Newsletter #8

Newsletter #8 - April 30th, 2025
News from OSI SAF
Dear users, colleagues and partners,

Since last newsletter, a lot has happen for the OSI SAF team. We are preparing the next phase of our project, GOES-East satellite have seen a satellite replacement, we had a new release of our Global Sea-Ice Emissivity and our Global Low Resolution Sea-Ice Drift products...

It was already time for us to present all these things in a newsletter. Here comes then our latest news!
Latest stories
Preparation meetings for the next OSI SAF phase
Since its creation back in 1997, the development of the OSI SAF has been organised in project phases. A new project phase will start in March 2027. These latest months, our team has then come together to start planning the future developments of products.
Read the full story
Who is using OSI SAF products?

In December 2024 and January 2025, we've been monitoring the usages done of our products. This is an endless process, and we will keep on with it. Moreover we are probably just touching the iceberg's emerged tip, however it allows us to have a better idea of who our users are.

Read the full story 		logo of institutions using our products for forecasting purposes
Latest publications
2025 / De Jager & Vichi

De Jager, W. and Vichi, M.: Increased Rotational Coupling Between Antarctic Sea Ice and the Atmosphere Over the Last 30 Years, JGR Oceans, 130, e2024JC021239, 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JC021239
2025 / Li et al.

Li, S., Verhoef, A., and Stoffelen, A.: WindRAD Scatterometer Quality Control in Rain, Remote Sensing, 17, 560, 2025.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17030560
2025 / Ni et al.

Ni, W., Stoffelen, A., Ren, K., Vogelzang, J., Yanlai, Z., and Xiaofeng, Y.: Enhanced Tropical Cyclone ASCAT Winds Guided by SAR-Learned Spatial Structure Functions, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 63, 1–19, 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2024.3516209
2024 / Cocetta et al.

Cocetta, F., Zampieri, L., Selivanova, J., and Iovino, D.: Assessing the representation of Arctic sea ice and the marginal ice zone in ocean–sea ice reanalyses, The Cryosphere, 18, 4687–4702, 2024.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4687-2024
What's up ?

Improved version of Sea Ice products

In early March 2025, we've released new versions of two near real time Sea Ice products:

  • Global Sea-Ice Emissivity (OSI-404-b). This update includes the addition of an effective temperature variable, and an horizontally polarized emissivity variable (in addition to the vertical one). It includes as well a separation of status flag for input and output (previously only one),  and offers to users more flexibility by providing the coefficients and equations used. Additionally the output format has been upgraded to NetCDF4.
  • Global Low Resolution Sea-Ice Drift (OSI-405-d). The main changes are the output format (updated to NetCDF4), the replacement of Metop-B/ASCAT by Metop-C/ASCAT data and the use of Python for the gridding rather than C language.

A new satellite in GOES-East position

On Friday 7th April, GOES-16 was replaced by GOES-19 on GOES-East position. As a consequence, our product catalogue evolved:

  • Our SST products using GOES-16 data (OSI-207-b) has been superseded on 07/04/2025 and operationnaly replaced by a new product using GOES-19 data (OSI-207-c). This new product has the same caracteristics than the previous one. The algorithm might be adjusted in the following months.
  • Our Radiative Fluxes products using GOES-16 data - GOES-East Downward Longwave Irradiance (OSI-305-b) and GOES-East Surface Solar Irradiance (OSI-306-b) were both discontinued.

For more information on these changes, please consult the service messages #3221 and #3232, or contact our helpdesk.

New Sea Surface Temperature product

In December 2024, the first Meteosat Third Generation (MTG-I) became operational and took the name of Meteosat-12. Our Sea Surface Temperature team is working hard on a geostationnary product based on this new satellite. Our Level 3 MTG/FCI Sea Surface Temperature will be a continuation of the current Meteosat 0° products. Higher resolution product(s) will follow.

Future product suspension

We have been assessing the usage of the OSI SAF Medium Resolution Sea Ice Drift (OSI-407-a). The result of this assessement lead us to consider suspending the dissemination on 19/05/2025. For more information about this planned suspension, see the Service Message #3236
please contact our helpdesk.
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