Just a month after its launch, ESA's Arctic Weather Satellite has already delivered its first images, notably capturing Storm Boris, which has been wreaking havoc across central Europe. Equipped with a 19-channel cross-track scanning microwave radiometer, the satellite's mission is to penetrate the atmosphere and provide detailed temperature and humidity profiles in all weather conditions. Despite its name, the Arctic Weather Satellite measures temperature and humidity at various altitudes around the world. However, its humidity data is particularly valuable for Arctic weather forecasting, as water vapor levels can change rapidly in this region. Since it was only launched a month ago on 16 August, the Arctic Weather Satellite is still undergoing rigorous testing of its systems as part of the commissioning phase. However, on 14 September, engineers adjusted their testing schedule to evaluate how well the satellite could measure the effects of Storm Boris. Their efforts certainly have not gone unrewarded. The measurements are shown in terms of "brightness temperature," with lower values (depicted in blue) indicating higher humidity levels. The animation presents these values at 1 km intervals, ranging from 1 km to 7 km above Earth's surface. The torrential rainfall from Storm Boris is especially evident as dark blue regions low in the atmosphere over Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. This animation uses data captured on a single day, but with thousands of people evacuated and lives lost, the impact of this massive storm now extends from Poland in the north to Italy in the south, and Romania to the east. The Arctic Weather Satellite, developed as a prototype, demonstrates how adopting a "New Space" approach - building quickly and at relatively low cost - could be applied to a future constellation of satellites. This constellation, named EPS-Sterna, which ESA would build for Eumetsat, would provide much more frequent... |