Tag: Earth Day

NASA’s Role in Climate Assessment

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The satellite is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.
Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

NASA’s role in studying and protecting our home planet has never been stronger. Climate change is a problem we must deal with right now, and our Earth science satellite missions have become ever more vital to documenting and understanding our home planet, predicting the ramifications of this change, and sharing information across the globe for everyone’s benefit.

Today, the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment was released.  The report is the most authoritative and comprehensive source of scientific information ever generated about climate-change impacts on all major regions of the United States and critical sectors of society and the national economy. It presents an influential body of practical, useable knowledge that decision-makers will use to anticipate and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

The assessment reports on a broad range of topics that illuminate the interconnectedness of everything tied to climate. The focused approaches used to conduct the analyses in this report will help us build the capability to do better and more regular climate assessments in the future.  I am proud that NASA data and NASA scientists contributed to the research reported in many of the Assessment’s chapters.

We can already see the impacts of climate change around the world, especially through the lens of our satellites. The U.S. National Climate Assessment combined observations from NASA’s incredible fleet of Earth observation satellites with surface-based and satellite data from our interagency and international partners, to help us understand what’s going on globally in areas such as polar ice, precipitation extremes, temperature change, sea level rise and forest ecosystems.

Five NASA Earth Science missions will be launched into space in 2014 alone. Together with NASA’s existing fleet of satellites, airborne missions, researchers, and the unique platform of the International Space Station (ISS), these new missions will help answer some of the critical challenges facing our planet today and in the future.

The Global Precipitation Measurement core observatory launched in February is already helping us learn more about rainfall patterns worldwide. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2), slated for a July launch, will map the greenhouse gas globally, providing new insights into where and how it moves into and out of the atmosphere. The RapidScat instrument to measure wind speed and direction over the oceans, and the CATS lidar instrument to measure aerosols and cloud properties will be installed on the ISS.  The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will launch in November, to measure soil moisture over the globe and freeze-thaw timing.

All of the data NASA collects is widely disseminated and helps many people to make wise decisions about how we care for our planet, as well as predict and cope with changes in climate and extreme weather events. The National Climate Assessment is an example of how critical the NASA data and research are.

Please take some time to review this important document at: www.globalchange.gov.

Celebrating Earth Day

Observations of our home planet – and improving life on it for every resident – have always been at the core of NASA’s mission, and this year we’ll demonstrate that in multiple ways with a remarkable five Earth science launches.

NASA ventures into space not only to explore beyond Earth – we also venture into space to get to know Earth better.  It’s only from space that we really get to understand our home planet.

In 2014, for the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth Science missions will be launched into space in one year.  Together with NASA’s existing fleet of satellites, airborne missions, and researchers, these new missions will help answer some of the critical challenges facing our planet today and in the future: climate change; sea level rise; access to freshwater resources; and extreme weather events.

These new missions highlight NASA’s role as an innovation leader in Earth and climate science.  They’re helping us build a constantly expanding view of our planet from space and are backed by an exceptional team of experts and decades of innovative scientific and technical research.

Back in February, we successfully launched the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory with Japan’s space agency.  GPM inaugurates an unprecedented international satellite constellation to produce frequent global observations of rainfall and snowfall — revolutionary new data that will help answer questions about our planet’s life-sustaining water cycle and improve weather forecasting and water resource management.

With the launch of two Earth science instruments to the International Space Station scheduled for this year — RapidScat and CATS — NASA will for the first time use our unique orbiting laboratory as a 24/7 Earth-observing platform to collect critical information about ocean winds, clouds, and aerosol particles for climate research, weather forecasting, and hurricane monitoring.

Advances in understanding carbon dioxide’s role in climate change are expected after NASA returns the Orbiting Carbon Observatory to flight in July after a 2009 launch failure.  OCO-2 will map the greenhouse gas globally, providing new insights into where and how it moves into and out of the atmosphere.

On a water planet like Earth, “following the water” is a massive undertaking but one that is essential to predicting the future of our climate and the availability of water resources around the globe.  With the launch of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission this year, NASA will track water into one of its last hiding places: Earth’s soil.  Coupled with GPM and the NASA Aquarius instrument measuring sea-surface salinity and the GRACE mission, which can detect changes in underground aquifers, we will have unprecedented measurements of our planet’s vital water cycle.

In 2014 NASA also wraps up a three-year campaign to study Atlantic hurricanes with unmanned aircraft and advances the development of a new satellite constellation — CYGNSS, to launch in 2016 — to probe these storms worldwide with GPS signals.

Climate change is the challenge of our generation, and NASA is uniquely qualified to take on the challenge of documenting and understanding these changes, predicting the ramifications, and sharing information about these changes for the benefit of society.

But beyond hard data, our Earth science missions help us appreciate our planet as the beautiful, fragile oasis it is.  From the Station we are fortunate to be able to really see and appreciate Earth as a beautiful and dynamic world worth protecting.  From our science satellites, we get a full and rich picture of how our planet works.

With the new tools we’re sending to space this year, NASA gives the world a better view of our planet.  Our new satellites and instruments aboard the Station join an already incredible fleet of Earth observation satellites examining ocean temperatures and salinity, changes in land cover and the atmosphere, climate change and many other factors that affect us all.

NASA research yields down-to-earth benefits such as improved environmental prediction, preparing for natural hazards, and anticipating the impacts of climate change.

You can be sure that we will continue to share this knowledge with the world to improve and protect life here on Earth.  I’d say that’s a perfect way to celebrate Earth Day, every day.