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NASA's Aqua spacecraft has been taking daily CO2 measurements with its Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument (AIRS) for the past seven years and now all that information gathering has led to beautiful and frightening maps and models of the concentration and movement of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Highlighting the importance of this new data set, NASA researcher Moustafa Chahine said:
"AIRS provides the highest accuracy and yield of any global carbon dioxide data set available to the research community, now and for the immediate future," said Chahine. "It will help researchers understand how this elusive, long-lived greenhouse gas is distributed and transported, and can be used to develop better models to identify 'sinks,' regions of the Earth system that store carbon dioxide. It's important to study carbon dioxide in all levels of the troposphere."
The data reveals major findings like a belt-like ring of CO2 in the southern hemisphere where it acts as a sink for CO2 from the northern hemisphere. Also, the data shows the strong correlation between a rise in CO2 and a rise in water vapor, leading to "exacerbated" warming.
You can check out all of the amazing models, including global CO2, water vapor and methane movements here.
via NASA
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written by Fred, December 18, 2009
Well, the false-color imagery is certainly pretty, and it looks very dramatic on-screen, but if you look at the key, it is only displaying levels between 382 and 389 parts per million. That's a variation of only 0.0007% from one side of the globe to the other.
Just because they show bright orange and red over the US and Europe doesn't mean "danger" - nor does it mean that the levels are markedly different from one hemisphere to the other; it's only a method they use to highlight the tiny variations pulsing through the skies.
Fascinating and gorgeous, though. Thanks for posting it!
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written by michael, December 18, 2009
The shot at Bigspud's poor spelling is cheap, and I apologize. It was his offhand comment on NASA's "years of data and image manipulation" that let me think a cheap shot was warranted.
NASA manipulates data? And this "knowledge" is so common that it just be tossed out there without sourcing?
I have no tie to the agency, but if ever an entity HAD to be science driven in order to survive, it would be NASA. Is it totally truthful? I don't know. Is it not also a political animal? Couldn't survive without being one.
But if they don't respect the f-a-c-t-s of science, everything they do fails!
NASA manipulates data? And this "knowledge" is so common that it just be tossed out there without sourcing?
I have no tie to the agency, but if ever an entity HAD to be science driven in order to survive, it would be NASA. Is it totally truthful? I don't know. Is it not also a political animal? Couldn't survive without being one.
But if they don't respect the f-a-c-t-s of science, everything they do fails!
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written by Gorril, December 18, 2009
We have sufficient supplies of elemental sulfur to add a reflective layer in the outer atmosphere of the earth. The sulfur would be in nano powder form and deployed from missiles. We can easily reduce the temperature by 5-10C this way within a period of a few months.
The nano particles could be expected to stay in the atmosphere for 3 months, thus allowing us to calibrate the exact amount of cooling we need. We can dial it in as required until it is just right.
As a side benefit, this approach will allow us to enrich the CO2 load of the atmosphere and encourage more luxuriant growth of crops.
In the case of runaway warming:
Not so long ago Antarctica (Gondwana land) was a cool temperate continent covered in massive Nothofagus forests, today those forests can only be found as refugia remnants in parts of Australia and the tip of South America. We can again make Antarctica a luxuriant continent suitable for agriculture and human habitation.
There is absolutely no reason for panic, nor for governments to tax the air we breathe. We just need some missile launches to deploy some sulfur powder.
The nano particles could be expected to stay in the atmosphere for 3 months, thus allowing us to calibrate the exact amount of cooling we need. We can dial it in as required until it is just right.
As a side benefit, this approach will allow us to enrich the CO2 load of the atmosphere and encourage more luxuriant growth of crops.
In the case of runaway warming:
Not so long ago Antarctica (Gondwana land) was a cool temperate continent covered in massive Nothofagus forests, today those forests can only be found as refugia remnants in parts of Australia and the tip of South America. We can again make Antarctica a luxuriant continent suitable for agriculture and human habitation.
There is absolutely no reason for panic, nor for governments to tax the air we breathe. We just need some missile launches to deploy some sulfur powder.
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written by JoeNY, December 18, 2009
One thing caught my eye when watching the video: The next year's measurements always seem to start at approximately 25% above the previous year's low, yet the annual fluxuations appear to be consistant in range. Either the earth is picking up CO2 in very consistant amounts or maybe the equipment degrades at a very consistant rate. I'd make sure that this doesn't become another example of equipment error over data like the high atmosphere temperature readings(thermometer shielding caused errors) or the global ice measurements (equipment malfunction that made the recession of ice look dramatic, while when corrected the amount of ice is the same in 2009 as it was in 1979)lately. No blind trust for now.
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written by Phil, December 20, 2009
Why is it that the word amazing is used to describe mere research? Where is the intellectual rigor of the journalist?
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written by VeruTEK Green Technologies, December 21, 2009
It is great because it is once again, proven results to those skeptics who believe there is no human involvement in Global Warming. It is terrible because the results are so scary.
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written by frisbee, December 23, 2009
Though I'm not a specialist at this field, I would guess the fact that carbon concentration drops in late spring is because of normal seasonly increasing growth of vegetation and sea algae (which both use CO2 for their growth) on the northern hemisphere, while the extra increase of carbon concentration in autumn comes from fossil and deforestation born carbon. So added to the normal annual variation in carbon levels, NASA shows us the extra carbon us humans contribute.
Fine if you show me a better explanation.
Fine if you show me a better explanation.
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written by frisbee, December 23, 2009
Though the yearly increase shown on the video might seem slow in the 7 years shown (12 ppm, from 376 to 388 ppm), just imagine it to continue at this speed for another 50 years an you'll find an increase of about (7x12=) 84 ppm, which would mean an increase of about 20%! That is an increase I find scary, particularly because the predicted development of undeveloped countries will add a lot more carbon to the above calculation. Unless of course if we would finally manage to undertake global action...
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Thanks for reading, Huband Enviro Club