Open Access to Earth Observation, Meteorology, and Ocean Data on the Atlantic Cloud

The AIR Centre is making geospatial data from across the Atlantic basin freely available — satellite imagery, meteorological observations, and ocean science products — through a set of services that require nothing more than a web browser to start using.

The simplest way in requires no account at all. The EO Catalog browser at services.aircentre.org/eo-catalog/collections lets anyone browse, filter, and download Earth observation data received at the AIR Centre’s Direct Receiving Station (DRS) in the Azores. The catalogue currently holds 14 MODIS collections — including raw granules (MYD01), chlorophyll-a, cloud mask, cloud top properties, and land surface temperature — with bounding box and date range filters and direct download links. No registration, no API key, no application process. The Internal Waves Service public map at services.aircentre.org/iw/map offers the same open access to a growing global dataset of oceanic internal solitary wave detections from Sentinel-1 SAR imagery.

For programmatic access, the Data Access Gateway at services.aircentre.org/access provides free API keys and a single dashboard for all available services: the Meteorology API serving observations from over 21,700 stations across Portugal and Brazil, and the EO Catalog API — an OGC Records-compliant REST interface to the same satellite data collections available in the browser. Registration is free and immediate.

For users working in Julia, AtlanticCloud.jl — registered in the Julia General Registry — wraps the APIs in typed functions with DataFrame conversion and GeoInterface.jl spatial interoperability. The package currently covers the Meteorology API, with EO Catalog and Internal Waves Service integration planned.

This is a work in progress. The collections will grow as more data flows through the DRS Station and as additional Atlantic Cloud services come online. The infrastructure is designed to expand — new datasets slot into the same catalogue, the same APIs, and the same client tools. What is already available is open and free to use, and we welcome feedback as the platform develops.

Browse (no account needed):