Green Thing Blog

Early next year NASA will be launching a satellite that will hunt out exactly where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed at the Earth's surface. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), the first of its kind dedicated to tracking CO2 levels, should take our knowledge of the Earth's complex carbon cycle to a whole new level, mapping out in detail carbon sinks and sources close to the ground.

OCO is due to be launched on 23 February, heading up a 'train' of 7 satellites each containing different instruments that will together will provide an all-round analysis of the Earth's atmospheric and water cycles. Ok, admittedly it will take quite a lot of CO2 emitting fossil-fuel to get them all up there in the first place, but this sounds like it could really transform our understanding of our planet's complex systems, and it'll be interesting to see their results.

Source: BBC News

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Last year we posted about NASA's Taurus satellite that would hunt out exactly where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed at the Earth's surface.

Unfortunately, after seven years of building and testing the equipment this critical piece of $270m (£190m) research will have to wait as the "Mishap Investigation Board" works out why the Taurus XL rocket's nose cone didn't come off as planned after three minutes so the satellite couldn't launch.

Thankfully there's one more horse still in the race, the Japan's Gosat mission is up and working and will hopefully provide the much needed data to work out how much CO2 is being emitted and absorbed by the earth and where this is happening.

Global warming is happening a lot faster than most people predicted - we need all the new information we can get to accurately predict how dramatically our climate will continue to change. And even better, to do something dramatic about it.

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Can anyone explain why NASAs discovery of 24 gallons of iced water in a crater on the moon will help us "monitor and protect the Earth"?

According to the the CEO and Chairman of the X Prize Foundation, Peter Diamandis: "We're entering a new era of lunar exploration — 'Moon 2.0,' in which an international group of companies and governments will use the ice and other unique resources of the moon to help us expand the sphere of human influence, and to help us monitor and protect the Earth."

I'm not saying it won't, I just don't understand how it will. Apart from allowing us to colonize the moon and move there when our planet gets too hot.

[Spotted on MSNBC]

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1. DO be creative, inventive and all consuming, using existing resources. In the above case, use hair.

2. Don't blow things up. It might have worked for the Russians, but likely chaos will ensue.

3. DO think like NASA, and invent aerogels to sponge up the spills.

4. Don't use a toxic dispersant. The effects on animals, plants and humans is not well known.

5. DO use tools like Ushahidi, a web-based platform that aggregates real time information and maps it. It helps visualise data and organise relief efforts. 

6. Don't start racial profiling. Dear Sarah Palin, the oil spill is very upsetting, even for Brits! And not all British people work for BP or condone their actions.

7. DO keep up to date with the efforts. Twitter has some great up to date news and information from the gulf.

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NASA's got some pretty cool and informative images in their locker (having loads of satellites and technology helps). Their prespective on climate change is one from above. Like the things that can be seen from space, such as aquatic dead zones and forest canopy heights.

Aside from knowing where the tallest trees are in the world, NASA explains,

'Scientific interest in the new map goes far beyond curiosities about tree height. The map has implications for an ongoing effort to estimate the amount of carbon tied up in Earth’s forests and for explaining what sops up 2 billion tons of “missing” carbon each year'.

Another interesting NASA image is of aquatic dead zones. Without pointing out the obvious, one can see the dead zones happen to exist where the highest density of people live.

While all can maps have distortions, NASA's use of satelitte imaging and laser technology produce widely accepted and very real data- most of which is collected over several years.

NASA's Eye's on the Earth contains images of change which demonstrate how areas have evolved over time.

The same way you'd compare baby photos of a person to their present self, images of change show an ever changing and evolving planet.

You can see more images and things from NASA's observatory here.

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