Monitoring Earth’s climate
Some of the key missions helping to keep track of the planet’s vital stats across land, air and sea
TEMPO, NASA & Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will fly aboard a commercial satellite and measure the daily variations in air quality over North America. Expected to launch in 2022, it will assess concentrations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and other chemicals from a geostationary orbit to track emissions and improve air-quality forecasts.
GRACE-FO, NASA & German Research Centre for Geosciences
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission is a pair of satellites launched in 2018 to monitor Earth’s water. GRACE-FO picks up where GRACE left off, providing an indication of climate variability by measuring small changes in the planet’s gravity field that correspond to the amount of water in lakes, rivers, oceans, ice sheets and the ground.
Copernicus Sentinel fleet, ESA Europe’s growing stable of Earth-monitoring satellites currently comprises six missions (Sentinel-1, -2, -3, -4, -5P and -6), but will grow over the coming years with the launches of Sentinel 5 and further expansion missions, including OCO-2. Monitoring everything from soil moisture, water quality and land cover to surface temperature, sea level, air quality and pollution, they provide key information on Earth’s changing climate.
Suomi NPP, NASA
Launched in 2011, the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite collects a range of data to improve weather forecasting and provide insights into climate change.
It has five instruments that monitor changes in vegetation productivity, atmospheric ozone, sea and land surface temperatures, as well as monitoring glaciers, sea ice, land ice and natural disasters around the world.