EarthCARE stands for Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer. Its vital mission is to observe our planet from space, collecting information about how clouds, aerosols (tiny particles such as dust and pollutants floating in Earth's atmosphere) and radiation all interact.
We see clouds in the sky above us all the time, but did you know that they play an important part in how Earth’s atmosphere heats up and cools down? They reflect energy from the Sun back into space, which has a cooling effect on our planet; but they also trap infrared energy from the ground, which makes it warmer! Whether clouds do more cooling or heating overall depends on many factors, such as their size, location, and how much water they contain.
Earth’s atmosphere also contains lots of aerosols, and human activities such as transportation and farming can add more. Aerosols allow clouds to form, but they also reflect and trap heat themselves, in a similar way to clouds.