INPE - 2011

• Production of the first future global climate scenario, in collaboration with British Hadley Center, to be supplied to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (to be completed in June 2011.
• Brazilian Model of the Global Climate System test phase starts. It was a world-class climate model.
• Organization of the first International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity (ICAE) held in Southern Hemisphere.
• INPE participates in “Greenhouse Gases Emissions in Hydroelectric Reservoirs Project”, along with COPPE, CEPEL, UFPA, UFJF, and others.
• The remote observation network of Transient Luminous Events starts to work.
• Acquisition of the first fast camera to observe Transient Luminous Events (DEELUMINOS/FAPESP project). Transient Luminous Events (ELTs) are large-scale phenomena in the middle and upper atmosphere, resulting from the electrical activity of underlying storm clouds, and represent a new electrodynamics coupling of atmospheric layers mechanism, including ionosphere.
• First numerical model for ionospheric total electron content (CET) in Latin America. The CET is used to do corrections of ionospheric effects on positions measures provided by GPS. Project participants: INPE and University of Sheffield, UK.

  Worldwide

• There is a chance to announce a new kilogram definition, based on universal constants, which will be announced during the 24th General Conference on Weights and Measures.

• Wikipedia turns 10 years old.

• After 18 years, the moon arrives at perigee, its closest point to Earth; the last time this happened was in March 1993.