Earth Explorer’s 10th mission will provide information on oceans, earthquakes, glaciers and volcanoes
Harmony was chosen, after preparatory activities and a rigorous process, as the 10th Earth Explorer mission under the FutureEod program by the member states of the European Space Agency .
The progress of science and technology leads to addressing issues that have a direct impact on society (availability of resources such as food, water, energy and public health) and on the issue of climate change . In addition, the Earth has many processes and mechanisms that regulate the transport and exchange of energy and make it an extremely complex and dynamic system. Finding out how these processes work is a very important challenge and the Harmony mission will make a fundamental contribution.
Harmony will allow us, for example, to quantify the processes that regulate the exchange of momentum, heat and humidity between the ocean surface and the air above. These exchanges affect the processes of the lower atmosphere, drive weather patterns, and influence our climate.
It will also be used to study the deformation and dynamics of flows at the edges of the rapidly changing ice sheet for a better understanding of sea level rise.
Additionally, Harmony will observe the movement of mountain glaciers, which are essential for providing fresh water to hundreds of millions of people, so the importance of understanding how they are changing cannot be underestimated.
AdvertisementPaco López-Dekker, Director of Harmony Research at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands
- Space, Esa launches the Harmony mission to explore the Earth (adnkronos.it)
