The following images were produced for the Defra Press Event, Smith Square London, Thursday 25th April 2002.

The Alps and a view of the Italian Lakes, taken by AATSR in March 2002:

A rare and spectacular view of the British Isles during a spell of clear weather. This visible image was taken by AATSR on 29th March 2002:

A fantastic thermal 12 micron AATSR image of the Gulf of Oman. The thermal structure in the ocean is clearly seen:

The frozen North. A 12 micron AATSR image of the edges of the Arctic. Ice flows breaking away from the Island of Novaya Zemlya:

AATSR images supplied by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Accompanying text for all pictures:

Image acquired by the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR), which is a space instrument on board the European Space Agency's environmental satellite Envisat. Envisat was launched on March 1st 2002 and is the largest civilian satellite ever constructed in Europe. DEFRA has made a special contribution to the Envisat programme by being the main funding partner and lead agency in the development and provision of the AATSR instrument. AATSR is designed to measure sea surface temperature to very high levels of accuracy, better than 0.5 degrees in order to allow scientists to monitor climate trends and improve predictions of future climate change. AATSR is the third in a series of UK-developed instruments and has been developed by a consortium comprising Astrium UK Ltd, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and other industrial partners. The programme has also benefited from a significant contribution from Australia.