Cloud satellites finally see clear skies
Successful launch should prove to be a boon for climate research.
It has been a long wait, but two satellites that will study how clouds affect our climate are finally in orbit around the Earth. After delays by strikes, bad weather and dodgy phone connections, CloudSat and CALIPSO were launched on 28 April from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
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Comments
this is an important launch. well as far as the carbon emission and concentration goes in a global warming scenarios, scientists have very well understood the main contributor for the warming trend...but yeah a major negative bias associated with aerosols (which are mainly cloud condensation nuclei ) is present in the cooling trend. With the launch of cloud-SAT, the properties of clouds, optical thickness, particle size distribution data will be acquired and this will give us a clear quantitative distribution of the cooling effect. Also, due to the low particle size distribution, there will be more photon interaction and multiple scattering will increase as a result of which the land surface will cool down. So eventually, if we can measure the NET warming/ cooling trend, we can finally give a hint to global actions required to reduce such trends...data streaming from this satellite are awaited by many scientists to undergo a more concise study on clouds.
Posted by: sangram ganguly | April 29, 2006 02:03 AM
When will we have a decent set of data from the satellites?
Posted by: Ben Coombes | May 2, 2006 01:43 PM