UTES

The UK government has been urged to fund the next stage of a major European programme to monitor the effects of global climate change from space. The trade body UKspace made the call ahead of a key ministerial meeting. Britain entered Kopernikus, the world's biggest environmental monitoring project, at a quarter of the funding level preferred by industry. UK companies are understood to have lost out on lucrative contracts as a result. The programme will combine data from state-of-the-art satellites and hundreds of other sources to provide an accurate understanding of the land, oceans and atmosphere.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7649166.stm