San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the US state of California. Almost 100 km in length, it is surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area and is dominated by the large cities of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland.
Recently, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured an incredible view of Francisco Bay in the US state of California. The densely populated urban areas around the bay contrast strongly with the surrounding green forest and park areas.
In the upper right of the picture, the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers is visible– with the brown, sediment-filled water streaming down into San Pablo Bay. Here, the murky waters mix before flowing into the larger bay area, which is associated with the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate strait. An enormous dregs tuft can be seen traveling westward into the Pacific in the left of the image.
The Golden Gate Bridge can also be seen in this image. It is visible crossing the opening of the bay into the Pacific Ocean between Marin County and the city of San Francisco – which can be seen at the tip of the southern peninsula in the center of the image. Treasure, Angel, and Alcatraz islands can be seen sticking out of the waters of the bay, with several bridges connecting its east and west shores. Several boats are also visible.
The bright green and yellow colors in the bottom right of the image indicate salt ponds. They are part of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.
The Refuge spanned 30,000 acres, of the open bay, salt pond, salt marsh, mudflat, upland and vernal pool habitats located throughout south San Francisco Bay.
Sentinel-2 is an Earth observation mission from the Copernicus Programme that systematically acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolution (10 m to 60 m) over land and coastal waters. The mission is a constellation with two twin satellites, Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B.
The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in water bodies to be closely monitored.