Filter forecast

Engineers at Queen's University Belfast have developed a dual-polarised Frequency Selective Surface filter that could lead to more accurate weather forecasts and a better understanding of climate change.

The team, from the university's Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT), has developed the filter for use in future European Space Agency (ESA) missions.

The filters will be installed in instruments being developed by the ESA for meteorological satellites it plans to launch between 2018 and 2020. The ESA instruments are used to detect thermal emissions in the Earth's atmosphere.

The data measures temperature, humidity profiles, and gas composition, which are in turn entered into operational systems and used to forecast weather and pollution.

Raymond Dickie, lead ECIT engineer, said: ‘Measuring just 30mm in diameter and 1/100mm thick, the devices will help to provide a much more comprehensive analysis of conditions in the Earth's atmosphere than has been possible previously.

‘Up to now, spaceborne remote sensing instruments have only been capable of separating either the vertically or horizontally polarised components of naturally occurring thermal emissions from gases in the Earth's atmosphere – but not both at the same time.