ESA Satellite to Investigate Global Warming
Jülich/Paris, 25 September 2019 – The European Space Agency (ESA) announced yesterday that climate research will be the focus of its next Earth Explorer satellite mission. The FORUM satellite will conduct high-resolution spectral measurements of the light emitted into space by the Earth – focusing for the first time on wavelengths in the far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This previously unexplored part of the Earth’s radiation is responsible for about half of the planet’s radiative cooling as well as half of the greenhouse effect. That the mission was selected is partly thanks to Jülich scientists: their research, including balloon measurements performed during a campaign on the Zugspitze mountain in winter 2019, confirmed the project’s potential to make a significant contribution to climate science.