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Short abstract:

According to proponents of climate services, algorithms coupled with environmental data produced by all-seeing satellites could provide useful tools for managing climate. But what is the nature of such technical devices? Where do they come from? And on what assumptions and data are they based?

Long abstract:

Satellite data are routinely used for research purposes, but a long-standing discourse originating from the space sector has emphasised their potential for so-called “operational” uses for environmental management, through climate services and decision-making tools. In Europe, the Earth observation system Copernicus embodies a distinctive attempt from the European Commission to both produce such data and try to favour the emergence of a market for climate services that leverage remote sensing data and algorithms to create “smart” solutions against climate-related threat – for instance detecting and predicting urban heat islands, floods, or forest fires. Moreover, such services are also presented as scalable – meaning that the algorithmic solutions could easily be tailored to other geographic areas and scales that the ones they were built for. Yet, within the black box of these algorithmic solutions lie a number of assumptions regarding the malleability and neutrality of satellite data, the possibility to manage climate as a technical problem and even the influence of data and knowledge on policy-making. To reflect on the nature of such devices, this communication will trace, within the European context, the origins of the “operationalisation” of satellite data through sophisticated algorithms and the efforts from the space sector to champion space-based climate services. As part of an ongoing PhD inquiry on Copernicus and the production, diffusion and use of satellite data for climate governance, this contribution will be based on archival analysis and interviews with producers of satellite-based climate services.