Airborne GeoSciences

NERC Recognition, June 2011

Airborne GeoSciences is now a NERC Recognised Facility

We are very pleased to announce that Airborne GeoSciences has been awarded recognised facility status by NERC. We will benefit from much closer liaison and standardisation with the NERC airborne facilities, as well as greatly enhanced publicity and awareness through NERC's website and general networking. We look forward to stimulating a wealth of new collaborative research at the School of GeoSciences, as well as playing an increasing role in our national capability.

New Instrumentation, New Capabilities

A Hyspex VNIR1600 hyperspectral imager and Picarro G2301-m CH4, CO2 and H2O Flight Ready gas analyser are currently being integrated and certified for flight. Meteorological systems and electrical and data infrastructure are also being upgraded. See Instrumentation for more details.

Our Facility

The School of GeoSciences owns and operates a Diamond HK36 TTC-ECO aircraft to help us explore the lower atmosphere, its interactions with the ground below and the processes that shape our planet's surface. The aircraft enables us to make atmospheric measurements up to 10,000 feet (or above) and to produce images of the Earth's surface using sensors similar to those carried onboard satellites. We are able to directly measure the exchange of gases between the earth’s vegetation and the atmosphere while flying low above the ground, which is a vital tool in understanding the effect of natural processes on human emissions in the atmosphere (and vice versa). The ECO-Dimona platform is also very suitable for the testing and development of new sensor technologies for environmental research.

We're now on Facebook! Click on the image to visit our Facebook page and keep up to date with our latest news and image galleries. You don't need to be a member of Facebook to view this page!

For more information please contact Tom Wade or one of our team.