Robin Hogan
Principal Scientist at #ECMWF and Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading - Radiative Transfer - #EarthCARE enthusiast ecmwf.int/en/about/who-we-are…
- Reposted by Robin HoganThis new video from @climateadam.bsky.social is even more brilliant than usual - insightful and hilarious 🧐🤣❤️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=py0X...
- Job opportunity! 3.5-year postdoc at the Dept of Meteorology, University of Reading, to improve convective storms in high resolution models using #EarthCARE and other data, including close collaboration with both ECMWF and the Met Office - deadline 27 February: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
- Save the date! The next #EarthCARE Science and Validation Workshop will be 8-12 June 2026 in the beautiful city of Oxford, deadline for abstracts is 27 February: www.earthcare-science-validation-2026.org
- There have now been 100 aircraft under-flights of #EarthCARE, each providing invaluable information to calibrate and validate the data products. This example shows very good agreement between EarthCARE and aircraft vertical air motion in nimbostratus. Full article here: earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
- You can catch up with all the EarthCARE web stories at www.earthcarescience.net/web-stories - there were 21 articles in 2025, and will be many more in 2026!
- In this ECMWF blog post, Mark Fielding compares model simulations at 9- and 4.4-km resolution with #EarthCARE radar observations of Hurricane Humberto, which was sampled right through its eye on 28 September 2025: www.ecmwf.int/en/about/med...
- Never before have we been able to measure vertical velocities from space: on the top is EarthCARE showing falling rain and snow (blue) but in the eye-wall the cloud particles are lofted up (red). The next two panels show the 9- and 4.4-km models with the 4.4-km starting to capture the updrafts!
- Here is the wider context: satellite observations on the left and the two model versions on the right, visible imagery on top and thermal infrared on the bottom. The eye is stubbornly too wide in the model: what should we change in the model to improve this?
- All EarthCARE data have now been released! www.esa.int/Applications...
- Check out in particular the video explaining how the synergy retrievals are evaluated by "radiative closure": www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d_k...
- The paper describing the synergy retrievals is here: amt.copernicus.org/articles/16/...
- First day of the EarthCARE Science & Validation workshop on the beautiful University of Tokyo campus! Takuji Kubota described today's release of all the Japanese products, including those using the synergy of 3 & 4 instruments.
- More information here: www.satnavi.jaxa.jp/en/news/2025...
- Nice article about the various online and offline visualization and analysis tools that are available for exploring EarthCARE data - thanks to Eleni Marinou (@elmarinou.bsky.social) who coordinates the development of these tools! earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...
- Exciting week next week with the release of the full tranche of #EarthCARE products, including those using 3 and 4 of the instruments in synergy! JAXA held a media briefing earlier today and I explained why this is important (48mins in). www.youtube.com/live/9375tqa...
- Aircraft contrails are contributing to global warming, but the balance between their solar and infrared effects is uncertain. EarthCARE's combination of instruments, particularly its high resolution 3-view broadband radiometer, is perfectly placed to measure them! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
- This ECMWF training course is a great opportunity to learn about how physical processes are represented in weather and climate models, free for anyone in an ECMWF member state. It runs 2-6 March 2026 and the deadline for applications is 30 November. events.ecmwf.int/event/496/
- Would you believe it: just 10 days after #EarthCARE went through the eye of Hurricane Humberto, it did the same with Hurricane Priscilla in the East Pacific on 7 October! A very different beast this one: a huge eye around 100 km across, and very lopsided, with much more rain on the southern side.
- New instruments always throw up surprises - Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff of KNMI had a look at the #EarthCARE lidar's surface returns and found some intriguing and unexpected things as explained in ESA's latest EarthCARE web story... earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
- First, the depolarisation of the land surface measured by EarthCARE's lidar seems to be very well correlated to the widely used "NDVI" vegetation index - but why? We don't yet know but potentially this could be telling us something new about vegetation!
- Second, the signal from the "Rayleigh" channel of EarthCARE's lidar is strongly related with ocean chlorophyll estimates from routine ocean colour measurements, with the advantage that EarthCARE's lidar can continue to make measurements in polar night!
- So this is pretty amazing - yesterday EarthCARE sampled Hurricane Humberto straight across the eye! The eye of a tropical cyclone is small so a direct hit is rare: this is the first time EarthCARE has hit one after over a year in orbit! (Showing here also VIIRS on NOAA-20 for context.)
- The level of detail revealed by EarthCARE is amazing: as well as the usual change in vertical Doppler velocity as snow melts to rain, we can see the rising air in the eye wall! The imager also captures the 3D nature of the convective cells in the rain bands further out. More analysis to come...
- And here's EarthCARE's radar reflectivity with GOES-E for context (thanks to Mark Fielding)!
- EarthCARE is a inexhaustible source of beautiful imagery of some of the most spectacular phenomena nature has to offer, so I've started a Gallery page on the EarthCARE Science web site, showing for example convective motions in the trainbands of Typhoon Ragasa... www.earthcarescience.net/gallery
- ...and the volcanic plume from Klyuchevskaya Sopka in Russia, which erupted July-August 2025. More coming soon! Thanks as always to @masonshannon.bsky.social for many of the images and to NASA Worldview for the wider context. worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov?v=154.961959...
- It's official: WIVERN will be ESA's 11th Earth Explorer satellite, measuring winds deep inside hurricanes, fronts and other weather systems! www.esa.int/Applications...
- Another great #EarthCARE Image of the Month, this time led by Shannon Mason (@masonshannon.bsky.social): the Doppler radar sees wave structures in an Antarctic cloud while the lidar and imager see an optically thick ice cloud layer at around -45°C. What's going on? earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
- These are atmospheric gravity waves with a wavelength of 18 km, probably triggered by airflow over mountains; wavy structures are also seen in the zoomed-in radar and lidar backscatter. The updrafts bring air to liquid saturation and droplets form, but colder than -40°C they immediately freeze.
- When we look at the cloud properties estimated by combining the radar, lidar and imager (using the "ACM-CAP" algorithm developed by @masonshannon.bsky.social and me) we see this layer contains high concentrations of very small ice crystals. The imager shows that they block upward thermal radiation.
- This is the first time this process has been observed from space, thanks to EarthCARE's Doppler radar and high-spectral-resolution lidar! But how common is it globally and do these optically thick clouds have an impact on precipitation or even climate? Only EarthCARE can answer these questions!
- Good science explains unexpected observations, but great science predicts things only later confirmed from observations. Brilliant article from Nadir Jeevanjee on the fundamental correctness of climate models and the incredible work of Syukuro Manabe. theconversation.com/5-forecasts-...
- Great to see the new #ECMWF building going up on the beautiful University of Reading campus, very near the Meteorology Department - looking forward to moving in in 2027!
- The deadline for abstracts to December's #EarthCARE Science & Validation workshop in Tokyo has been extended to 1st September. www.eorc.jaxa.jp/EARTHCARE/ev...
- EarthCARE has enough fuel for a mission of at least 10 years! This is fantastic news for using EarthCARE for climate science and assimilation, and is much more than the 3-4 years originally envisaged! earth.esa.int/eogateway/ne...
- ESA has performed careful calculations of projected fuel usage in the case of weak, moderate and strong solar activity - if the next solar maximum is weak, EarthCARE would have fuel for much longer than 10 years! Let's hope the instruments keep operating as successfully as they have so far...🤞
- The next #EarthCARE Science and Validation Workshop is in Tokyo this December - the deadline for abstract submission is 20 August. It will be a great opportunity to share our scientific findings so far and will coincide with the release of final tranche of products. www.eorc.jaxa.jp/EARTHCARE/ev...
- Great news: "WIVERN" has been recommended as ESA's 11th Earth Explorer satellite following the user consultation meeting last week! WIVERN uses a scanning 94-GHz radar to measure winds and reflectivity in an 800 km swath, invaluable for assimilation and understanding severe weather. wivern.polito.it
- You can learn more from the WIVERN presentations given at the user consultation meeting in Prague last week - I particularly liked the animations showing what WIVERN will measure in tropical cyclones! www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tfX...
- Congratulations to the WIVERN team for all their amazing work in preparing the case for selection, particularly to Professor Anthony Illingworth who had the original idea for WIVERN, as well as being the Father of EarthCARE!
- Beautiful high-resolution imagery from #EarthCARE's multi-spectral imager in a Category 4 tropical cyclone! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
- You can find all #EarthCARE web stories listed at the EarthCARE Science web site: www.earthcarescience.net/web-stories
- Taking #EarthCARE merch to the next level! You've got the polo shirt. You've even got the lego model. Now you can enjoy EarthCARE toilet paper! 🧻🧻🧻 Rated top for environmental impact by Consumer NZ 👍 www.stuff.co.nz/business/121...
- Huge amounts of Arctic smoke from Canadian wildfires seen by #EarthCARE's lidar: it is being transported over the North Pole to Europe and has even entered the stratosphere! earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...
