Level 2A data

These data contain the TOA reflectance observations per segment. The Level 2A data are based on the Level 1C data, which are projected to WGS84. In addition, cloud, cloud shadow, and snow/ice masking are applied and quality flags are added to the data. See the PROBA-V PUM for more details on the above-mentioned detection algorithms.

Nominal Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance

The nominal Collection 1 Level 2A data are globally available as HDF5 and GeoTiff for PROBA-V’s entire operational phase (15 October 2013 - 30 June 2020).

Antarctica TOA reflectance

As a result of expressed user interest, it was decided to extend the PROBA-V observations over Antarctica and the surrounding sea ice areas during austral summer (November through February) and to provide these observations to users as additional Level 2A (Top-of-Atmosphere reflectance) products. The data are provided in Polar Stereographic Projection (EPSG:3031) at 100 m, 300 m, and 1 km resolution, see Figure 2 for an example. It is noted that the cloud detection algorithm is less accurate over the Antarctic continent, as a result of both the low solar elevation at these high latitudes and the high-reflective snow- and ice-covered surface. Further, similar to northern hemisphere high-latitude observations, no atmospheric correction is applied, due to its increasing inaccuracy at these large solar zenith angles.

Antarctica data

Figure 2: Example of the PROBA-V Level 2A Antarctica data product. The small image on the left indicates the number of orbits that were required to cover the entire continent. Note that the data products also contain observations over the surrounding sea ice, which are not visualised in this example.

The PROBA-V Antarctica observations were performed during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons for the following periods:

24 October 2017 - 27 February 2018
12 November 2018 - 18 February 2019

Please note that in the upcoming Collection 2 (expected Q1 2023), no Antarctica data will be included.