Title: EarthCARE: to understand how clouds and aerosols affect Earth's radiation balance

Description: ESA’s Earth Explorer, EarthCARE, is designed to answer some critical scientific questions related to the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting incident solar radiation back out to space and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface. This delicate balance is an important factor in regulating Earth’s temperature.

The mission will provide global profiles of clouds and aerosols along with measurements of solar radiation reflected from the planet and thermal radiation emitted from the planet. To do this, the satellite carries four instruments. A lidar to measure vertical profiles of aerosols and thin clouds, and a radar to measure vertical profiles of thick clouds and precipitation. The lidar and radar observations will be combined with those from a multi-spectral imager, which will provide measurements allowing to extend the 2D profiles into a full 3D domain. The fourth instrument, a broadband radiometer, will measure the reflected solar radiation and the emitted thermal radiation at the top of the atmosphere. The use of these instruments means that 3D cloud and aerosol scenes can be directly related to reflected solar and emitted thermal radiation.

Copyright: ESA/ATG medialab