National Centre for Earth Observation awarded renewed investment in national research capabilities
The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), hosted by the University of Leicester, has announced that it has secured five years of investment in its environmental science research capabilities through the NERC’s National Capability Single Centre Science and National Public Good initiatives. The award was announced today by Science Minister Lord Vallance, as part of £101 million support for the work of leading UK environmental research centres including NCEO.
The £8.6M awarded to the National NCEO will deliver a programme of work translating multiscale Earth Observation data from novel, UK-supported satellites and models into global datasets, scientific knowledge and actionable information that benefits wider science, policy and business communities. It draws on decades of world-leading UK expertise and international collaboration to address the most urgent challenges (e.g., societal climate impacts) by understanding changes in the carbon cycle, air pollution and methane, energy & water cycles and their influence on disruptive events (e.g., wildfires).
NCEO is a distributed research centre with over 150 scientists located across the UK in 13 UK universities and research institutions. NCEO HQ and the Executive Director are based at Space Park Leicester and hosted by the University of Leicester.
Professor John Remedios, Executive Director of NCEO said: “This welcome investment gives a timely boost to the exploitation of new Earth-observing satellites, each of which is designed to meet important science and policy challenges connected to climate change. NCEO’s world-leading teams will work with the UK science and business community to derive unprecedented data with which to understand our planet, deliver on UK aspirations in space and provide value from UK-supported, Earth-focussed space missions. “
The National Centre for Earth Observation is NERC’s dedicated centre to the study and exploitation of remotely sensed Earth Observation data, principally from satellites. NCEO researchers work with colleagues across the (inter)national environmental science communities to develop and enhance EO data, translating the raw observations into scientific knowledge and actionable information that benefits wider UK science and policy. ‘Our vision is to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge about interactions in the Earth system, from locally observed processes to globally consistent analyses.’
The new funding will enable NCEO scientists to produce more accurate datasets which enable scientists to narrow down the predicted pathways for the next decades of climate change; to understand better the energy cycle and its imbalance which reflects climate change; to improve estimates of forest, ocean and atmosphere carbon amounts; study the way in which the atmosphere and its chemistry works on a global scale; improve weather and climate prediction; and underpin UK expertise at the heart of studies of wildfires.
In Leicester, NCEO scientists will focus on supporting transformational satellite missions which have just launched or are about to launch. Already staff are examining the latest data from the EarthCare satellite which arrived in orbit in May with its special capabilities in sensing clouds and aerosol. Next year, a team will work on tropical forests and the measurement of forest carbon change. In less than two years, staff at NCEO Leicester can look forward to four major satellite missions which will provide new data to investigate and respond to major environmental science challenges.
Professor Sarah Davies, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Science and Engineering at Leicester, added: “From monitoring methane emissions, forest carbon, wildfires and more, the National Centre for Earth Observation has been informing the response to the climate crisis for over a decade. This funding is fantastic recognition of the key role that NCEO plays in our sustainable future, and of the vital role of space technology and data in tackling climate change.”