Monitor the atmosphere and climate includes all change-focused services/applications which assess, monitor, forecast and provide timely, continuous and independent data (e.g. temperature, humidity, emissions, greenhouse gases, solar UV radiation, aorosols,...). It closely monitors each of the Earth's different subsystems and, besides being the basis for weather forecasts, helps to better understand and evaluate the impact of the climate change.
Monitoring the climate includes monitoring climate forcing and the carbon balance and assessing climate change risks.
Climate forcing describes the imbalance of the Earth’s energy budget due to natural or human-induced sources. This imbalance results in a change in the globally-averaged temperature. Amongst the contributors of positive climate forcing, that leads to an increase in the globally-averaged temperature, the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmospheric composition is considered to be the most important factor. Changes in the carbon dioxide concentration indicate that the exchanges between carbon sources and sinks are not balanced. It can be shown that human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide are responsible for the increase of the carbon dioxide since the industrialisation.
With EO, we can monitor changes in greenhouse gases (GHG), aeorosols, albedo, and solar radiation. The dynamic nature of the climate makes it necessary to apply equally dynamic EO monitoring that allows to deliver key information on historical, seasonal forecast and projection periods for climate-related indicators.
Relevant EO products include estimates of the climate forcing of aerosol, ozone and greenhouse gases. The dynamic nature of the climate makes it necessary to apply equally dynamic EO monitoring that allows to deliver key information on historical, seasonal forecast and projection periods for climate-related indicators.
The products are particularly relevant to the European energy sector in terms of electricity demand and the production of power from wind, solar and hydro sources.
Moreover, water management uses EO-derived information about climate change to mitigate effects of changing precipitation patterns to adapt their strategies, and to prepare for climate variability and change in the water sector, e.g. because of changes in river discharge, droughts and floods.
Finally, insurance uses climate change information for assessing the weather risks to insured assets that change with the climate-related increase in extreme weather conditions. This includes products like up-to-date catalogue of wind storms and their associated impacts on the ground.