Click to watch the video about climate change
To better understand and predict climate global change it is important to measure the surface ocean and the thickness of the ice caps on a regular basis, whilst the study of soil humidity provides valuable complimentary information. As Europe works to meet the Kyoto protocol on air pollution, we need to appraise the effects of greenhouse gases.
Over both past decades, Thales Alenia Space has been the prime contractor of all the following space altimeters:
- Poseidon 1, 2, 3 and Jason 1, 2 for monitoring the oceans
- Radar altimeter 1 (ERS 1 & 2 missions) & Radar altimeter 2 (Envisat mission) for monitoring the oceans
- SIRAL (Cryosat mission) for monitoring the ice caps
- AltiKa (SRAL mission) for monitoring the oceans
- Our sounder, IASI, is helping us to better understand the atmosphere, whilst CALIPSO is studying clouds and aerosols
- Thanks to SMOS, we are able to study the humidity of the soils and ocean salinity
- GOCE measures the gravity fi eld and ocean circulation
- MERIS is providing precise spectral information about the land, the atmosphere and the oceans.