The GERB experiment 1 The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) experiment John Harries, Professor of Earth Observation, Blackett Laboratory.

The GERB experimentThe GERB experiment 11

The The Geostationary Earth Radiation Geostationary Earth Radiation

Budget (GERB) Budget (GERB) experimentexperiment

John Harries,John Harries,Professor of Earth Observation,Professor of Earth Observation,

Blackett LaboratoryBlackett Laboratory


Contents

1.What’s it all about?

2.What is GERB?

3.European science contributng at the forefront of climate research


1.What’s it all about?• Climate change is a major scientific

problem and threat to global stability;

• We make predictions about how climate might change in future using coupled, ocean-atmosphere General Circulation Models (GCMs);

• Ultimately the models must be tested and validated against observations of the real world.


• GERB will make the first ever measurements of the Earth’s total energy balance from geostationary orbit.

• High accuracy measurements of the solar radiation absorbed, and the infrared energy emitted by the Earth will be produced each 15 minutes.

GERB

About 40 cm




Should we believe “climate change”?

Yes!

Hadley Centre Harries et al., Nature, March 15 2001

IPCC


Should we believe that we understand“climate change” well enough to accurately predict our future?

No!

Feedback processes, especially clouds, water vapour, oceans, cause large uncertainty


2. What is GERB?(Talk on GERB design in future)•GERB is a de-spun (MSG spins at 100 rpm: 18g!!) absolute radiometer seeking to achieve absolute accuracies (target 0.5-1%). High time resolution (15 mins) for first time.

•Calibration in new facility at IC; GERB-1, -2 and –3 have been designed, built,tested and calibrated;

•Imperial team: John PI, Steve Manager, Jacqui Project Scientist, Jenny and James Instrument Scientists, Jo George Student. RAL leads technical project.

• GIST (GERB International Science Team) led by PI includes many world experts in ERB and EO studies.


Gerb-1 Averaged Detector SR Data combined with Witness Sample Data

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Wavelength um

Detector Data

Normalised Witness Data


Array moves one pixel to west on every rotation of MSG, to build up image of 256x256 pixels

256

pixels


3. European science at the forefront of climate research

(Talks on GERB science in future)

Three examples of “Hot topics”:

•Diurnal cycle of ERB and cloud-climate interaction;

•Saharan dust;

•Climate variability and trends.


Diurnal cycle of ERB and cloud-climate interaction over Africa

Afternoon thunderclouds over the Serengeti



Pictures!


5. Pictures from the launch!









4.Concluding remarks• MSG is a major European initiative to be proud

of, in monitoring the Earth’s weather and climate: it contributes to the world effort in this area;

• Congratulations to all the GERB team at Imperial, RAL, Leicester, NPL, in Italy, Belgium, Germany and USA

The GERB experiment 1 The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) experiment John Harries, Professor of Earth Observation, Blackett Laboratory.

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