From scorching heat and droughts setting the ground for wildfires, to heavy rainfall causing flash flooding – scientists are observing a wider global pattern indicating that virtually all extreme weather events are increasing in both frequency and intensity, endangering countless lives and livelihoods.
The composition of our atmosphere is changing rapidly, with increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from humankind’s activity, causing global temperatures to rise. Due to climate change, extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and strike with increasing severity.
According to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, the first of its kind to include a chapter dedicated to weather extremes, even small increases in global warming can bring about great changes in extremes worldwide.
Long-term data delivered by the Sentinel satellites of the European Union’s Copernicus Programme provide invaluable information to support these observations. Through the continuous collection of a wide range of data, the Sentinels supply us with snapshots of ongoing extreme weather events in near real-time.
In the past two months alone, several extremes have been recorded by the Sentinel family across the world. The image featured here
Copernicus Sentinel-1 captures flooded areas along the Polish-Czech border
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
shows regions along the Polish-Czech border flooded in the aftermath of Storm Boris, which swept through central Europe in September 2024. An image from 3 September (before the floods) and one from 15 September (after the floods) captured by Copernicus Sentinel-1 were used to make the comparison, highlighting the impacted areas in red.
The Sentinel-1 mission carries a radar instrument, which can see in the dark or through clouds, allowing it to observe Earth's surface at any time of day or night, regardless of the weather, making it particularly useful for monitoring floods.
Other places around the world suffered from the opposite extreme – blistering heat creating very dry conditions that, in many cases, led to the ignition and spread of devastating wildfires.
During routine observations of Earth’s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere, Copernicus Sentinel-3 spotted plumes of smoke rising from wildfires across Portugal, capturing them in the image below on 17 September 2024.
Copernicus Sentinel-3 observes wildfires in Portugal
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
Just a few weeks prior, and only about 800 km southwest, wildfires razed through the Portuguese island of Madeira. The flames left more than 5.700 hectares of burned forest behind, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) - one of the components of the Emergency Management Services (CEMS) in the Copernicus programme.
CEMS has been established to provide information for emergency response and disaster risk management using satellite data generated by the programme. Copernicus Sentinel-2 acquired images of the fire over several days in August 2024.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 watches over wildfires in Madeira
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
These were processed using the mission’s near-infrared channel that highlights vegetation in red, while showing the extent of the burn scars in dark brown.
The multispectral instrument carried on board Sentinel-2 has also captured wildfires across the Atlantic Ocean, along the Xingu River in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. In the image below, obtained on 9 September 2024, burned areas as well as places with ongoing fires are visible.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 captures wildfires in Mato Grosso, Brazil
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
This year, Brazil has seen a steep increase in the number of wildfires ravaging the country’s Amazon rainforest, Pantanal wetlands and Cerrado savanna, burning a staggering 5 million hectares (an area twice the size of the United Kingdom), including some of the world’s key biomes.
The newest addition to the Copernicus Sentinel family, the Sentinel-2C satellite launched on 5 September 2024, has already delivered its first images. The satellite’s instruments observed an area south of Los Angeles, California, suffering from one of the state’s countless annual wildfires.
The natural colour image on the left captures smoke billowing from the Airport Fire, while the false colour image on the right was processed using the instrument’s shortwave infrared and near-infrared channels to reveal the large area that was burned, as well as the active fires seen as bright orange spots.
Copernicus Sentinel-2C observes wildfires in California
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
While the West Coast suffers from wildfires, the other side of the continent has been continuously battered by this year’s hurricane season.
The deadly Hurricane Milton spawned in the Gulf of Mexico made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, on 9 October 2024 – a mere two weeks after Hurricane Helene, another devastating tropical cyclone, swept through the state’s Big Bend region.
Satellite data is crucial for experts to track the paths of cyclones and estimate their severity. The Cyclone Monitoring Service (CYMS) uses data from the Sentinel-1 satellite to aid cyclone forecasting by tracking the associated wind speed. The satellite flew over Hurricane Helene just before its landfall, capturing wind speeds of up to 55 m/s.
Two weeks later, Copernicus Sentinel-3 measured the temperature at the top of Hurricane Milton as it headed across the Gulf of Mexico to subsequently rip through Florida and cause wide-spread destruction.
The image below shows brightness temperature at the top of the hurricane, ranging from -75°C at the centre of the storm to -25°C at the storm edges. Over the surrounding sea and land, the temperature at the time was around 25°C.
Copernicus Sentinel-3 takes temperature of Hurricane Milton
Copyright:Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA
The Sentinel satellites are not only monitoring extreme weather events as they happen, but also helping us understand the long-term changes in climate that are driving these events in the first place.
By continuously collecting a wide range of data through Earth observation, the Sentinel missions are informing long-term datasets developed by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI), thereby supporting climate change research.
About the Copernicus Sentinels
The Copernicus Sentinels are a fleet of dedicated EU-owned satellites, designed to deliver the wealth of data and imagery that are central to the European Union's Copernicus environmental programme.
The European Commission leads and coordinates this programme, to improve the management of the environment, safeguarding lives every day. ESA is in charge of the space component, responsible for developing the family of Copernicus Sentinel satellites on behalf of the European Union and ensuring the flow of data for the Copernicus services, while the operations of the Copernicus Sentinels have been entrusted to ESA and EUMETSAT.
Did you know that?
Earth observation data from the Copernicus Sentinel satellites are fed into the Copernicus Services. First launched in 2012 with the Land Monitoring and Emergency Management services, these services provide free and open support, in six different thematic areas.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World.