Photo credit  |  ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

About Space4Climate

04 January, 2024

Our members span government, industry, academia and the Third Sector, working in partnership to support and raise the profile of the UK’s world-leading climate science and services community.

Space4Climate activities enable a seamless supply chain of climate data from space assets; helping to identify end user requirements and facilitate trusted climate services development to meet these, promoting global economic and societal benefit.

Our activities and partnerships support the creation of a thriving environment in which to grow the use of Earth observation expertise for the production of trusted climate services to monitor and address climate change.

End-to-end Earth observation capability

Space4Climate members span the entire value chain of Earth observation and climate services. As a group we offer end-to-end capability, from design, manufacture and mission development to data analytics and integration of climate information into immediately actionable decision support services.

Our members deliver, sustain and make use of trusted climate intelligence from space. The group is funded by the community for the community.

Space4Climate is chaired by the UK Space Agency and has close working links to Government ministries and departments, including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Embedded within the space community we are currently hosted by the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) which is a distributed Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) centre of more than 100 scientists from UK universities and research organisations. NCEO provides NERC with national capability in Earth observation science – monitoring the health of our planet through satellite instruments and more – with world-class capability in interpreting these data.

Climate data from space

Climate data from space can be used to provide information on past or future changes in ‘typical’ environmental conditions experienced in geographic areas of interest. Understanding variability in a location – what is ‘normal’, as well as how this is changing – is important for a variety of climate services.  Decision support and monitoring services that make use of climate data from space can help to improve our environment and our lives including:

  • Understanding and monitoring climate change
  • Design of our cities, infrastructure, homes and workplaces
  • Security and quality of the food on our plates
  • Protecting species and places
  • How we navigate the globe
  • Optimising logistics
  • Understanding the air we breathe

See also:

Space4Climate builds on the UK’s trusted expertise in climate data. The group’s activities enable a seamless supply chain of climate data from space assets, help identify climate services user requirements and facilitate climate services development for global economic and societal benefit.