The NorthSat-X project ("The North Sea from space: Using explainable artificial intelligence to improve satellite observations of climate change") aims to improve satellite-based remote sensing of climate-relevant variables (ECVs - essential climate variables), especially in coastal areas. For this purpose, the group around Oliver Wurl (ICBM - project coordinator) collects data such as sea surface salinity (SSS) and sea surface temperature (SST) directly at the sea surface (in-situ) and compares them with extraterrestrial data in cooperation with the DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence). Methods based on comprehensible, machine learning (XAI - explainable artificial intelligence) should be able to carry out the comparison better than before and make satellite-based measurements from coastal regions usable in the future. This should make it possible to record climatic changes more quickly and accurately, as well as precipitation in the North Sea region. In addition, the system could serve as a basis for commercial applications in the evaluation of satellite data.