About ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Highlights
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Space in Member States
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
The Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Czechia
Romania
United Kingdom
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland
Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicAstronauts
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Ocean and atmosphere interaction
Covering over 70% of Earth’s surface, oceans play an extremely important role in our climate, in our weather and in our lives. For example, since the middle of the last century, oceans have absorbed some 94% of the planet’s energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and through close coupling with the atmosphere, this heat excess affects the climate system. These exchanges between the sea surface and the atmosphere are governed by fine-scale processes. However, there is a lack of observational data, which limits scientific understanding and results in uncertainties in model projections on time scales ranging from months to millennia.
ESA’s Earth Explorer Harmony mission will provide simultaneous high-resolution measurements of the sea-surface, wind and cloud movement to help reveal the complexities of how the sea and air interact. These critical observations are needed to increase knowledge on the sensitivity of the climate to human-induced warming and to advance our understanding of how the ocean works and breathes in the context of the entire Earth system.
