The Glory climate satellite will join the A-Team (Aqua, CloudSat, Calipso and Aura) in February 2011
A new satellite for studying climate changes is due to be launched February 23, 2011. The satellite, called Glory, will be joining four other climate satellites - Aqua, CloudSat, CALIPSO, and Aura - in what is known as the A-Train and will orbit 438 miles above the planet.
According to Inside Science, Glory will be carrying out some very complex calculations. The satellite will measure changes in energy that is entering and exiting the atmosphere as well as the effect that manmade greenhouse gases (GHG) or aerosols, are having on the atmosphere. The exact method of taking those measurements are described as follows:
The problem seems simple enough: Take the total amount of energy coming to Earth from the sun, subtract what gets reflected back or re-radiated from particles in the atmosphere and see what you have left. If more energy is coming in than going out, it’s getting hotter.
The next bit is more complicated: Figure out what fraction of these atmospheric particles stems from natural phenomena, such as wind-blown dust and volcanic eruptions, and what is coming from things we can control — our industrial processes, business pursuits and recreational past-times.
Got that? Glory must be both a monitor and an atmospheric probe in order to accomplish its job. Since it is the only satellite currently performing such services its launch is important.
"The aerosols come in all shapes and sizes and chemical compositions," said Glory project scientist Michael Mishchenko of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in New York City. "We can get a fairly good idea of the chemical composition and, thereby, of the origin of the particles — is it a natural particle, or a manmade particle? The existing instruments can’t do that.
The other satellites in the A-train, more formally known as the Afternoon Constellation, are carrying out other climate measurements of the same area. The A-train flies over the equator every day and sends back data that is crunched in computer models to monitor and forecast climate change.
"As we’re starting to set climate policy based on the inputs that are driving climate change, we need to be able to distinguish how much of climate change is stuff that we can control and how much is purely natural," said solar physicist Greg Kopp, with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder
Two more climate change satellites are due to be launched in 2012 and 2013. All 7 satellites should be able to give scientists a much better grasp of the realities of climate change along with how much of that change is manmade.
Photos from NASA.gov
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