Fire and ice: an assessment of Landsat 7/ETM+ acquisitions over glaciers, volcanoes, Antarctica and sea ice

With the successful deployment of its spacecraft, Landsat 7 is achieving unprecedented worldwide coverage toward its goal of acquiring and periodically refreshing a global archive of sunlit, substantially cloud-free images. There are many science niche communities benefiting from satellite remote sensing observations in support of their research objectives. Landsat 7 has granted special consideration to regions of scientific interest, including volcanoes, glaciers, and sea ice extents. This paper presents the state of the Landsat 7 archive of imagery of volcanoes, glaciers, sea ice, and Antarctica after nearly 10 months of operation. The summary of coverage includes the average and best image quality and frequency of coverage for each of these study areas.