Fennec is a large-scale, international, multi-platform, observational, modelling and satellite programme designed to tackle a key climate region.

The central Sahara has one of the most extreme climates on Earth. During the summer months, a large low pressure system caused by intense solar heating develops over a huge, largely uninhabited expanse of northern Mali, southern Algeria and eastern Mauritania. The atmospheric aerosol loading and thermodynamics over this region are unique, and have major impacts on the climate of the whole North African sector, Europe and the Atlantic. Fennec is a large-scale, international, multi-institutional, multi-platform, observational, modelling and satellite programme designed to tackle one of the world's key climate regions.

Fennec: Into the Cauldron

This short film tells the story of the observational campaigns which took place over the Central Sahara through the summers of 2011 and 2012. It shows how a dedicated set of specialists, both on the ground and in the air, managed to deliver the most comprehensive field campaign ever mounted in this uninhabited, fiercely hot, inhospitable region.

Jamie Banks (featured in the movie) and Helen Brindley from SPAT are directly involved in the Fennec program while the EO-portal created to support the campaign by providing near-real time imagery (see www.fennec.imperial.ac.uk) was developed with help from Alan Last, Jon Murray and Richard Bantges. Claire Ryder (featured in the movie) is also a former SPAT member.