CRYOSAT Mission and SIRAL Instrument

Le role de l'espace dans l'étude des changements climatiques

Current situation

Ice in the Earth's poles plays a pivotal role at several levels:

Stability of the global climate

Average sea level

Circulation of major ocean currents

Observation satellites have shown that ocean ice has decreased 10 to 15% since 1950. In certain regions, underwater measurements have shown a 40% decrease in the thickness of ice fields. However, ice in Greenland and the Antarctic seems to have gotten thicker.

International Polar Year

The International Polar Year, which kicked off on March 1, 2007 and ended in March 2008, provided a framework for scientists from around the world to unite their efforts and advance our understanding of the poles, which play a critical role in the Earth’s climate.

Global warming, confirmed by the GEIC (Global Environment Information Center) 2007 report, is one of the main concerns of scientists today. They all agree on the urgent need to gather accurate, reliable data, in order to draw up a realistic scenario for future developments, and reduce risks for the population of our planet.

The CryoSat-2 mission and Siral-2 instrument

CryoSat is a European Space Agency (ESA) altimetry satellite, dedicated to the observation of the Earth’s ice masses. Designed to last three and a half years, this mission will enable us to determine changes in the thickness of land and sea ice, with unprecedented precision, and to test forecasts of ice melting due to global warming. The satellite’s orbit, at an altitude of 720 km and an inclination of 92 degrees, enables it to cover practically all polar zones.

Thales Alenia Space, the world leader in space altimetry, designed and built the mission’s main instrument, radar altim�tre/ interf�rom�tre SIRAL2.