Recently we’ve been discussing products from the AIRS satellite instrument (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder) onboard the Aqua satellite. There has been quite a bit of interest in this because unlike the satellite temperature record that goes back to 1979, until now we have not had a complementary satellite derived CO2 record. We are about to have one, and much more.
Click image to see a slide show with this graphic in it (PDF)
I wrote to the AIRS team to inquire about when the satellite data on CO2, and other relevant products might be made public. All that has been released so far are occasional snippets of data and imagery, such as the short slide show above.
Here is the response I got from them:
Thank you for your interest in the AIRS CO2 data product.
We are still in the validation phase in developing this new product.
It will be part of the Version 6 data release, but for now those of us
working on it are intensively validating our results using in situ
measurements by aircraft and upward looking fourier transform IR
spectrometers (TCCON network and others).
The AIRS CO2 product is for the mid-troposphere. For quite some time
it was accepted theory that CO2 in the free troposphere is
“well-mixed”, i.e., the difference that might be seen at that altitude
would be a fraction of a part per million (ppmv). Models, which
ingest surface fluxes from known sources, have long predicted a smooth
(small)variation with latitude, with steadily diminishing CO2 as you
move farther South. We have a “two-planet” planet – land in the
Northern Hemisphere and ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Synoptic
weather in the NH can be seen to control the distribution of CO2 in
the free troposphere. The SH large-scale action is mostly zonal.
Since our results are at variance with what is commonly accepted by he
scientific community, we must work especially hard to validate them.
We have just had a paper accepted by Geophysical Research Letters that
will be published in 6-8 weeks, and are preparing a validation paper.
We have global CO2 retrievals (day and night, over ocean and land, for
clear and cloudy scenes) spanning the time period from Sept 2002 to
the present. Those data will be released as we satisfactorily
validate them.
I suggest you Google “Carbon Tracker” for some interesting maps
generated using model atmospheres and data for CO2 sources. It shows
the CO2 weather in the lowest part of the atmosphere.
The big picture is that CO2 sources and sinks are in the planetary
boundary layer. Global circulation of CO2 occurs in the free
troposphere. Thus, PBL is local whereas free troposphere is
international.
———-
AIRS Team
With the suggestion of using the Google “Carbon tracker”, some readers might look at this response as a “dodge”. I don’t see it that way at all. Why? Because they are actively engaged in proving the instrument by doing a series of aircraft based measurements to validate the data the instrument on the spacecraft is seeing.
For example, read this paper from them:
First Satellite Remote Sounding of the Global Mid-Tropospheric CO2
These graphics show how hard they are working to validate the data from in situ measurements using airborne flask samples sent to a lab spectrometer:
…and the results of the flask sample measurements:
Read more about this here in this paper (PDF)
Also if you read between the lines in their response to me, particularly this paragraph:
Since our results are at variance with what is commonly accepted by he
scientific community, we must work especially hard to validate them.
We have just had a paper accepted by Geophysical Research Letters that
will be published in 6-8 weeks, and are preparing a validation paper.
I’d say that waiting that 6-8 weeks for the paper and supporting data will be well worth it. The working title of the upcoming paper is: “Satellite Remote Sounding of Mid-Tropospheric CO2” and the lead author is Moustafa T. Chahine.
Good things come to those who wait.
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Gee, computer models approach reality when using well-mixed gases. But if reality isn’t well mixed, what are the models approaching?
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-1/final-report/default.htm
The ozone hole was misplaced in anomalous data for a while, you might recall. Ozone values couldn’t possibly be that low, so it was bad data.
Steve H (05:20:32) :
Seems a reasonable measure of albedo, though we would need to know it to fractions of a percent.
Was the proposal accepted?I checked your links. Any published results?
lamarguerite — “It also takes a lot of guts to go against the Bush manipulation machine:”
The “Union of Concerned Scientists” is the same collection of activist idiots who bought into the entire Carl Sagan ‘nuclear winter’ scare nonsense. They have a 25 year track record of being corrupt, wrong, and utterly irrelevant. They tried to stop the Star Wars program. Claimed it wouldn’t work. Laughed at it. They failed to stop the program. And worse (for them), the basics of it works. So much for their track record of being anywhere within shouting distance of being right. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. In 20 years some other PC scare will pop up and these clowns will be… wait for it… WRONG.
Second, almost any such claim about Bush is specious nonsense: e.g. when people like you start in on that rubbish, what I hear is “I have a pebble in my shoe; it must be Bush’s fault.” What the administration has done (it’s on record of having done it) is tone down activist twaddle in official reports. In these, scientists are asked to report on the science, not their unrequested policy opinions. They do not speak for the government, and their positions as scientists don’t give them the authority to do so. Boo hoo.
One of these days I’m going to run across an AGW alarmist and/or AGW argument that is sound and not somehow informed by some dimwitted misunderstanding of Marxist wishful thinking. Hasn’t happened yet.
(anna V) “Was the proposal accepted?I checked your links. Any published results?
To my knowledge. this project was canceled in 2004.
That is why amature astronomers like myself are stepping in and doing the science that NASA should be doing.
anna; that link to albedo is not from 2000, but has been active since 2000; the thing that interests me, as a matter of logic, is that regions of high albedo must perforce have less of a greenhouse effect since there is less localised receipt of incoming SW radiation; with less SW reaching the ground there must be less reradiated LW to be intercepted by whatever CO2 is ‘well-mixed’ in the above atmosphere.
Pam,
Since you like nuts, I feel I should warn you about rancid pecans. Licking dirt would be preferable, IMO.
cohenite (16:49:05) :
“anna; that link to albedo is not from 2000, but has been active since 2000;”
The link may be active still, but the map shown has a caption that says it is from a month in 2000. I could not find any link to more recent maps.I will try again once the link works for me again, since it does not now.
here is the caption to the march 2000 albedo map
http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/atmosphere/data2.html
“Global Reflected Shortwave Solar Radiation – Shortwave radiation is visible light—in this case, sunlight. This satellite image shows sunlight reflected from the earth back into space. Green and blue areas show light penetrating the atmosphere; white and beige indicate areas where light reflects back into space. This picture was constructed from images gathered over a one-month period during March 2000. Source:CERES instrument team”
randomengineer,
While I think a few anti-missile weapons are necessary against accidental launches and the possibility of a nutty leader, any more than 20 or so might spark an arms race. Besides, the most important thing to a politician is his LIFE. Nuclear weapons can certainly threaten that. Why do you think we have had no major wars since WWII where 50 million died.
death’s shadow
Takes a dreadful fear,
death’s shadow here,
to still the dogs of war.
Our rulers dear
would send us there
and shed not many tears.
But let their lives be threatened
by say, a nuclear weapon,
and suddenly it is clear:
Peace ain’t so bad after all.
anna v (23:09:16)
This satellite image shows sunlight reflected from the earth back into space. Green and blue areas show light penetrating the atmosphere; white and beige indicate areas where light reflects back into space.
The white or beige areas show sunlight reflecting from Africa’s Sahara Desert, as well as from high clouds over the tropical oceans, Amazonia, and tropical Africa. On the other hand, darker areas show sunlight penetrating the atmosphere in the cloud-free areas of the oceans.
Very interesting. I noticed that the southwest desert is in the dark area.
I wonder why?
I also noticed that the artic area was dark blue. Since ‘This picture was constructed from images gathered over a one-month period during March 2000’ how was sunlight penetrating the atmosphere in the artic during the winter months?
Very interesting.
Mauna Loa CO2 Stumbles. July level lower than January. Preliminary of course.
What part of within 3% is not well mixed?
What’s the seasonal variation as measured at Mauna Loa?
What part of water vapor being the strongest greenhouse gas do you think the AGW crowd does’t understand?
You have no case!
As I read this again, does it lend support to Beck’s paper on CO2 measurements?
[…] An encouraging response on satellite CO2 measurement from the AIRS Team […]
DR:
I’ve been thinking the same thing. Dr. Beck’s paper was attacked almost as viciously here as Viscount Monckton’s. Based on that fact alone, I suspect that Beck’s conclusions were pretty accurate.
randomengineer, I’ve found a generic rebuttal to the predictions of the Union of Concerned Scientists [and to climate alarmists in general]: click
What you see there is the influence of the seasonal vegetation decay/uptake, especially in the NH for the month of July 2003 (and 2008).
This is measured at the high altitude ground stations too: Mauna Loa and the South Pole (both at about 3,000 m) show the same seasonal variation as the satellites. Here a graph of monthly averages 2002-2004 for Mauna Loa and the South Pole, there is little variation in seasonal amplitude over the years.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/month_2002_2004.jpg
For July 2003, the difference between Mauna Loa (20 N) and the South Pole (90 S) data is 3-4 ppmv. According to the satellite measurements, it is 3 ppmv
For May 2003, the difference between MLO and SPO data is 6-7 ppmv. According to the satellite: 4 ppmv
One need to take into account that the satellite measurements have a lower measurement accuracy , compared to the land based ones (+/- 0.1 ppmv)
The seasonal variations near level out if one takes the yearly averages. Only a (small) variation around the trend, mainly caused by (ocean) temperature variations remains.
See further the seasonal variation with altitude already known by Bert Bolin in 1970, which is only for the NH, as the SH shows far less variation (less land/vegetation):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_height.jpg
Caption: Figure 3:2 Amplitude and phase shift of seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 at different altitudes, calculated from direct observations by harmonic analysis (Bolin and Bischof, 1970).
Does this support Beck’s paper on historic CO2 measurements? No, most of the old measurements had an accuracy of +/- 3% = +/- 10 ppmv. Near all seasonal differences over the globe are within that range.
Further, as the AIRS people say:
The big picture is that CO2 sources and sinks are in the planetary
boundary layer. Global circulation of CO2 occurs in the free
troposphere. Thus, PBL is local whereas free troposphere is
international.
Becks data are almost solely in the PBL, where a lot of sources and sinks are present (5% of the atmosphere) while the base stations (and now the satellites) measure either at ground level with a good mixing with the free troposphere, or in the mid-troposphere (representing 95% of the atmosphere).
[…] representativity than the land based measurements such as that from the Mauna Loa Observatory. My writeup on AIRS here on July 31st 2008 indicated that they would have a published paper in 6-8 weeks for us to review. […]