National Capability
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), invests in NCEO to ensure the UK has national capability in observations of the Earth from satellites, global environmental data and mathematical techniques to guide predictive models.
Explore our national capability projects and programmes to see how NCEO is making a difference:
AgZERO+
AgZero+ is a five-year research programme supporting the UK’s transition towards domestic food production that is sustainable, carbon-neutral and has a positive effect on nature. The programme brings together a community of researchers and farmers to evaluate innovative farming methods and to define practical pathways to achieving “net zero plus” arable and livestock farm systems.
AgZero+ will provide data from national sensor networks, satellites and a network of commercial study farms and study catchments. These will be made available to the research community and other stakeholders through data portals and advanced digital tools to support environmental planning and management.
NCEO role in the programme
Professor Mat Disney, Principal Investigator NCEO based at UCL will be coordinating the NCEO contribution to AgZero+, by developing new satellite-derived tools for crop monitoring and yield forecasting at national scales.
Funding and partners
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) lead the implementation and support its operation working in partnership with NERC, BBSRC, Rothamsted Research Institute, British Geological Survey, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, and NCEO.
CANARI
Climate change in the Arctic-North Atlantic Region and Impacts on the UK (CANARI). This project focuses on how weather and extremes in the UK will change over the next few decades in response to climate change.
CANARI is a cross-centre project funded by NERC and led by NCAS, bringing together scientists and expertise from NCAS, NCEO, Met Office, BAS, BGS, UKCEH, NOC and CPOM. A cross-disciplinary approach is required to understand warming of the Arctic and North Atlantic region, which is unprecedented in historical records. CANARI will improve our ability to detect and predict changes in the Arctic system that directly impact UK weather and extremes including droughts, floods, heatwaves and high winds.
CANARI looks at the real-life impact of climate change in the Arctic on weather and extremes in the UK.
Dr Claire Bulgin
NCEO Senior Research Scientist, based at the University of Reading.
Key research groups
NCEO contributions to CANARI are led by Claire Bulgin at the University of Reading. The wider team consists of remote sensing scientists in surface temperature at the University of Reading and University of Leicester, data assimilation experts at the University of Reading and cold-air outbreak/radar experts at the University of Leicester. Cold-air outbreak research is done in collaboration with scientists at the University of Leeds.
Research priorities
- Using data assimilation to better understand flood risks in the UK.
- Better characterising thermal contrasts in the North-Atlantic, changes in the latitude of the Gulf Stream and improving understanding of the sea-ice edge.
- Understanding drought in the UK and changes to drought conditions and onset in the future.
Our current work includes
- Coupling high-resolution models, radar and passive satellite remote sensing to understand cold-air outbreak development.
NCEO International Science
The water and carbon cycles are intrinsically linked, and NCEO has significant expertise in new types of satellite derived observations and modelling that have the potential to provide new insights into the processes via which these processes are coupled.
Constraining Coupled Carbon & Water Cycle Processes with Earth Observation (CPEO), NCEO’s International Science Programme, has the overarching aim to better understand the linkages between the water and vegetation productivity from plot to continental scales so as to better understand how these processes should be represented in climate models. In particular the CPEO programme seeks to exploit NCEO’s expertise in retrievals of Solar Induced Fluorescence (SIF) and Carbonyl Sulfide (COS). SIF is the only direct observation of the process of photosynthesis available from EO and COS acts as a tracer for stomatal conductance, both vital pieces of information for understanding the water and carbon cycles.
We are collaborating with a number of international organisations and world leading experts to build up communities proactive in this area and help strengthen the exploitation of NCEO’s data products. Geographically, our focus is on North America, which is emerging as one of the critical continental-scale test beds for the next decade due to the in-situ networks and current/future satellite missions/expertise in place for SIF and COS complementing NCEO satellite datasets.
Our goal is to improve understanding of these processes, to enable better predictions of climate change and, in turn, the impact of climate change vegetation.
Key research groups
CPEO is distributed across several NCEO institutions: University of Reading, UCL, UKCEH, University of Leicester and the University of Leeds.
Research priorities
- Derive new EO data products for solar induced fluorescence and carbonyl sulphide, including estimates of the land-atmosphere flux of carbonyl sulphide.
- Use data assimilation to test hypotheses, embedded in models of the terrestrial biosphere, around the coupling of the water and carbon cycles.
- Evaluate these processes inside Earth System Models and hence improve climate prediction.
Our current work includes
- Building new data assimilation tools for the land surface scheme, JULES, of the UK Earth System Model.
- Deriving new retrievals and flux estimates of the Carbonyl sulphide.
- Examining climate model outputs to determine the role of the water in the modelled carbon cycle.
TERRAFIRMA
Global climate change is the leading environmental challenge facing humanity today. The TerraFIRMA project’s goal is to provide reliable scientific advice to decision makers in the government and the private sector on the risks and socioeconomic impacts of a changing climate as well as mitigation options for future change.
TerraFIRMA addresses opportunities to meet the UNFCCC Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming below 2°C as well as the risks associated with exceeding this target.
This will be accomplished through the delivery of a suite of novel future climate projections using the UK’s flagship climate model, the UK Earth System Model (UKESM). We will investigate the risks and impacts associated with overshooting key global warming targets as well as the reversibility of any triggered changes due to these impacts. The project will also assess a range of mitigation options to limit future changes directed at policy goals associated with air quality, human health and food security.
An expected outcome from TerraFIRMA is an improved understanding of key Earth system phenomena and their interactions resulting in a new configuration of the UK Earth System Model, UKESM2.
NCEO datasets and software developed by NCEO scientists will play an important role in evaluating the scientific developments in UKESM2.
The TerraFIRMA project brings together expertise in the Earth System sciences in the UK to better understand future impacts, risks and mitigation options under a changing climate.
Dr Ranjini Swaminathan
NCEO UKESM Core Scientist, based at the University of Reading.
Key research groups
TerraFIRMA involves eight Centres (National Centre for Atmospheric Science, British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, National Centre for Earth Observation, National Oceanography Centre, Plymouth Marine Laboratory and UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) funded through UKRI-NERC National Capability. The Met Office Hadley Centre is a key partner to TerraFIRMA.
TerraFIRMA also has synergetic links with other NERC multi-centre projects such as CANARI and international EU funded projects such as OptimESM and TipESM.
Research priorities
- Develop, evaluate and exploit advanced Earth system modeling capabilities to address a range of science goals.
- Combine modeling and observations to investigate the role of near time climate forcers, uncertainties in carbon cycle representation important for carbon budgets and assess the likelihood of tipping events and any potential for their reversibility under different future climate scenarios.
- Investigate key impact areas associated with climate change – water resources, flooding and land slides, air quality, wild fires, marine ecosystems and global sea level rise.
Our current work includes
- Development, evaluation and analysis of simulations including overshoot projections where global mean surface air temperature exceeds a target level (e.g. 2°C above pre-industrial), rising to a warmer value (e.g. 3°C), before stabilizing and then cooling back to the target level at a later date.
- Analysing the effect of near time climate forcers such as methane gas on air quality and regional and global climate.
- Understanding carbon cycle feedbacks in the terrestrial biosphere and oceans.
- Engaging with relevant stakeholders in government, international developmental organizations, universities and businesses in the UK and Europe and inform on mitigation and adaptation policies to protect the environment and help improve people’s lives.