The Climate Change Initiative will implement all actions necessary to generate essential climate variables, including long-term data preservation, periodic reprocessing of the long-term climate archive, recalibration, algorithm development, product generation and validation, and quality assessment of climate records in the context of climate models.
These activities will be implemented by ESA, in partnership with key users (GCOS, UNFCCC), space agencies, relevant players in the field of climate change research and monitoring (EC, WMO, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), EUMETSAT and national programmes).
At the event, Gilberto Camara, Director of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) and CEOS Chair, described how space agencies are supporting climate observations in areas like greenhouse-gas and forest monitoring.
"Operational monitoring of climate using Earth observation is essential. This cannot be done alone. Therefore, there is a need for space agencies to coordinate and work together," Camara said. "Earth observation is the area that has increased the most in terms of budgets in the last few years and will increase more in the years to come. The 'data democracy' needs to reach the masses."
Carolin Richter, Director of GCOS Secretariat, also underscored the need for getting data to developing countries, saying she would like to see the objective for the free exchange of data achieved.
ESA's Head of the Earth Observation Projects Section, Olivier Arino, presented the Agency's fleet of Earth-observing satellites, including the Earth Explorers and Sentinels, and explained how data from these can contribute to studies on the global carbon cycle, sea-level height and temperatures and sea ice
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| Contact: Robert Meisner robert.meisner@esa.int 39-069-418-0874 European Space Agency Source:Eurekalert |