Climate change - Melting land-ice

Western Siberia, home to the world's largest peat bogs, has warmed about 30 C in the last 40 years. In 2005 these bogs began to thaw for the first time in 11,000 years. They could potentially release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases such as methane and CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.

Earth Observation has the potential to improve our predictive vision. Space-based instruments are able to look for distinctive emission 'footprints' in the atmosphere left by global warming chemicals, create three-dimensional maps showing the concentration of greenhouse gases throughout the atmosphere and map carbon 'sinks' such as peat bogs.