SAF Official Service Name

Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA)

LSA SAF website

SAF Objectives

The aim of the LSA SAF is to take full advantage of remotely sensed data on land, land-atmosphere interactions and biosphere applications. A strong emphasis is put on developing and implementing algorithms that will allow an operational use of data from EUMETSAT satellites. The LSA SAF system, centralised at Instituto Português do Mar e Atmosfera (IPMA), Portugal, generates, archives and disseminates, on an operational basis, a set of parameters involved in the surface radiation budget, evapotranspiration, vegetation cover and and fire-related products.

The LSA SAF addresses a wide user community, ranging from surface processes modelling e.g. Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP), seasonal forecasting and climate models to agriculture and forestry applications e.g. fire hazards, food production and hydrology. Users benefit from products generated from a reliable observing system, designed to ensure long-term operations.

The life cycle of EUMETSAT satellites, and the participation of LSA SAF consortium members in geoland, a European Union (EU) Framework VI project and a prototype for the land component of GMES, put the LSA SAF in a privileged position as a product/service provider for international programmes, such as Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), Global Earth Observations (GEO), Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES, an EU and European Space Agency Programme).

SAF Leader and Consortium

Leading Entity
Instituto Português do Mar e Atmosfera (IPMA), Portugal

Consortium Members
	Météo-France (M-F), France		Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI), Belgium		Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH — IMK, Germany
	Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), University of Lisbon, Portugal		University of Valencia (UV), Spain		VITO, Belgium
	King's College London, United Kingdom

SAF Phases

Development Phase: September 1999–December 2004
Initial Operations Phase: January 2005–February 2007
Continuous Development and Operations Phase: March 2007–February 2012
Second Continuous Development and Operations Phase: March 2012–February 2017

SAF input satellite data

The following satellite data sources are used to generate LSA SAF products:

• MSG (SEVIRI)
• Metop (AVHRR, ASCAT)
• NOAA (AVHRR)

SAF products

The products provided by the SAF on Land Surface Analysis are related to the surface energy and water budget. See the Product Navigator for detailed information on the LSA SAF products.

SAF topology and architecture

The LSA SAF operational system is fully centralised at IPMA, Portugal, where all products are generated and archived. Users may access products offline, or in near real time via EUMETCast. Offline requests may be sent to the EUMETSAT Data Centre, or directly to the LSA SAF website.

SAF user community

The design of LSA SAF products was initially driven by the needs of the meteorological, particularly NWP, community. There is, however, a growing number of other important areas, including agricultural and forestry applications, land use, and the broader topics of climate and environment monitoring.