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EarthCARE is the largest and most complex Earth Explorer developed within ESA’s Earth Observation FutureEO program. This mission comes at a critical time and will make important contributions to improved understanding of cloud convection and its role in the Earth’s radiation budget. EarthCARE is equipped with four state-of-the-art instruments, each designed to provide unique insights into the complex interactions between clouds, aerosols, and radiation.Credit: ESA/ATG Media Lab
ESA’s Global Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Exploration Mission will take to the skies in about six months to advance our understanding of the interactions between clouds, aerosols and radiation in Earth’s atmosphere. But how exactly does that happen?
Clouds remain one of the biggest uncertainties about how the atmosphere drives the climate system. A better understanding of the relationship between clouds, aerosols, and radiation is a top priority in both climate research and weather prediction.
For example, what happens to infrared radiation when it is emitted from the Earth’s surface and captured by clouds? What role do aerosols play in reflecting solar radiation back into space? And how do these processes affect climate and weather? What impact will it have?
The Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission will provide new observations to answer some of these important scientific questions. EarthCARE is equipped with four state-of-the-art instruments, each designed to provide unique insights into the complex interactions between clouds, aerosols, and radiation.
atmosphere rider
The Atmospheric Lidar is an advanced lidar (light detection and ranging) system designed to measure the vertical profile of aerosols and clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere along the EarthCARE track. By emitting light pulses and analyzing the reflected signals, this unique LIDAR can accurately provide aerosol and cloud distribution and properties, including altitude, thickness, detailed optical properties and aerosol type . This information is important for improving climate models and understanding the role of aerosols and clouds in the Earth’s energy balance.
cloud profiling radar
The cloud profiling radar provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is a key instrument that allows EarthCARE to observe the internal structure of clouds. Cloud profiling radars operating in the millimeter wavelength range penetrate clouds and light precipitation, providing detailed insight into cloud vertical structure and velocity, particle size distribution, and moisture content. This radar is essential for studying cloud processes such as cloud formation and dissipation, contributing valuable data to improving weather and climate models.
multispectral imager
While LIDAR and radar provide a profile of the atmosphere in a fairly thin curtain directly beneath the satellite, EarthCARE’s multispectral imager provides a much wider field of view to give context to profile measurements.
Multispectral imagers capture high-resolution images in multiple spectral bands in the visible and infrared spectra. This allows scientists to distinguish between different types of clouds, aerosols, and land surfaces.
This imager provides additional information about the optical properties of clouds and aerosols and helps characterize their composition and distribution. Additionally, atmospheric lidar and cloud profiling radar data will be able to be used to generate three-dimensional cloud and aerosol fields. These data are critical to understanding the radiative effects of clouds and aerosols on the Earth’s climate system.
broadband radiometer
Broadband radiometers play a key role in EarthCARE’s mission by measuring the radiant flux at the top of Earth’s atmosphere. As the satellite moves along its orbit, the radiometer observes the atmosphere from three directions and can accurately quantify the amount of solar radiation reflected and the amount of outward thermal radiation emitted by the Earth.
This is known as the Earth’s energy balance. Comparing this with radiation calculated from combined observations from other instruments will help scientists improve our current understanding of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions.
Together, these four instruments form a powerful suite of tools that provide unprecedented observations of Earth’s atmosphere. The data generated by EarthCARE’s instruments will significantly contribute to advancing knowledge about climate processes and illuminate the complex interactions between clouds, aerosols, and radiation in Earth’s atmosphere.
The largest and most complex Earth exploration mission
EarthCARE is the largest and most complex Earth Explorer developed within ESA’s Earth Observation FutureEO program. This mission comes at a critical moment in the development of kilometer-scale resolution, global climate models and will provide important contributions to improved understanding of cloud convection and its role in the Earth’s radiation budget.
EarthCARE is an ESA mission, but it was developed as a collaboration between ESA and Japan’s space agency, JAXA.
As the international scientific community awaits valuable data from the EarthCARE satellite, researchers and experts in the field gathered at the ESA Earth Observation Center in Frascati, Italy, to discuss EarthCARE scientific topics and the validation of mission data. Presented and discussed.
As the launch of EarthCARE approaches, excitement is growing throughout the community. The mission’s central role of securing long-term climate-related datasets in synergy with past and future missions was also clearly identified.
