Annex 5
EARTH OBSERVATION
RESEARCH RELATED
TO MARINE
SCIENCE
NERC provides the UK's subscription (~£34
million per annum) to the European Space Agency's (ESA) environmental
sciences programmes, namely the Earth Observation Envelope Programme
(EOEP) and Envisat/ERS operations, and a share of the UK's subscription
to the general budget, covering more cross-cutting functions (administration,
technology development, archiving, at around £7 million per
annum). NERC also contributes, with Defra, DTI and the MoD, to
phase one of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
Space Component Programme (GMES SCP, £2.2 million over three
years).
ESA's EOEP represents NERC's primary means of
procuring new satellite missions. EOEP mainly funds the development
and operation of innovative Earth Explorer science missions, providing
EO data in support of environmental science covering a broad range
of scientific subjects.[65]
The scientific objectives of EOEP, as identified in the ESA's
Strategy for EO,[66]
are substantially similar to those of NERC. NERC also supports
the operations of ERS-2 and Envisat, both carrying a wide range
of instruments monitoring various components of the Earth's environment.
The Envisat and ERS satellites carry a number
of instruments which provide oceanographic data, such as the radar
altimeter profiling the sea surface, an advanced along-track scanning
radiometer measuring sea-surface temperatures, and the medium
resolution imaging spectrometer capturing data about biological
activity of the oceans.
Scientists in NERC's Earth Observation Centres
of Excellence have extensively used these data. The Centre for
Observation of Air-Sea Interactions and Fluxes (CASIX) focuses
on improving our understanding of how air and sea interact and
measures the transport of carbon dioxide between sea and air on
a global scale. This will improve our knowledge of ocean circulation
models and the ocean carbon cycle in general. The Centre for Polar
Observation and Modelling (CPOM) focuses on investigating processes
of the Earth's polar climate in the atmosphere, cryosphere and
oceans, combining models and satellite and in-situ data.
Approved (but not yet launched) ESA Earth Explorer
missions of particular relevance to the oceans are the Gravity
Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) focussing
on measuring the Earth's gravity field and modelling the geoid;
the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission designed to
observe soil moisture over the Earth's landmasses and salinity
over the oceans; and CryoSat, investigating the extent to which
global climate change is causing the polar ice caps to shrink,
with potentially significant impacts on ocean circulation.
65 See www.esa.int/esaLP/ASEWGWNW9SC_LPearthexp_0.html
and www.esa.int/esaLP/ESADQ0UHN6D_LPfuturemis_0.html for further
details on the approved and candidate Explorer missions respectively. Back
66
See http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/SP-1234.pdf for ESA's Strategy
for EO. A follow-up document-"The Changing Earth-New Scientific
Challenges for ESA's Living Planet Programme"-is available
at http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/SP-1304.pdf Back
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