Aircraft and radar antenna help test instruments for space missionOctober 20, 1998The CLRC Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire has been host to scientists from the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands who have been testing radar and lidar instruments on board three separate aircraft, together with many ground-based instruments, to test the feasibility for a future European space mission which will gather data from space on clouds. Scientists are concerned about global warming - the latest prediction suggests that within 100 years the UK will have warmed up by a significant three degrees. "This mission will help scientists understand how cloud cover might affect this warming process globally", explains Dr Anthony Illingworth from the University of Reading, coordinator of the project. "We need to understand more about clouds. If there are more clouds in a future climate, they will reduce the predicted warming by reflecting more sunlight back to space. We need information on the different layers within clouds, whether they are formed from ice crystals or droplets of water, and we need to know the size of the droplets and the structure of the ice crystals.. The instruments we intend to use on the space mission will give us this information, and the project here at Chilbolton will determine how we best use these instruments." Patrick Wursteisen from the European Space Agency (ESA) explained the next step.
"The data acquired during this activity are considered by ESA as an essential step to deciding, next year, whether the space mission will go ahead". Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) | |||||||||||||||||||||
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