A Global Analysis of Sentinel-2A, Sentinel-2B and Landsat-8 Data Revisit Intervals and Implications for Terrestrial Monitoring

TLDR

Combining Landsat‑8, Sentinel‑2A, and Sentinel‑2B provides more frequent cloud‑free observations, offering 10–30 m global multispectral coverage and advancing the virtual constellation paradigm for mid‑resolution land imaging. The study presents a global analysis of 2016 Landsat‑8, Sentinel‑2A, and Sentinel‑2B metadata from the CEOS COVE tool. The authors use a global equal‑area grid of 0.05° to generate histograms, maps, and summary statistics of temporal revisit intervals and observation counts for each sensor and their combination. Combining the three sensors yields a significant improvement, with a global median revisit interval of 2.9 days, a median minimum interval of 14 min (±1 min), and a median maximum interval of 7.0 days over a year.

Abstract

Combination of different satellite data will provide increased opportunities for more frequent cloud-free surface observations due to variable cloud cover at the different satellite overpass times and dates. Satellite data from the polar-orbiting Landsat-8 (launched 2013), Sentinel-2A (launched 2015) and Sentinel-2B (launched 2017) sensors offer 10 m to 30 m multi-spectral global coverage. Together, they advance the virtual constellation paradigm for mid-resolution land imaging. In this study, a global analysis of Landsat-8, Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B metadata obtained from the committee on Earth Observation Satellite (CEOS) Visualization Environment (COVE) tool for 2016 is presented. A global equal area projection grid defined every 0.05° is used considering each sensor and combined together. Histograms, maps and global summary statistics of the temporal revisit intervals (minimum, mean, and maximum) and the number of observations are reported. The temporal observation frequency improvements afforded by sensor combination are shown to be significant. In particular, considering Landsat-8, Sentinel-2A, and Sentinel-2B together will provide a global median average revisit interval of 2.9 days, and, over a year, a global median minimum revisit interval of 14 min (±1 min) and maximum revisit interval of 7.0 days.