Posts tagged global warming
CU Boulder’s sun-gazing SORCE satellite, designed to last 5 years, turns 10
Jan 22nd
A decade later, the four instruments onboard the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, or SORCE, have given scientists an unprecedented look at some of the most intense solar eruptions ever witnessed — including the notorious Halloween storms in October and November 2003 — as well as the anomalously quiet solar minimum that hushed the sun’s surface beginning in 2008 and, now, a new solar maximum that appears to be the least active in a century.
“We were there to see it transform from a fairly normal solar cycle to a very low-activity solar cycle,” said Tom Woods, associate director of CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, known as LASP, and principal investigator for SORCE. “Of course we couldn’t predict or know that, but it’s very exciting.”
The data generated by SORCE’s instruments, which were originally designed to operate for just five years, are downloaded twice a day with the help of CU-Boulder undergraduates working at LASP mission control. Scientists are now using that data to better understand how energy from the sun affects Earth’s climate. While human-produced greenhouse gases have been the dominant driver of climate change over the last several decades, the activity of the sun can either enhance or offset the resulting global warming.
“About 10 to 15 percent of the climate warming since 1970 is due to the sun,” Woods said. “That’s going to change now. Now that solar activity is low, the global warming trend could slow down some, but not nearly enough to offset the anthropogenic effects on global warming.”
The current, lackluster solar maximum is being compared to periods when astronomers observed very few sunspots in the early 19th century known as the Dalton Minimum and in the last half of the 17th century known as the Maunder Minimum. During the Maunder Minimum, which coincided with an era known as the Little Ice Age, temperatures in Europe were especially cool, with rivers and canals freezing during the winter across the continent and rapidly advancing glaciers destroying villages in the Swiss Alps.
The SORCE mission is also a critical contributor to the long-term record of total solar irradiance — the magnitude of the sun’s energy when it reaches the top of the Earth’s atmosphere — which stretches back to 1978, when the Nimbus-7 satellite was launched. The Total Irradiance Monitor, or TIM, instrument onboard SORCE is taking the most accurate and most precise measurements of total solar irradiance ever collected.
“The total solar irradiance provides nearly all the energy powering the Earth’s climate system, exceeding all other energy sources combined by 2,500 times,” said Greg Kopp, LASP senior research scientist and co-investigator responsible for the TIM instrument. “Any change in total irradiance can thus have large effects on our climate.”
Data from the SORCE mission have also begun a new record for measurements of visible and near-infrared light emitted from the sun. The solar spectral irradiance measurements are being made for the first time by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor, or SIM. Combined with other instruments onboard SORCE, scientists can now see all the wavelengths, including those in the ultraviolet range, emitted by the sun at once. This new way of seeing the sun has led to interesting discoveries, including that the energy emitted in some wavelengths of light vary out of phase with the sun’s overall activity, actually increasing as the number of sunspots decreases.
Now that SORCE has doubled its original life expectancy, LASP scientists are building new instruments to take over when SORCE gives out. A new TIM built at LASP launched on NASA’s Glory mission in 2011, but the satellite failed to make orbit. After the loss of Glory, CU-Boulder scientists, determined to avoid a gap in the record of total solar irradiance measurements, came up with a creative solution, repurposing a ground-based TIM to quickly make it space-worthy and then integrating it onto a U.S. Air Force satellite built by Ball Aerospace that is set to launch in August of this year.
“It’s important to have continuous measurements of solar irradiance since we’re looking for small changes in the sun’s output over decades and even centuries,” said Kopp. “Detecting such small changes using measurements disconnected in time would make this even more difficult.”
A new SIM instrument, also built at LASP, is scheduled to launch in 2016 on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite. But while SORCE is expected to continue functioning for at least another year, allowing for overlapping measurements with the TIM instrument launching in August, it’s uncertain if SORCE’s SIM instrument will still be running when its successor makes it to space in 2016.
“We’re definitely hoping and planning that SORCE lasts through this year,” Woods said. “But 2016 — I don’t think SORCE’s battery is going to last that long.”
During SORCE’s 10-year foray in space, the satellite also witnessed two rare transits of the planet Venus in front of the sun and another two less-infrequent transits by Mercury. When Venus, the larger of the two planets and the closer to Earth, blocked out part of the sun’s light, SORCE’s TIM instrument measured a corresponding drop in the amount of total solar irradiance. The measurements are now useful reference tools for astronomers hoping to discover planets around other stars by measuring a dip in a star’s light from a planetary transit.
In all, CU-Boulder has received about $120 million from NASA for the construction and operation of SORCE. But in 2008, LASP took the unusual step of returning $3 million in cost savings from the SORCE mission to NASA that resulted from the program’s efficient operations.
Researchers at LASP are planning to celebrate SORCE’s 10th birthday with cake, a science seminar and a write-up of the satellite’s top-10 accomplishments in NASA’s The Earth Observer magazine.
But while the decade mark is typically an important milestone for celebration here on Earth, the more appropriate milestone for SORCE may come in 2014 at the 11-year mark, the average length of a complete solar cycle
“Eleven years is special to us,” Woods said. “Instead of having a big science conference this year, we’re planning it for next January.”
For more information, visit LASP’s SORCE website at http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/index.htm.
A video of CU-Boulder researchers discussing the SORCE mission is available at http://www.colorado.edu/news/multimedia/cu-boulders-sun-gazing-satellite-turns-10-0.
Vote Obama – Government Oversight Critical By Scott Hatfield
Oct 31st
By Scott Hatfield
With serious differences on corporate and government accountability and the concentration of wealth and power at the very top, folks should be feeling compelled to vote for Obama. Here in Boulder, most people will vote and vote democratic. However, there are some compelling reasons to vote for Obama if you are a Green, moderate Republican, unmotivated, or middle of the road.
With Ruth Bader Ginsburg planning to retire in 2015, her replacement by a far right corporatist would have serious consequences for decades on a wide variety of issues. Whether it is a woman’s right to choose, global warming, campaign finance, toxic waste, voter intimidation and suppression, public lands extraction, public health, or civil liberties, cementing right wing control would be a blow to the rights of all Americans. With the appointments of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayer, the President has shown appropriate and reasonable judgment.
Government oversight and regulation of large powerful corporations plays a critical role in protecting the safety of the American people. For a wide variety of issues, the Republicans keep repeating that regulations are the problem. We need to act to prevent a corporate free for all. The top issue on regulations has been health care reform. Privatizing Medicare through a voucher system while removing oversight would raise premiums while unleashing corporate profits at the expense of the sick and wounded. Health care needs to be about healing people rather than absolving accountability for the powerful. The argument against Obamacare is the same as the argument against oversight of toxic material. With cancer overtaking heart disease as the nation’s top killer, the purpose of collusion between these disparate but connected industries reflects a self perpetuating cycle of disease as a top priority, not safety in the homeland. A lack of regard for corporate accountability pervades the Romney agenda across the board on environmental issues so important to Boulder and the quality of life everywhere be it water (#1 in CO), CO2, endangered species, public lands extraction, exploding chemical plants, or wilderness.
Most of the stated opposition to corporate accountability boils down to the economic burden on the rich and powerful corporate elite. This is especially glaring in the financial and economic sectors. For Romney, it is not a matter of the economy; it is a matter of whose economy. Republicans are all too happy to see larger and larger proportions of Americans living in poverty and despair. Again a complete lack of accountability is the mantra for the financial sector abuses that got us into this economic quagmire in the first place. Meaningful reform will not occur without oversight. Too many people have lost their homes, retirement funds, and jobs. The Wall Street giants have made their intentions clear. A regulatory regime on these bloated bankers is critical for an economy that provides a level playing field. We need a financial system capable of promoting the interests of a majority of Americans, not just those at the top. “Drill, baby, drill!’ will not get us out of the mess that Wall Street created, just ask the Frankenstorm Sandy.
Across the board, replacing any meaningful policy analysis with sound bites about burdensome regulations on large corporations will not solve our nation’s problems. If you want to get out of a hole, stop digging. While fighting multiple wars abroad under the guise of keeping the American people safe, the serious erosion of corporate responsibility at home on issues such as health care, toxic exposure and the environment, and the financial sector will do more to damage homeland safety than enemies abroad could ever hope for.
Scott Hatfield has been a member of the Central Committee of the Colorado Democratic Party and the Executive Committee of the Boulder Democratic Party since 1996.
Frankenstorms are fueled by global warming
Oct 30th
Global Warming Raises Sea Levels, Alters Jet Stream, Makes Storms Stronger
SAN FRANCISCO— As America copes with the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, scientists with the Center for Biological Diversity are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to take emergency action against climate change. Global warming creates a “superstorm triple whammy” that helps turn nasty weather into a nightmare of killer winds and devastating storm surges.
“The terrifying truth is that America faces a future full of Frankenstorms,” said Shaye Wolf, Ph.D., the Center’s climate science director. “Climate change raises sea levels and supersizes storms. The threat of killer winds and crushing storm surges will grow by the year unless we get serious about tackling greenhouse gas pollution.”
Here’s how scientists say climate change feeds the superstorm triple whammy:
1. Global warming loads storms with more energy and more rainfall. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that Katrina-magnitude Atlantic hurricanes have been twice as likely in warm years compared with cold years. In warm years hotter ocean temperatures add energy to storms and warmer air holds more moisture, causing storms to dump more rainfall. Global ocean temperatures hit their second-highest level on record in September, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
2. Storm surge rides on higher sea levels, so more coastline floods during storms. In the northeastern United States, sea levels are rising three to four times faster than the global average, putting major U.S. cities at increased risk of flooding and storm surges, according to a June 2012 study in Nature Climate Change. The West Coast is not immune: Most of California could experience three or more feet of sea-level rise this century, heightening the risk of coastal flooding.
3. Melting sea ice and accelerating Arctic warming are causing changes in the jet stream that are bringing more extreme weather to the United States. Climate change in the Arctic is destabilizing the jet stream, causing bursts of colder air to drop down farther into the United States. In Sandy’s case, a collision with a cold front acted to turn the hurricane into a superstorm. Recent research, including studies by Georgia Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, has linked Arctic warming to increased risk of a variety of extreme weather events.
Deep and rapid greenhouse gas cuts are needed to reduce extreme weather risk. The Clean Air Act is America’s leading tool for curbing greenhouse gas pollution, and more than three dozen U.S. cities have joined the Center’s Clean Air Cities campaign urging the EPA to use the Clean Air Act to help reduce carbon in our atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million, the level scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 450,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
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