New climate service launches with helping hand from Reading
Posted 8th March 2023
A new government-funded climate information service - which will enable the UK to create, maintain and expand climate data from space - launched today (7 March) in partnership with the University of Reading.
The UK Earth Observation Climate Information Service (EOCIS), led by the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO, is a new national project funded by the UK government through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Earth Observations (EO) from space capture critically valuable measurements of the climate for the UK and worldwide. The EOCIS aims to transform these EO measurements into information usable for world-class science, climate services and decision support for policymakers. Trustworthy data will enable action to be taken on heatwaves, urban flooding and the health of coastal waters. EOCIS will create climate information to increase knowledge about issues ranging from polar ice change, to landscape carbon, to drought impacts on food security.
Building on the UK-wide Space 4 Climate group, the EOCIS consortium involves some of the UK’s most prestigious research institutions for climate and earth systems. NCEO, is the UK’s leading centre for monitoring the climate and environment using satellites. For EOCIS, NCEO scientists based at eight institutions across the UK will be leading research activities together with colleagues from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, the University of Southampton and Bangor University.