Here is an interesting news item that I thought would be of interest …
The European Commissioner for Climate Action, during a hearing held earlier in Belgium this week reported that observations from space are an essential tool for monitoring, fighting and adapting to climate change.
It is the intent of the Commissioner for the new DG Climate Action that Europe will be the most climate friendly region in the world thanks to the role that space observations can play with climate change. With climate change as a main priority, Commissioner Hedegaard to develop a joint strategy on space and climate, and has invited experts from the space sector to provide inputs for consultation.
The Sentinel satellites that the ESA are developing provide the data necessary to make annually updated worldwide land cover maps. These maps are essential for the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program. For more information, read the press release story on the European Space Observation website.
ESA’s Climate Change Initiative makes full use of Europe’s Earth observation space assets, including the GMES Sentinel missions. Through this new strategy, long-term datasets on key indicators of climate change will be systematically generated and preserved. This provides Europe with a powerful tool to monitor the state of the climate system and to help predict the effects that a changing climate may bring.
