Climate change exacerbates droughts by making them more frequent, longer, and more severe. This can have a wide range of impacts on the environment, agriculture, ecosystems and communities including water scarcity, crop failure and food shortages.

The upcoming Copernicus Land Surface Temperature Monitoring, LSTM, mission will improve sustainable agricultural productivity in a world of increasing water scarcity and variability.

The mission will carry a high spatial-temporal resolution thermal infrared sensor to provide observations of land-surface temperature.

These data are key to understand and respond to climate variability, manage water resources for agricultural production, predict droughts and also to address land degradation.

LSTM is one of six Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions that ESA is developing on behalf of the EU. The missions will expand the current capabilities of the Copernicus Space Component – the world’s biggest supplier of Earth observation data.

This video features interviews with Ana Bolea Alamanac, LSTM Mission Project Manager, Ilias Manolis, LSTM Mission Payload Manager and Itziar Barat, LSTM Mission System and Operations Manager.

Access all "Unpacking Sentinels" videos.