Ice cracked

One of the first images from Sentinel-3A’s Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) shows a long crack running through the ice shelf to the east of the centre part of the Antarctic Peninsula. The crack is about 2 km wide, but widens to 4 km or more in some places. There are also finer cracks and structures visible in the ice shelf.  Structure in the cloud, cloud shadows and details of the land emerging from the ice can also be seen. The image was acquired on 3 March 2016 at 11:53 GMT with the instrument’s visible channel. As the SLSTR scans Earth’s surface, it senses visible light and infrared light (heat) in a number of different spectral channels. The thermal infrared channels will soon be working when the instrument has finished outgassing water vapour.  This is necessary because the infrared channels must be cooled to operate properly. The SLSTR will measure global sea- and land-surface temperatures every day to an accuracy of better than 0.3ºC.