Satellite tools for disaster and climate investigation

Block

03 · Verification & Forensics

Topic

Climate & Disaster

Tools

Copernicus Browser · FIRMS · Copernicus EMS · Meteostat · NOAA

Difficulty

Intermediate

Prerequisites

Archive recovery: deleted and ephemeral content.

Satellite and meteorological records let you verify what happened, where and when

Climate and disaster journalism depends on evidence that is independent of any official account. Open satellite archives, fire detection systems, emergency mapping services and long-run weather datasets give investigators the tools to establish ground truth from remote sensing data.

Climate and disaster investigation combines geolocation, chronolocation and data forensics: establishing what a physical event looked like from above, when it occurred, how severe it was relative to historical baselines, and whether official accounts match the observable record. All of this is achievable using freely available satellite imagery, meteorological archives and government datasets.

In the field

The Washington Post published before-and-after satellite imagery of Derna, Libya within a day of the September 2023 flooding, documenting how Storm Daniel breached two upstream dams and drowned neighbourhoods. Matching imagery published independently by Reuters and AP corroborated the scale of destruction while ground access remained cut off.

Before-and-after comparison. Sentinel-2 and commercial imagery before and after the flood established dam failure and flood extent independent of official statements.
Cross-outlet corroboration. Matching Planet Labs and Sentinel-2 imagery independently published by Reuters and AP corroborated the findings.
Independent damage scale. Satellite assessment gave newsrooms a damage baseline while phone and road access remained cut off.

The Washington Post · Derna, Libya flood satellite imagery · September 2023

Learning outcomes

By the end of this tutorial you will be able to:

Retrieve and compare satellite imagery before and after a climate or disaster event using Copernicus Browser and Copernicus EMS
Query NASA FIRMS to establish fire locations, timing and intensity for a defined area and time window
Pull historical meteorological data from NOAA and Meteostat to contextualise an extreme weather event against multi-year baselines
Map infrastructure damage and flood extent using Copernicus Emergency Management Service rapid mapping products
Document satellite and meteorological evidence to evidentiary standard with source attribution

The rest of this tutorial is for Signal subscribers.

What remains: the decision framework, the tool configuration, the failure modes, and the evidentiary standard required to use the finding defensibly. Signal is €90 a year, or €9 a month. Students, €49 a year.

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Climate and disaster investigation workflows

Satellite and meteorological records let you verify what happened, where and when

Learning outcomes

The rest of this tutorial is for Signal subscribers.

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