We are facing a climate emergency. Understanding our planet is more critical than ever before. To protect it, we need to fill in one of the missing pieces of the climate puzzle: how do clouds and aerosols affect Earth’s energy balance? While we know that that they play extremely important roles in regulating our atmosphere’s temperature, we don’t know how their behaviour will change as our climate warms.

This is where EarthCARE comes in. ESA’s Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer will shed new light on how clouds and aerosols affect our climate.

With its suite of four cutting-edge instruments, EarthCARE represents a groundbreaking advancement in satellite technology. It promises to deliver unprecedented data – unravelling the complexities of clouds and aerosols. With this, we can refine our atmospheric models and climate forecasts, giving us the tools to tackle the challenges of a changing climate with greater accuracy and precision.

This video features ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher and ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli.