An instrument, carried on the International Space Station, has captured the recent land-surface temperature extremes for some European cities, including Milan, Paris and Prague.

While these images offer little direct consolation for those suffering the burden of heat, they are helping by providing geospatial information to mitigate effects of heatwaves in the future through planning and managing water resources more efficiently.

For ESA, this particular instrument, which is called ECOSTRESS and owned by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is important because it is helping in the development of a new Copernicus Sentinel satellite: the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM) mission.

ESA is using the instrument to simulate the data that will eventually be returned by LSTM, which will provide systematic measurements of the temperature of the land surface, promising to be a game-changer for urban planners and farmers, for example.

Both space agencies are working together closely to make most use out of the two missions in a synergetic manner, including JPL's Surface Biology and Geology mission.

In fact, this collaboration is part of the overall objective of working together to lead a response to climate change—the NASA–ESA Framework Agreement for a Strategic Partnership in Earth System Science, which was signed recently.