<p>Live on YouTube from the Royal Institution’s historic main lecture hall in central London – on 16 January 2024, Climate and Ocean Observation EMN Chair Emma Woolliams and Vice-chair Nigel Fox shared a detailed overview of how satellite observations are applied to understanding climate change.</p>
Live on YouTube from the Royal Institution’s historic main lecture hall in central London – on 16 January 2024, Climate and Ocean Observation EMN Chair Emma Woolliams and Vice-chair Nigel Fox shared a detailed overview of how satellite observations are applied to understanding climate change.
Since 1799, the Royal Institution (RI) has supported public engagement with science through programmes of lectures, the most famous being the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, founded by Michael Faraday in 1825. For over half a century the series was a mainstay of holiday TV viewing, inspiring generations of young people to study and consider a career in science.
In line with RI’s founding mission to diffuse knowledge and teach ‘the application of Science to the Common Purposes of Life’, NPL (National Physical Laboratory) ran a series of evening public engagement lectures over the winter, including ‘Unleashing the power of satellites for climate action’.
Nigel opened with a history of how light is measured, holding up an original candela candle made of spermaceti (fat from the head of a sperm whale). He described the unbroken chain from such early optical radiation standards to TRUTHS (Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial and Helio Studies) – the satellite mission led by the UK Space Agency with international partners and delivered by the European Space Agency.
TRUTHS will provide benchmark measurements of the Earth and Sun for climate studies, whilst acting as a gold standard to calibrate other missions. He described the onboard instruments and how it will calibrate its Earth imager in orbit by direct comparison with a cryogenic radiometer.
Next, Emma guided the audience through the science of climate change and showed why reliable measurements are critical for societal responses to the challenges of a changing climate. This direct link between observations and climate action, and the central role of metrology in ensuring the robustness of such observations, is central to the EMN for Climate and Ocean Observation’s mission.
For the second half of the lecture, Nigel returned to the stage, presenting more details of how TRUTHS will provide benchmark measurements of the Earth and Sun for climate studies, offering a ‘gold standard’ — or an NMI in space — for calibrating other missions. He described its onboard instruments and how it will calibrate its Earth imager by direct comparison with an on-board cryogenic radiometer.
An engaged half-hour discussion followed (see the second YouTube video below) that included questions from a teenager, a PhD student studying oceanographic modelling, science enthusiasts, and some of the UK’s leading experts in satellite applications.
Over 10000 views on YouTube (and counting) attest to global interest in these topics, and Emma also directly took on the challenge of answering questions raised in the comments section.
Access the video here >>
