ESA is pleased to inform users of the forthcoming update of Copernicus Sentinel-2 L1C and L2A products featuring an improved data quality.
ESA is pleased to inform users of the forthcoming update of Copernicus Sentinel-2 L1C and L2A products featuring an improved data quality thanks to the following evolutions:
- The crenellation effect at the edge of Sentinel-2 images will be significantly reduced by estimating the inverse locations for grid points lying just after the edge of the acquisition.
- The accuracy of the tile sensing time reported in the tile metadata will be improved, by computing for each tile the average acquisition time of all relevant pixels. The new tile sensing time will be reported in the field General_Info/SENSING_TIME of the Tile Metadata without format change.
- The detector footprint vector files will provide the precise location of the boundary between detectors, without overlap. Such improvement will allow the users to have an accurate estimation of the viewing direction for each pixel.
- The correlated across-track noise currently visible on very dark images will be significantly reduced thanks to an improved radiometric correction algorithm.
The Sentinel-2 products featuring this update will start being disseminated on 06 November 2018, and will tag the new Processing Baselines 02.07 for L1C products and 02.10 for L2A products.
It is highlighted that the format of the L1C and L2A products generated with the new Processing Baselines remains compliant with the current version of the Product Specification Document (PSD v14.5), while an updated description of the new Tile Sensing time field of the Tile Metadata will be included as part of the next issue of the Product Specification Document.
Please note that the SNAP software is aligned to the new Processing Baselines as well.