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Copernicus Sentinel-3B images Red Sea oil spill

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Title:  Copernicus Sentinel-3B images Red Sea oil spill

This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image was acquired by the OLCI instrument on 16 October 2019 (left scene). The scene acquired over the sea was processed using the 11, 8, 4 colour composite. The scenes acquired over land is the classical 10, 6, 3 colour composite corrected by the Gamma function to decrease the strong rocks/sands contrast.

Due to the width of its swath (1,270 km), its revisit cycle (27 days) and the use of the constellation of the two satellites (Copernicus Sentinel-3A and -3B), this region of the world is seen at least once a day. It is, however, very rare to be able to identify oil slicks on the sea surface with an optical instrument, except for observation conditions promoting specular reflections (Sun glint). These conditions were almost met on 16 October, at the eastern side of the swath. In this case, the optical data make it possible to distinguish differences in the slick.

Open a "2D_left_view" on the VtWeb platform to  visualise this scene at all scales. The view also includes  the Copernicus Sentinel-1 scenes acquired on 13 and 14 October in the background to show the extension of the slick along the time.

Open a "2D_right_view" on the VtWeb platform to  focus the view over the northern part of the oil slick located within the rectangle in the left image above.

Copyright: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019)/processed by VisioTerra