Spatiotemporal distribution of Landsat imagery of Europe using cloud cover-weighted metadata

Landsat imagery is the most frequently used remotely sensed data in many fields related to the monitoring of the Earth's surface. As Landsat satellites have gathered data since 1972, lots of valuable information has been stored and can be derived from imagery over a long time interval. Of course, due to certain factors such as weather conditions and satellite-related technical issues, data collection cannot be consistent in time and space. Cloud coverage is the most obvious condition that determines the usability of a remotely sensed satellite images. For successful results, a rich data supply is essential. To explore the data supply of a certain study area, the Landsat metadata can be checked which is usually an involved process especially for a long time interval. Therefore, the visualisation of Landsat metadata can result in a faster work flow and successful study area selection. In this paper we present a cloud cover-weighted metadata map for the area of Europe.