Is NCAS "fact-checking" UKRI-NERC? 🤔

Huge Saharan dust plume over Europe yesterday and today! My colleague Peter Hill at ECMWF used EarthCARE lidar retrievals to evaluate CAMS forecasts of extinction coefficient, showing that the vertical structure and optical depth of the plume were well captured both yesterday at 01.44 UTC... (1/3)

Do submit an abstract to the EarthCARE Science Workshop in Oxford this June, deadline tomorrow! It will be an extremely stimulating meeting as we start to explore how EarthCARE can inform the science of clouds, aerosols, radiation, weather, climate and more: www.earthcare-science-validation-2026.org

NERC's sudden decision to cease funding for FAAM by the end of this month is bad news for the EarthCARE satellite - in this letter members of the EarthCARE Quality Working Group (of which I am a member) explain why: www.met.reading.ac.uk/~swrhgnrj/fa...

Delighted to be in beautiful Leipzig before the EarthCARE Quality Working Group at TROPOS! Just taking a moment for a brief genuflection before the meeting...

Excellent statement from RMetS questioning the decision to cease funding for the FAAM aircraft: www.rmets.org/news/stateme...

Great result for progressive politics in the UK. If the first law of politics is "learn to count" (LBJ), the 2nd has to be "don't abandon your base". Labour's response to the far-right threat has been to lurch to the right - who'd have guessed this wouldn't work? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Crazy to axe the world-class FAAM aircraft - a big blow to observational atmospheric research in the UK. I've used data from the Hercules and then its successor the FAAM since starting my PhD in 1995 - there's no substitute for getting right inside a cloud to find out what's really going on! (1/2)

Amazing image of the properties of marine stratocumulus clouds begin modified by ships underneath them, as revealed by EarthCARE's Multi-Spectral Imager in the North Pacific. Full story at earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

This new video from @climateadam.bsky.social is even more brilliant than usual - insightful and hilarious 🧐🤣❤️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=py0X...

Job opportunity! 3.5-year postdoc at the Dept of Meteorology, University of Reading, to improve convective storms in high resolution models using #EarthCARE and other data, including close collaboration with both ECMWF and the Met Office - deadline 27 February: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Save the date! The next #EarthCARE Science and Validation Workshop will be 8-12 June 2026 in the beautiful city of Oxford, deadline for abstracts is 27 February: www.earthcare-science-validation-2026.org

There have now been 100 aircraft under-flights of #EarthCARE, each providing invaluable information to calibrate and validate the data products. This example shows very good agreement between EarthCARE and aircraft vertical air motion in nimbostratus. Full article here: earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

In this ECMWF blog post, Mark Fielding compares model simulations at 9- and 4.4-km resolution with #EarthCARE radar observations of Hurricane Humberto, which was sampled right through its eye on 28 September 2025: www.ecmwf.int/en/about/med...

All EarthCARE data have now been released! www.esa.int/Applications...

First day of the EarthCARE Science & Validation workshop on the beautiful University of Tokyo campus! Takuji Kubota described today's release of all the Japanese products, including those using the synergy of 3 & 4 instruments.

Nice article about the various online and offline visualization and analysis tools that are available for exploring EarthCARE data - thanks to Eleni Marinou (@elmarinou.bsky.social) who coordinates the development of these tools! earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...

Exciting week next week with the release of the full tranche of #EarthCARE products, including those using 3 and 4 of the instruments in synergy! JAXA held a media briefing earlier today and I explained why this is important (48mins in). www.youtube.com/live/9375tqa...

Aircraft contrails are contributing to global warming, but the balance between their solar and infrared effects is uncertain. EarthCARE's combination of instruments, particularly its high resolution 3-view broadband radiometer, is perfectly placed to measure them! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

This ECMWF training course is a great opportunity to learn about how physical processes are represented in weather and climate models, free for anyone in an ECMWF member state. It runs 2-6 March 2026 and the deadline for applications is 30 November. events.ecmwf.int/event/496/

Would you believe it: just 10 days after #EarthCARE went through the eye of Hurricane Humberto, it did the same with Hurricane Priscilla in the East Pacific on 7 October! A very different beast this one: a huge eye around 100 km across, and very lopsided, with much more rain on the southern side.

New instruments always throw up surprises - Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff of KNMI had a look at the #EarthCARE lidar's surface returns and found some intriguing and unexpected things as explained in ESA's latest EarthCARE web story... earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

So this is pretty amazing - yesterday EarthCARE sampled Hurricane Humberto straight across the eye! The eye of a tropical cyclone is small so a direct hit is rare: this is the first time EarthCARE has hit one after over a year in orbit! (Showing here also VIIRS on NOAA-20 for context.)

EarthCARE is a inexhaustible source of beautiful imagery of some of the most spectacular phenomena nature has to offer, so I've started a Gallery page on the EarthCARE Science web site, showing for example convective motions in the trainbands of Typhoon Ragasa... www.earthcarescience.net/gallery

It's official: WIVERN will be ESA's 11th Earth Explorer satellite, measuring winds deep inside hurricanes, fronts and other weather systems! www.esa.int/Applications...

Another great #EarthCARE Image of the Month, this time led by Shannon Mason (@masonshannon.bsky.social): the Doppler radar sees wave structures in an Antarctic cloud while the lidar and imager see an optically thick ice cloud layer at around -45°C. What's going on? earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Good science explains unexpected observations, but great science predicts things only later confirmed from observations. Brilliant article from Nadir Jeevanjee on the fundamental correctness of climate models and the incredible work of Syukuro Manabe. theconversation.com/5-forecasts-...

Great to see the new #ECMWF building going up on the beautiful University of Reading campus, very near the Meteorology Department - looking forward to moving in in 2027!

The deadline for abstracts to December's #EarthCARE Science & Validation workshop in Tokyo has been extended to 1st September. www.eorc.jaxa.jp/EARTHCARE/ev...

EarthCARE has enough fuel for a mission of at least 10 years! This is fantastic news for using EarthCARE for climate science and assimilation, and is much more than the 3-4 years originally envisaged! earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...

The next #EarthCARE Science and Validation Workshop is in Tokyo this December - the deadline for abstract submission is 20 August. It will be a great opportunity to share our scientific findings so far and will coincide with the release of final tranche of products. www.eorc.jaxa.jp/EARTHCARE/ev...

Great news: "WIVERN" has been recommended as ESA's 11th Earth Explorer satellite following the user consultation meeting last week! WIVERN uses a scanning 94-GHz radar to measure winds and reflectivity in an 800 km swath, invaluable for assimilation and understanding severe weather. wivern.polito.it

Beautiful high-resolution imagery from #EarthCARE's multi-spectral imager in a Category 4 tropical cyclone! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Taking #EarthCARE merch to the next level! You've got the polo shirt. You've even got the lego model. Now you can enjoy EarthCARE toilet paper! 🧻🧻🧻 Rated top for environmental impact by Consumer NZ 👍 www.stuff.co.nz/business/121...

Huge amounts of Arctic smoke from Canadian wildfires seen by #EarthCARE's lidar: it is being transported over the North Pole to Europe and has even entered the stratosphere! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Science meets art in a fantastic and immersive installation at #LPS25: the sound is generated from actual #EarthCARE data!

BIG NEWS from Bjorn Frommknecht at #LPS25: the latest estimate of #EarthCARE mission lifetime based on fuel usage is at least TEN YEARS, much higher than the pre-launch design lifetime of 3-4 years! Opens the door to even more great science!

We're making use of research aircraft underflights of #EarthCARE to test and improve our synergistic cloud products. The image shows good agreement in ice clouds in a Canadian flight from the ECALOT campaign. We're also using flights from the UK VERIFY campaign. earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Just a couple of days until the start of the ESA Living Planet Symposium in Vienna - there will be a great #ECMWF contribution and I'm particulaly looking forward to the #EarthCARE session on Wednesday! www.ecmwf.int/en/about/med...

Latest #EarthCARE Image of the Month: reflected broadband solar imagery can be recreated using synergistic cloud retrievals and radiative transfer calculations, giving confidence in the retrievals. Work led by Jason Cole (ECCC) earth.esa.int/eogateway/ga...

JAXA's level-2 cloud and aerosol products from #EarthCARE have been released! earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...

#EarthCARE has now been in orbit for a whole year! 🛰 As well as making amazing new measurements of clouds🌧 aerosols and radiation🌞, we've had some surprises: EarthCARE can measure insects🪰 and even phytoplankton in the ocean🌊 Happy birthday EarthCARE! 🎂 earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

Great new image from ESA's #EarthCARE BBR, observing a storm over Spain during the heavy rain in March! t.co/NPe1vQygI8

Thanks to Timon Hummel and all his colleagues at ESA-ESRIN for hosting the very stimulating EarthCARE validation workshop in Frascati this week!

The first Level-2 #EarthCARE data have been released! These contain properties of clouds and aerosols estimated from 1- and 2-instrument algorithms. The complete portfolio of products including 3- and 4-instrument retrievals will follow later this year. earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...

"Early Results from EarthCARE" - new inter-journal special issue of AMT, ACP and GMD, now open for submissions! www.earthcarescience.net/publications...

Launched today: the EarthCARE Science web site, to promote and support the widest possible international exploitation of #EarthCARE data! Includes: explainers of the scientific applications of the satellite (more to come), meet the team, tools, web stories, history and more. www.earthcarescience.net

Just released: an #ECMWF web article explaining how #EarthCARE instruments can be combined to evaluate atmospheric models - we demonstrate the synergistic cloud & precipitation retrieval algorithm and also preliminary “radiative closure”. 1/6 www.ecmwf.int/en/about/med...

🌍🌐 Exciting opportunity for science and tech experts! The European Commission’s DG CNECT is looking for experts to help shape the strategic development of the Destination Earth (#DestinE) initiative. Deadline for applications extended to 14 March 2025. ➡️ destine.ecmwf.int/news/join-de...

Beautiful images from #EarthCARE of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) in both the Arctic and Antarctic! The depolarisation capability of the lidar allows it to identify the much rarer Type II PSCs that only occur when it is extremely cold. earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...