MSG-2 Will Advance Long-term Monitoring Of Earth's Energy Balance

[phantom power]

This week's launch of MSG-2 will ensure that satellite images continue to be available to European weather forecasters well into the next decade. It also marks a new chapter in a long-term space experiment measuring the available energy that drives the weather as a whole, and helping to establish how much the Earth is heating up.

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As in the case of the original MSG-1 - launched into geostationary orbit back in August 2002 - the drum-shaped satellite also carries a smaller scientific instrument called the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB), designed to measure the net balance between incoming radiation from the Sun, and outgoing radiation from the Earth, known as the 'Earth Radiation Budget' – which is the energy source for the planet's atmospheric system and the ultimate driver of weather phenomena and climate.

In the average 24-hour day the Sun shines out radiation equivalent to 1.37 kilowatts per square metre of the top of the Earth's atmosphere. If this energy was retained within the atmosphere, our planet would swiftly become a Venus-like hothouse. However once the Earth has reached balance, this energy is actually returned back to space, either as short-wavelength light or else longer-wavelength heat energy. It is the subtle variability of this balance, at different locations and times, that needs to be understood.

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GERB, like SEVIRI, performs a new measurement every 15 minutes, working on a continuous basis. The sensor has a spatial resolution of 50 km – a value which can be reduced to 10 km after data processing - so even small-scale spatial or temporal radiation fluxes can be identified.

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"Scientifically, highly accurate images of the infrared emission and solar reflectivity of the Earth are being made every 15 minutes, a response time never before achieved, which allows us too study many processes that were previously not resolved by spacecraft.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051230085348.htm