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UK invests in monitoring the health of the planet

27 November 2008

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) welcomes the news of the UK's £82m investment in the European Space Agency's flagship Global Monitoring for Environment & Security (GMES) programmes, and the announcement of a new ESA facility to be based in the UK.

Professor Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive of NERC, said, "I'm very pleased that the negotiations on the second segment of the GMES space component have had such a positive outcome. GMES and the associated Essential Climate Variables programme will provide vital observations of environmental change, informing UK policies. The new UK ESA facility will have a climate change component, representing a real opportunity for the UK environmental science community."

The GMES programme consists of five families of satellites, called Sentinels, which will monitor our oceans, atmosphere, land surface and polar-regions. They will provide unique information on the causes and impacts of changes to sea-level, glaciers, land cover, soil moisture, forest biomass, ocean circulation and atmospheric composition.

The Global Monitoring of Essential Climate Variables programme will provide data on a range of key climate and environmental parameters needed to inform the development of the policy agenda within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is envisaged that the new UK ESA facility will play an important role in the programme's implementation.

GMES has been developed by ESA and the European Commission to pull together all Earth observation data gathered from space and from non-space sensor networks on Earth. The programme is crucial to the understanding of how our climate is changing and for predicting and reducing the impact of natural disasters. It will provide the scientific evidence needed for policy-makers to develop environment and climate policies in Europe and globally.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Notes

1. The proposed centre could be based at Harwell in Oxfordshire, the site of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. An ESA centre would be a further boost to climate and environmental research in the UK and would develop close links with the National Centre for Earth Observation - funded by NERC and officially launched in 2009.

2. NERC manages the UK's Earth observation budget and invests more than £40m in ESA projects annually, primarily Earth observation satellites. This investment helps make the UK the fourth largest investor in ESA.

3. NERC is a member of the British National Space Centre (BNSC), which is at the heart of UK efforts to explore and exploit space. BNSC is a partnership of seven Government Departments, two Research Councils, the Met Office and the Technology Strategy Board. It co-ordinates UK civil space activities and represents the UK at the European Space Agency.

Press release: 61/08