VEGA supports ESA’s Climate Change Initiative

6 December 2010 – VEGA, a Finmeccanica company, has recently secured a significant role in the European Space Agency’s (ESA) strategic Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project to help build a detailed historical model of ocean colour and how it maybe linked to changes in the Earth’s climate.

Under the scientific lead of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Ocean Colour CCI project is one of ten Essential Climate Variable (ECV) projects part of the ESA Climate Change Initiative programme. The Ocean Colour team will be responsible for re-examining and re-evaluating key Earth observation data that has accumulated over the years, in order to identify data that can be used to help develop a detailed historical model of ocean colour. This new model will improve our understanding of how changes in ocean colour are linked to changes in the Earth’s climate, and should lead to better understanding and prediction of the effects of climate change.

VEGA has already provided extensive support to PML in the preparation of the Ocean Colour CCI proposal, and under this new role will now take responsibility for the overall project management, as well as supporting the Ocean Colour team in other key tasks such as system engineering.

As part of this three-year task, the team will define requirements and validate a proposed technical approach for the second stage of the Ocean Colour CCI project. The second stage includes the development, integration and testing of new systems that will support our ongoing understanding of the effects of climate change on our environment and help us to better understand what we must do to minimise, and if possible, reverse, destructive climate change.

Peter Young, Director for Space at VEGA said: “As one of the ten key projects part of the CCI programme, this is a significant initiative for VEGA to be involved with. Longer term, we hope this will place us well for Stage Two of this CCI programme, which requires detailed design, development and operation of operational systems – areas in which we already play a leading role through our ongoing service to ESA on the IDEAS project.”

Further information
For further information, please contact Karen Rogers on karen.rogers@vegaspace.com.