The European Meteorological Satellite Organization (EUMETSAT) maintains a number of decentralized processing centers dedicated to different scientific themes. The Portuguese Meteorological Institute hosts the Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF). The primary objective of the LSA-SAF is to provide value added products for the meteorological and environmental science communities with main applications in the fields of climate modeling, environmental management, natural hazards management, and climate change detection. Since 2005 data from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite are routinely processed in near real time by the LSA-SAF operational system. Nowadays, the delivered products comprise land surface albedo and temperature, shortwave and long-wave downwelling radiation fluxes, and vegetation parameters. Météo-France is in charge of the shortwave radiation products, namely the land surface albedo and the downwelling shortwave surface flux (DSSF). After more than ten years (1999-2012) of research, development, and progressive operational activities, a summary of the characteristics and performances of the albedo and DSSF products is presented. Also, the relevance of the LSA-SAF albedo product is assessed through a weather forecast model (ALADIN) in order to account for the inter-annual spatial and temporal variability. The added value brought by the use of LSA-SAF shortwave and longwave products is also diagnosed through SURFEX Land Surface Model simulations with the surface temperature, the water content and the energy fluxes. The LSA-SAF program provides a great opportunity to monitor and identify human-induced climate change as a consistent production of data sets is guaranteed until at least 2019 with the forthcoming MSG-3 mission.