The National Centre for Earth Observation is one of the NERC's research and collaborative centres. Our core concern is fundamental science: the challenge of understanding planet Earth as a complex, multi-component, coupled system. Our core competence is the ability to utilise the wealth of observations from Earth-orbiting satellites to record how the Earth is changing, to understand why it is changing and to pinpoint errors in the mathematical models that are used for prediction.
The NCEO has now been running for just over a year (from April 2008). This brochure is a selection of our early scientific achievements, exemplifying our multi-disciplinary scope. They are presented as short, scientific "detective stories", which give important clues that we piece together to figure out how the Earth system works as a whole. The extremely important role of satellite data is clearly demonstrated. The stories show our exploitation of a wide range of European satellite systems such as the European Space Agency’s ENVISAT satellite and also our reliance on US systems such as NASA’s Cloudsat/Calypso. Professor Alan O'Neill, NCEO Director, says 'I believe the work summarised in this brochure represents a major contribution to the NERC's strategic scientific objectives.'
