Copernicus Sentinel-2 Data From A Card4L Perspective: Preliminary Self-Assessment Performed by Esa

The more high-quality Earth Observation (EO) data are available to users, the more their potential applications increase in number. This is boosting the request for EO data already processed to a minimum set of requirements and needing limited pre-processing steps in order to be used, also when distributed by different EO data providers. The Analysis Ready Data (ARD) concept has been conceived, and a large effort is being made at international levels in order to converge towards a common definition. In this context, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), with its member Agencies and institution, has worked to define the CEOS ARD for Land (CARD4L) specifications. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 Level-2A product has undergone a self-assessment process performed by the European Space Agency (ESA) aimed at preliminary assessing its compliance status with respect to the CARD4L specifications for optical surface reflectance.