14 DAY TRIAL // Given the large-scale variability of global warming and climate change, understanding these phenomena is not easy without comprehensive computer models, that include a vast amount of data. Satellite data are absolutely critical to this scientific endeavor, experts argue.
The the 2010 UN Climate Summit, which was held in Cancun, Mexico, officials from 193 countries around the world met up to discuss issues related to how to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Analysts agree that the conference in itself was a failure, similar to last year's one. Even if Cancun delegates did sign an greenhouse gas emissions reduction agreement, the document still sets the world on a path that will see it warming by no less than 3.2 degrees Celsius.
The general consensus is that a temperature rise exceeding 2 degrees Celsius will move the planet beyond a tipping point, making mitigation of global warming side-effects impossible.
At the Cancun meeting, the role that satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) in providing data for climate models has been underlined again. This happened at a side event focused on the agency's Climate Change Initiative (CCI).
What ESA is most interested in are robust long-term global records of essential climate variables, which can then be correlated with each other to produce viable long-term climate models.
“Monitoring sea-level rise from space using altimeter satellites is very important; we know that sea level is currently rising in response to global warming, and that the rate is accelerating,” said Dr Anny Cazenave.
“Sea level will continue to rise in the future. But how much? We don't know,” added Cazenave, who is a senior scientist at Laboratoire d'Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiale, in France.
“Climate model projections are still very uncertain, mostly because the future behavior of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets is unknown,” she went on to say, quoted by SpaceRef.
“The ESA Sea Level CCI project will contribute to constraining climate models used for sea-level projections, to quantify current acceleration rates and, eventually, to detect the anthropogenic warming signature,” the expert argued.
Data obtained through the CCI are sent to the Global Climate Observing System, which is one of the main tools used by the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) of the United Nations in constructing its reports.
“ESA is now working with key climate modeling centers in Europe to bring together the satellite and climate modeling communities to realie the full benefits of satellite data for improving climate predictions,” said Roger Saunders.
The expert is a senior Earth Observation scientist at the UK Met Office Hadley Center.