News and Media

NCEO awarded renewed investment in national research capabilities by the Natural Environment Research Council

We are delighted to share the news that the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) has secured five years of investment in its environmental science research capabilities through the NERC’s National Capability Single Centre Science and National Public Good initiatives. The award was announced today by Science Minister, Lord Patrick Vallance, as part of £101 million support for the work of leading UK environmental research centres including NCEO.

The £8.6M awarded to the National NCEO will deliver a programme of work translating multiscale Earth Observation data from novel, UK-supported satellites and models into global datasets, scientific knowledge and actionable information that benefits wider science, policy and business communities. It draws on decades of world-leading UK expertise and international collaboration to address the most urgent challenges (e.g., societal climate impacts) by understanding changes in the carbon cycle, air pollution and methane, energy & water cycles and their influence on disruptive events (e.g., wildfires).

‘This welcome investment gives a timely boost to the exploitation of new Earth-observing satellites, each of which is designed to meet important science and policy challenges connected to climate change. NCEO’s world-leading teams will work with the UK science and business community to derive unprecedented data with which to understand our planet, deliver on UK aspirations in space and provide value from UK-supported, Earth-focussed space missions.’ 

– Professor John Remedios, NCEO Executive Director

The National Centre for Earth Observation is NERC’s dedicated centre to the study and exploitation of remotely sensed Earth Observation data, principally from satellites. NCEO researchers work with colleagues across the (inter)national environmental science communities to develop and enhance EO data, translating the raw observations into scientific knowledge and actionable information that benefits wider UK science and policy. ‘Our vision is to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge about interactions in the Earth system, from locally observed processes to globally consistent analyses.’

The new funding will enable NCEO scientists to produce more accurate datasets which enable scientists to narrow down the predicted pathways for the next decades of climate change;  to  understand better the energy cycle and its imbalance which reflects climate change; to; improve estimates of forest, ocean and atmosphere carbon amounts; study the way in which the atmosphere and its chemistry works on a global scale; improve weather and climate prediction; underpin UK expertise at the heart of studies of wildfires.

This investment will enable continued scientific breakthroughs about the Earth system led by NCEO researchers. It will also help us to support the needs of UK and international environmental science communities to develop and enhance the use of Earth Observation data across the public and private sectors.

_{– Professor Paul Palmer, NCEO Science Director}