The European Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, analyzed 15,000 ERS, Envisat (both European) and Radarsat (Canada) images of oil spills from the past four years. The goal was to analyze their effectiveness in
identifying oil spills. The news is mixed. The image analyses were compared to eye witness accounts, aerial images and other data. The images returned quite a number of false positives and failed to identify oil just below the surface of the water. Guido Ferraro, a JRC oil-spill program manager, put it this way, УPrices are still too high for the final users.Ф