This animation (the full animated gif can be viewed on the www.eijournal.com homepage) was created using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission’s radiometer instrument and shows the land-surface temperature across Italy on July 9-10, 2023. On the slopes of Mount Etna, in Sicily, as well as in the region of Puglia, surface temperatures surpassed 47°C.
It’s worth noting the difference between air temperature and land-surface temperature. Air temperature, given in our daily weather forecasts, is a measure of how hot the air is above the ground. Land-surface temperature instead is a measure of how hot the actual surface would feel to the touch.
Image Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA
