The ultimate green satellite?

At a time when earthquakes, floods and other environmental disasters are almost weekly news, efforts to obtain an accurate view of the Earth from space have never seemed more important. The author looks at the contribution of Europe's latest environmental observation satellite, Envisat. Envisat carries ten main payloads designed to collect data on atmospheric chemistry, the oceans and the land surfaces. The data are fed into models of the Earth's climate and global environment, as well as being used operationally, on a day-to-day basis.