UK joins French satellite mission on carbon emissions

The UK is to participate in a French satellite mission to be launched in 2020 to measure atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

MicroCarb, which is led by France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), will be the first European mission aimed at characterising greenhouse gas fluxes on Earth’s surface and will measure how much carbon is being absorbed by oceans and forests, the two main sinks on the planet.

The UK Space Agency announced on 19 June that it had signed a collaboration agreement to participate in the mission, to which it has committed £10 million. The British participation in the project will be led by the University of Leicester and the University of Edinburgh. France has provided €25m (£21.9m) to MicroCarb.