The launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory will inaugurate an unprecedented international satellite constellation to produce frequent global observations of rainfall and snowfall -- revolutionary new data that will help answer questions about our planets life-sustaining water cycle and improve weather forecasting and water resource management. •The Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite will take its place in the fleet of NASA satellites now observing every phase of Earths critical water cycle, allowing the agency to follow the water from underground aquifers to the oceans to moisture and rainfall in the clouds. Scientists look to the changes in this cycle as a signature of climate change. Understanding how and how quickly those changes will happen will be vital toward allowing cities and countries to adapt. •As carbon dioxide levels in Earths atmosphere continue to rise, NASA will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 to make a completely new set of global, satellite measurements of the still mysterious ways that carbon moves through the atmosphere, land and ocean. •The deployment of two new instruments on the International Space Station will for the first time convert the orbiting astronaut lab into a 24-7 platform for Earth science. The ISS-RapidScat instrument will observe how winds behave around the globe to benefit weather forecasts and hurricane monitoring, while the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System, or CATS, instrument will make critical measurements of clouds and aerosols – still the two climate change variables most difficult to measure and predict.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 08:51:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015