True surface color and air haze over land (Sentinel-3B)
What it measures. The true color of the land surface (corrected for atmospheric effects) plus information about haze and tiny airborne particles over land.
How it's made. Made by combining two instruments on Sentinel-3B — the OLCI color imager and the SLSTR temperature radiometer — into a single Level-2 product on a shared image grid.
How & where you'd use it. Supports land monitoring, vegetation studies, and aerosol research by giving a cleaned-up view of what the ground actually looks like along with the air conditions above it.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2019-12-17 → ongoing
- Measured bySentinel-3B (SLSTR, OLCI)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- FormatsnetCDF-4
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The OLCI+SLSTR/Sentinel-3B L2 Surface Reflectance and Aerosol parameters over Land product with shortname S3A_SY_2_SYN, is generated by combining data acquired by the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) and the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR), on-board SENTINEL-3. The OLCI is a push-broom imaging spectrometer that measures solar radiation reflected by the Earth at a ground spatial resolution of around 300m, over all surfaces, in 21 spectral bands whereas the SLSTR is a dual scan temperature radiometer. The principal objective of SLSTR products is to provide global and regional Sea and Land Surface Temperature (SST, LST) to a very high level of accuracy (better than 0.3 K) for both climatological and meteorological applications. For more information about the instrument and the mission, visit [Sentinel Online](https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/home/). The S3B_SY_2_SYN is a Level 2 product which consist of surface reflectances for all SYN channels and aerosol parameters over Land. There are 29 Measurement Data Files and 9 Annotation Data Files included in this product. All measurement datasets are provided on the OLCI image grid, similar to the one included in the OLCI L1b product. For more information about the product, read the SENTINEL-3 Synergy [User Guide](https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/user-guides/sentinel-3-synergy).
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="S3B_SY_2_SYN",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from LAADSBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.