Copernicus Sentinel-4

Monitoring air quality trace gases and aerosols

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Copernicus Sentinel-4 will monitor air quality, trace gases and aerosols over Europe at high spatial resolution every hour during the day.

Last Updated

09 March 2026

Published on

19 May 2020

Copernicus Sentinel-4 will monitor air quality, trace gases and aerosols over Europe at high spatial resolution every hour during the day.

The Sentinel-4 instrument, the Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared (UVN) spectrometer, is onboard EUMETSAT’s Meteosat Third Generation Sounder satellite (MTG-S), which was launched on 1 July 2025.

It will work with the onboard InfraRed Sounder (IRS) to monitor ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and other trace gases.

The data will be used by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and will support air quality, pollution and climate monitoring.

Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared (UVN)

The UVN is a spectrometer that measures in the ultraviolet (UV: 305–400nm), the visible (VIS: 400–500nm) and the near infrared (NIR: 750–775nm), with a spatial sampling resolution of around 8km.