A new Envisat viewing mode means that icebergs can be routinely tracked on their long trek around Antarctica, with regularly updated images of polar regions now available to highlight ice movements.
The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument on ESA's Envisat can see through the polar storms and winter darkness that keep Antarctica hidden from optical satellite sensors. ASAR works in a variety of different modes: its latest, operational since February, is called Global Monitoring Mode (GMM). "With this innovative mode, ESA provides for the first time the capability to image the full Earth with SAR data on a regular basis. As a priority, GMM data are acquired over polar areas, and then over the other continents”, explained José Achache, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes.