GLOBCOVER
Encyclopedia
In geography
, GLOBCOVER is a two-year project whose goal is to develop the sharpest map of Earth's global land cover. The project will contribute information relevant to land use, ecosystem
s and climate change
. The artificial satellite Envisat
(especially its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
and Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar) will gather much of the data for GLOBCOVER. A total of approximately forty terabyte
s are expected to be generated (GLOBCOVER is large enough that it is distributed via BitTorrent). GLOBCOVER is a part of the Earth Observation Data User Element.
The GlobCover Land Cover product v2.1 released to the public in late September 2008 is the highest resolution (300 meters) Global Land Cover product ever produced. The GlobCover Land Cover product is based on ENVISAT MERIS
data at full resolution from January 2005 to June 2006. The GlobCover Land Cover product is labelled according to the UN Land Cover Classification System.
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, GLOBCOVER is a two-year project whose goal is to develop the sharpest map of Earth's global land cover. The project will contribute information relevant to land use, ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s and climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. The artificial satellite Envisat
Envisat
Envisat is an Earth-observing satellite. It was launched on 1 March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 from the Guyana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guyana into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of...
(especially its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
MERIS
MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer is one of the main instruments on board the European Space Agency 's Envisat platform.This instrument is composed of five cameras disposed side by side, each equipped with a pushbroom spectrometer. These spectrometers use two-dimensional CCDs...
and Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar) will gather much of the data for GLOBCOVER. A total of approximately forty terabyte
Terabyte
The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
s are expected to be generated (GLOBCOVER is large enough that it is distributed via BitTorrent). GLOBCOVER is a part of the Earth Observation Data User Element.
The GlobCover Land Cover product v2.1 released to the public in late September 2008 is the highest resolution (300 meters) Global Land Cover product ever produced. The GlobCover Land Cover product is based on ENVISAT MERIS
MERIS
MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer is one of the main instruments on board the European Space Agency 's Envisat platform.This instrument is composed of five cameras disposed side by side, each equipped with a pushbroom spectrometer. These spectrometers use two-dimensional CCDs...
data at full resolution from January 2005 to June 2006. The GlobCover Land Cover product is labelled according to the UN Land Cover Classification System.