The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is one of the most distinguished institutions in its field. Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf and his colleagues advise German and international governments on climate change. I met Stefan in Munich after a panel discussion on the future of mobility hosted by BMW. Rahmstorf and his research team study the role that oceans play in present and future climate changes and global warming. Not surprisingly his website has a commentary about the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" where one can see the impact of huge floods and a rising sea level.
Foto: Stefan's website

What does ENVISAT do for us? To understand we have to recall that “seeing” garbage trace gases means that electromagnetic waves from the atmospheric constituents are received, whereby each constituent emits waves with very special wavelengths which can be taken as fingerprints of this constituent. So what the sensors of ENVISAT do is to point obliquely to the horizon, so that the light arriving stems from the atmosphere at the horizon and not from ground, and scan the arriving light at different wavelengths. Because ENVISAT circles Earth every 1 hour and 40 minutes, global atmospheric trace gas and aerosol maps can be gener-ated about once a day. But ENVISAT does much more. With nine different sensors it analyzes also clouds and atmospheric temperatures. It meas-ures land surface temperatures vegetation characteristics and surface elevation. It determines ocean colors, sea surface temperatures and surface topography in particular wave characteristics. It determines the extent of polar ice, its topography and the ice temperature. So in every aspect ENVISAT is a truly environmental satellite. These measurements give answers to today's crucial questions concerning climate changes: Is the ozone hole still growing? How much rain forest is deforested each year? What is the reason for the rise of the sea level? We know today that it’s NOT the melting of the ice! What are the effects of air pollution? Will natural disasters increase and intensify in the future and if yes, how much?