, both algorithms and corresponding data processors and software were updated and further improved. The relevant changes of the processors and software will be described in this updated version of the SUM.

1.2. Purpose and Scope

This document is the User Manual for the SNAP processors written in Java which have been developed in the frame of the S3-SNOW project and its successor SICE. Its purpose is to describe in detail how to obtain, install and operate these processors. Also, a comprehensive overview of the related data products (input as well as intermediate and final products) is provided.

The explicit structure of the document is as follows:

  • Chapter 1 is this introduction.
  • Chapter 2 gives an overview of the SNAP S3-SNOW and SICE processors.
  • Chapter 3 describes all relevant S3-SNOW and SICE products.
  • Chapter 4 explains how to get and install the processing software.
  • Chapter 5 explains how to run the processing software.

1.3. References

  1. Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) Sentinel-3 for Science, Land Study 1: SNOW: Technical, Management/Administrative, Implementation, Financial and Contractual Proposal. Issue 1, Revision 1, 16 March 2016.
  2. Kokhanovsky, A., Box, J.E., Lamare, M., Dumont, M., Picard, G., Danne, O., and C. Brockmann: Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document: Snow Properties Retrieval from Sentinel-3. Version 2.2, 8 November 2018.
  3. Sentinel-3 OLCI User Guide, available at: https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/user-guides/sentinel-3-olci
  4. S3-SNOW Project Web Site, available at: http://seom.esa.int/page_project032.php
  5. The Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) Web Site, available at: http://step.esa.int/main/toolboxes/snap/
  6. CoastColour Project Web Site, available at: http://www.coastcolour.org
  7. OceanColour Project Web Site, available at: http://www.esa-oceancolour-cci.org
  8. Bourg, L. (2009): MERIS Level 2 Detailed Processing Model. ACRI-ST, Document No. PO-TN-MEL-GS-0006, 15 July 2009.
  9. Sentinel-3A Product Notice: OLCI Level-2 Ocean Colour, available at: https://www.eumetsat.int/website/wcm/idc/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=PDF_S3A_PN_OLCI_L2_REP&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased&Rendition=Web
  10. Pre-operational Sentinel-3 snow and ice products (SICE) web site. available at: http://snow.geus.dk
  11. Kokhanovsky, A., Lamare, M., Di Mauro, B., Picard, G., Arnaud, L., Dumont, M., Tuzet, F., Brockmann, C., and J.E. Box: On the reflectance spectroscopy of snow. The Cryosphere, 12, 2371-2382, 20 July 2018

1.4. Acronyms and Abbreviations

Acronym Definition
ATBD Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document
BB broad-band
BC Brockmann Consult
BEAM Basic ERS & Envisat (A)ATSR and Meris Toolbox
BOA Bottom-of-atmosphere
BOAR Bottom-of-atmosphere reflectance
BRR Bottom-of-atmosphere Rayleigh Reflectance
CCI Climate Change Initiative
CLI Command Line Interface
DEM Digital Elevation Model
ESA European Space Agency
GIMP Greenland Ice Mapping Project
GPF Graph Processing Framework
GUI Graphical User Interface
IdePix Identification of Pixels
JDK Java Development Kit
MERIS Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
NBM NetBeans Module
NDSI Normalised Difference Snow Index
NetCDF Network Common Data Form
OLCI Ocean and Land Colour Instrument
PPA Probability of Photon Absorption
SEOM Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions
SICE Sentinel-3 Snow and Ice
SNAP Sentinel Application Platform
SPP Snow Properties Processor
SUM Software User Manual
TOA Top Of Atmosphere