A Dutch climate satellite was partially launched in the US last night. The satellite called Earthcare can see the clouds. This gives meteorologists a better idea of ​​the effect of clouds on the climate. It is a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) under the scientific leadership of KNMI.

Climate researcher Geert Jan van Zadelhoff of KNMI was “very happy” when he saw last night that the satellite had ended up in exactly the right place, 401 kilometers above Earth.

Van Zadelhoff has been working on this project for sixteen years and was still in suspense after the launch. “Then you have to open all the solar panels and you have to see if there’s power. That was about one o’clock in the afternoon. Then we knew we had a mission.”

According to the climate researcher, this mission revolves around measuring clouds, air particles, reflected solar rays, and thermal radiation. “What we want to know is how they interact, because that creates a lot of uncertainty in our predictions of climate change.”

Climate researchers already know the effect of high clouds (warming effect) and low clouds (cooling effect) on climate. “These are the two extremes,” says Van Zadelhoff. “But all the clouds in between can fall in one direction or another. So these types of effects need to be better studied.”

The world expects the first results in nine months. “But improving climate models will take several years.”