Video – Taking action on climate change

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has released a short background video on how they use data collected from Canadian and partner satellites to monitor the Earth and climate change.

The introduction from the video reads: “Climate change is one of the greatest threats of our time, and we are already seeing the effects. Satellites are valuable tools we can use to better understand climate change and adapt to it.”

The CSA lists the following satellites used to observe climate change:

• RADARSAT Constellation Mission and RADARSAT-2: To facilitate marine surveillance, ecosystem monitoring, ice monitoring, disaster management, resource management and mapping in Canada and around the world.
• SCISAT: To provide measurements of chemicals that affect the ozone layer.
• MOPITT (on Terra): To gather long-term data on carbon monoxide concentrations.
• OSIRIS (on Odin): To measure concentrations of ozone, aerosols and nitrogen dioxide.
• CloudSat: To gather information on cloud cover for the purpose of drawing up three-dimensional profiles.
• SMAP: To expand our knowledge of water cycles and carbon through producing global maps of soil moisture and monitoring the seasonal freeze/thaw cycle.
• SMOS: To map sea surface salinity, monitor soil moisture on a global scale, better understand the water cycle, and map snow- and ice covered areas.
• SWOT (in development): To observe ocean surfaces and measure how lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans are changing over time.

Watch taking action on climate change.