The 2024 fire season has severely affected the Republic of North Macedonia.  According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), a component of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, more than 85,000 hectares have burned there since the beginning of the summer. In August, numerous wildfires blazed out of control across the...

On the northern coast of Poland lies the Hel Peninsula, a 35-kilometre-long sand bar extending into the Baltic Sea, which is visible in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired on 14 May 2024. This area is a popular tourist destination, owing to its picturesque beaches, dunes, and pine forests. The town of Hel, at the tip of the peninsula, is...

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, acquired on 2 September 2024, shows what appears, from space, to be a dragon. In fact, the “dragon” is the Odeleite River, which flows through the Algarve region of Portugal. The river is a tributary of the Guadiana River, which rises in the Serra do Caldeirão mountain range. In China, the dragon is a symbol of...

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has recently released its latest monthly Climate Bulletin, which highlights that August 2024 was the joint-warmest August globally (together with August 2023), with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 16.82°C, 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average for August.  This data visualisation, based on C3S...

This image, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 30 August 2024, shows vineyards in the Veneto region of Italy. This area is famous for its production of prosecco, a sparkling white wine. Europe is an indisputed leader when it comes to the wine industry, representing 62% of global production and trade. However, the...