Global Warming

224 Weighingthe uncertainty

AATSR

SCIAMACHY

MWR

Ka-band

Antenna

DORIS

X-band

Antenna

ASAR

Antenna

LRR

RA-2 Antenna

GOMOS

MERIS

MIPAS

Figure 9.2ENVISAT showing the instruments included in its payload: the

Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR), the Michelson

Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS), the MEdium

Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), the SCanning Image Absorption

spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY (SCIAMACHY), the MicroWave

Radiometer (MWR), the Global Ozone Monitoring by Observation of Stars

(GOMOS), the Radar Altimeter – second generation (RA-2), the Advanced

Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR), and other instruments for communication and

exact tracking. DORIS stands for Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning

Integrated by Satellite. In its 800-km Sun-synchronous orbit with the solar array

deployed, it measures 26 m× 10 m× 5 m and weighs 8.1 tonnes.

Alongside the increased understanding and more accurate predic-

tions of climate change coming from the community of natural scien-

tists, much more effort is now goinginto studies of human behaviour

and activities, how they will influence climate through changes in emis-

sions of greenhouse gases and how they in turn might be affected by

different degrees of climate change. Much better quantification of the

impacts of climate change will result from these studies. Economists

and other social scientists are pursuing detailed work on possible re-

sponse strategies and the economic and political measures that will be

necessary to achieve them. It is also becoming increasingly realised that