Satellite to Study Global-Warming Gases Lost in Space
By Alex Morales, Bloomberg News
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — A satellite launched from California failed to reach orbit today, crashing into the sea near Antarctica and dooming a $273 million mission to study global-warming gases.
“The mission is lost,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Steve Cole said in a telephone interview from the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The NASA satellite was to orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth and observe how carbon dioxide enters and leaves the atmosphere, helping scientists predict future increases in the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. Instead, the satellite fell in the ocean near Antarctica though the mission manager said at no point did the craft pass over land.
“It’s a huge disappointment for the entire team who have worked very hard for years and years and years,” NASA Launch Director Chuck Dovale said in a briefing from California. “Even when you do your very best, you can still fail.”
Today’s malfunction follows a Feb. 11 collision of U.S. and Russian satellites almost 500 miles above the planet, the first crash of its type, which created a space debris field of more than 300 pieces that could damage other satellites.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite didn’t reach orbit after a 1:55 a.m. launch because the “payload fairing” failed to separate, NASA said. The fairing covers the top of the satellite during launch and needs to come off so the satellite can detach from the rocket and enter orbit.
“It’s disappointing because it was giving us novel information to help us move our understanding forward on global warming,” Alan O’Neill, science director of the Reading, U.K.- based Centre for Earth Observation, said in an interview.
Orbital Sciences
Both the satellite and launch rocket were built by Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. John Brunschwyler, Orbital Sciences’s mission manager, said “over the past 10 years, we’ve flown a nearly perfect record — 56 out of 57 vehicles and we’ve not had any problems with this particular fairing design.”
NASA’s investment was $273 million for the design, development and launch operations. Insurance details on the mission may be given later today, NASA said.
The craft contained a monitoring device designed to collect 8 million measurements every 16 days. Scientists hoped to use the data to find out how much CO2 is absorbed by the forests, grasslands and oceans, which are collectively known as “sinks.”
Man-made CO2, which traps heat in the atmosphere, is largely produced by power plants, vehicle engines and factories.
The data gleaned from the satellite was intended to help guide government global-warming policy, NASA said.
Understanding ‘Carbon Sinks’
“An improved understanding of carbon sinks is essential to predicting future carbon-dioxide increases and making accurate predictions of carbon dioxide’s impact on Earth’s climate,” NASA said on the mission Web site. “If these natural carbon-dioxide sinks become less efficient as the climate changes, the rate of buildup of carbon dioxide would increase.”
On Jan. 23, Japan launched what it said was the world’s first satellite, Gosat, to measure greenhouse gases from 56,000 points around the globe over five years.
Today’s satellite was expected to have a minimum three-year life. Similar spacecraft have lasted five to 10 years, David Steitz, a NASA spokesman, said yesterday.
While launch and separation of the rocket’s first stage went as planned, a clamshell-shaped “fairing” covering the satellite failed to open, meaning it was too heavy to reach orbit, Brunschwyler said on NASA’s online television station.
“As a direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not reach orbit,” Brunschwyler said. Indications are the satellite “landed just short of Antarctica, in the ocean.”
Earlier this month, the collision of Russian and U.S. satellites destroyed an Iridium Satellite LLC communications craft and a defunct Russian Cosmos 2251, NASA said.
At least 18,000 satellites, debris and other space objects orbiting the Earth are tracked by the U.S. Joint Space Operations center. The Soviet Union put the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space in 1957.
h/t to Gary and Steve
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“An improved understanding of carbon sinks is essential to predicting future carbon-dioxide increases and making accurate predictions of carbon dioxide’s impact on Earth’s climate,” NASA said on the mission Web site. “If these natural carbon-dioxide sinks become less efficient as the climate changes, the rate of buildup of carbon dioxide would increase.”
Yes indeed
Atmospheric increase = 3.2 (±0.2)
Emissions from fossil fuels +6.3 (±0.4)
Net emissions from changes in land use + 2.2 (±0.8)
Oceanic uptake – 2.4 (±0.7)
Missing carbon (sink) – 2.9 (±1.1)
(one Pg [petagram]=one billion metric tonnes=1000 x one billion kg)
“Man-made CO2, which traps heat in the atmosphere, is largely produced by power plants, vehicle engines and factories.”
Natural emissions of CO2 obviously do not trap heat in the atmosphere in the opinion expressed in the above example of begging the question.
Sure, natural carbon emissions also technically trap heat, but it is the addition of human emissions that is the cause for the increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, and therefore, the CHANGE in heat trapped. Take out human emissions, and there would be no increase to cause global warming. Therefore, it is “man-made CO2” that is the focus. Not begging the question — just stating fact.
That’s not a fact, it’s an unproven theory.
Well he’s definitely a ‘believer’. We’re mostly non-believers here, Gaia-rapists, hopelessly addled by red meat. You should see DA’s launch, picture in a Tim Blair contest some months back.
It may seem unproven to one who has not looked objectively for information on the subject. Have you followed the research on varying carbon isotopes in the atmosphere? Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that CO2 concentrations shot up to the highest level in 650,000 years at the same time that man began emitting carbon dioxide?
And the sun has no effect I suppose? It is all about CO2. Dihydrogen Monoxide is far worse. It should be banned.
The ratio of natural CO2 emissions to man-made CO2 emissions according to the DOE as of October, 2000, was 5.76 to 1. Is there some reason to believe that natural CO2 emissions ceased as of October, 2000? I seriously doubt that natural emissions of CO2 have ceased to contribute to the increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Nature is not a static system as some would believe. Of the increase of CO2 concentration of 2 ppm per year, only 0.35 ppm is man-made. Any temperature increase due to that amount is miniscule.
Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in three narrow bands of frequencies, which are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM). This means that most of the heat producing radiation escapes it. About 8% of the available black body radiation is picked up by these “fingerprint” frequencies of CO2.
Heinz Hug* showed that carbon dioxide in the air absorbs to extinction at its 15µM peak in about ten meters. This means that CO2 does whatever it’s going to do in that amount of space. Twice as much CO2 would do the same thing in about 5m. There’s no significant difference between 5m and 10m for global warming, because convectional currents mix the air in such short distances.
But humans could not double the CO2, because they only put 3% of the CO2 in the air. If they put twice as much in, it would do whatever it does in 9.7m instead of 10m. If humans stopped putting any CO2 in the air, it would do whatever it does in 10.3m instead of 10m. In other words, nothing humans do with CO2 could be of the slightest relevance to global warming, even if oceans were not regulating it.
http://nov55.com/ntyg.html
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
Again Reasic is correct.
Nature cleans up it’s own carbon emissions. Ie it absorbs as much as it emits. So it doesn’t matter than nature emits 100000x more than man (or whatever the number is), it’s cleaning that up and so co2 level would remain stable.
Enter human emissions and now you have more going into the atmosphere than coming out, so co2 rises. Rises dramatically – a 33% increase in the past 200 years to levels not seen for over 650,000 years.
People quoting “human co2 emissions are only 3% of natural emissions” are either deliberately or unintentionally misleading.
Just curious about something for the scientists out their to answer:
From this previous story
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/16/earths-ionosphere-drops-to-a-new-low/
And from this posted by Stephen Goddard above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7907570.stm
“Our whole team, at a very personal level, is very disappointed in the events of this morning.”
He added: “The fairing has considerable weight relative to the portion of the vehicle that’s flying. So when it separates off, you get a jump in acceleration. We did not have that jump in acceleration.
“As a direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not make orbit.”
The upper layers of the atmosphere have compressed significantly due to the solar minimum and lack of solar UV and ion radiation, correct.
Could this compression of upper atmosphere affect the amount of friction drag at different altitutudes, which could have affected the lauch in anyway, such as projected speeds, velocities, ambient tempuratures, trajection, or other factors, etc?
Probably not. In fact, you’d be colliding with more atoms lower in the atmosphere when the rocket is going at a lower speed so less drag overall.
The region of maximum aerodynamic load is well below the ionosphere. Things like crosswinds and turbulence are more of a launch issue.
Great Rick:
Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7892294.stm
symmetry ?????
They should have a backup but it seems they don’t. Backups help when debugging and/or correcting malfunctions of the satellite in orbit.
And building two doesn’t cost twice as much.
No conspiracy, satellite launches still have a high failure rate. It used to be 50% and maybe it is only 1% now. But if your brakes failed 1% of the time you would call that a high failure rate.
Someone earlier asked where the ‘unknown 60% of co2 goes to’.
That is a question I’ve often asked-perhaps into sinks but then I hear intriguing suggestions that it ‘leaks’ into space eventually. When I investigated further I understood that co2 can ‘leak’ if it obtains sufficient velocity and becomes attached to another molecule but that was dependent on a number of unexplained factors. It would be good if anyone here could give a simple answer-are there any circumstances whereby co2 leak into space? If so how much of the total ‘we’ produce has disappeared in this manner?
tonyB
CO2 Absorption Spectrum
There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming
http://nov55.com/ntyg.html
Scientists who promote the global warming hype try to work around this fact by claiming something different happens higher in the atmosphere, which they claim involves unsaturation. The difference due to height is that the absorption peaks get smaller and sharper, so they separate from each other. Near the earth’s surface, the absorption peaks for water vapor partially overlap the absorption peaks for CO2. Supposedly, in some obfuscated way, separating the peaks creates global warming. There is no real logic to that claim. It is nothing but an attempt to salvage global warming propaganda through obfuscation of complexities.
————————————
The Climate Catastrophe
– A Spectroscopic Artifact?
by Dr. Heinz Hug
Laboratory measurements of the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide using an FT-IR spectrometre suggest that the radiative forcing for CO2 doubling must be much less than assumed by climate scientists until now. A reduction factor of 80 is likely.
Here is the link: http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
This 10 meter figure is completely bogus, and is not from a scientific paper. For a concentration of 400 ppm, 99% of surface radiation is absorbed at 18 meters for the 1.9-2.1 micron band, at 82 meters for the 2.6-2.9 micron band, at 625 meters for the 4.1-4.5 micron band, and for the 13-17 micron band, where the CO2 greenhouse effect does most of its work, at 7,800 meters.
A link to your reference, please.
It is a shame that the OCO satellite failed. This satellite would come closer to solving the theory of staying strength of CO2 in the lower and upper troposphere.
To date, we have to rely on the measurements from the Keeling Towers. Problem with the towers is that it is one location. CO2 measurements are based on the theory of algorithms. Allocating CO2 measurements in a grid form based on a number of distributions. This is only estimates and assumptions. A shame that these measurements were used by IPCC.
NASA satellite Aura recorded the density of water vapors in the atmospheres. This indicated the tremendous effects that water vapors have on the distribution of CO2s. CO2s, meaning nature/anthropogenics are difficult to separate. This is a failure of Keeling.
Could this failed launch be the result of the newly discovered
hangorchu effect; more commonly known as “be careful watt you wish for”
Not to despair. The Japanese satellite seems on track.
http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/index_e.html
Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite “IBUKI” (GOSAT)
“First Light” Acquired by Onboard Sensors
February 9, 2009 (JST)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would like to announce that we successfully acquired the “First Light” by the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite “IBUKI” (GOSAT) during the course of its initial functional check. The data was acquired by the onboard sensors of the IBUKI, the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) and the Cloud and Aerosol Imager (TANSO-CAI), which were just activated. The IBUKI was launched by JAXA at 12:54 p.m. on January 23, 2009, (Japan Standard Time, JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center. Its initial functional check, including checking the attitude control system and communication system, has been carried out on schedule, and the satellite is in good condition.
The attached diagrams and images show the observation results by the TANSO FTS and TANSO-CAI when the IBUKI passed over Japan at around 1:00 p.m. on February 7, 2009 (JST).
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090209_ibuki_e.html
The OCO satellite took eight years to build so work started in 2001 whilst we were still in the warming phase. Now we are cooling, it would be bad for AGW to show that CO2 had either been on the rise (no CO2 forcing) or fall (no AGW link).
That superglue on the fairing worked well for AGW, lets all just forget about actually measuring CO2 and get back on message.
The science is settled.
Here is the web site missing from my previous post.
—————————–
The Climate Catastrophe
– A Spectroscopic Artifact?
by Dr. Heinz Hug
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
Laboratory measurements of the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide using an FT-IR spectrometre suggest that the radiative forcing for CO2 doubling must be much less than assumed by climate scientists until now. A reduction factor of 80 is likely.
Apologies for being OT.
For Aussies.
A new petition to be presented to Parliament by MP Dennis Jensen against the Emissions Trading Scheme can be signed online.
REF: and link below http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dear_mr_rudd_cool_it/
It was obvious that the whole AGW/ CO2 theory wasn’t ‘fairing’ well. In reality it didn’t fly !!!
Now as part of the carbon sink on the ocean floor there is a fitting end !
It is my understanding (reported on NPR this afternoon) that the Japanese already have a satellite with similar equiptment doing a similar job already.
I find it rather ironic that NASA, through its Goddard Institute for Space Studies spends a lot effort studying earth’s climate, surely tangential to their basic mission statement, and yet cannot put a satellite safely into orbit. It’s as if they’ve lost their mojo.
From the WSJ
“Scientists lamented the loss of the global warming satellite”
Does this mean the satellite would cause global warming?
Perhaps the humanization of technology by scientists should be discussed?
I am really starting to wonder about our society as a whole…
Seriously I hope that its “failure to launch” will simply allow for the deployment of another more comprehensive ( and expensive) replacement and perhaps with a longer term monitoring project, The US is writing “blanks cheques” for climate change so spend away NASA worker bees, stimulate the economy please!
Even without the satellite we can still rely on the NASA simulations of the data to write our scientific papers, can’t we?
Only if you want that grant money… 😉
Come on.
They blew this sucker up intentionally. That much I’m sure of.
Don´t think so, their “launching model” didn´t work
You must have omitted the /sarc off tag unintentionally- No?
Reasic (12:51:25)
Got a citation for that?
I’m disappointed. I really am.
But gotta tell ya, someone on TWC last night actually said it was going to study sources and “so-called” carbon sinks.
What is ‘so-called’ about carbon sinks? LOL
What is ’so-called’ about carbon sinks?
The IPCC cannot account for around 30% of emissions annually,(where they go to)
All that means is that they don’t completely understand the nature (pun?) of carbon sinks, not that they don’t know whether such a thing as carbon sinks exist.
It is “so-called” because they don’t know what they are. It is like dark matter except less well defined as to where the CO2 is going.
How about this, maybe there is a mistake in the CO2 estimation and they are over guesstimating so they are looking for a Phantom Sink. The CO2 concentration is not uniform vertically and areally so how does one integrate volume and obtain an accurate answer. The same thing goes for the average temperature of the atmosphere.
More than likely that was not it’s real mission. To claim it was for global warming data collection just get them off the hook. No questions asked.
Space launches have always been a bit risky. Our overall success rate since 1957 is 93.6% of launches successfully insert the payload into its intended orbit. So we lose on average about 1 payload out of every 16 launches. For almost 20 years India had failures on about half of their launch attempts
http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/winter2001/03_table_1.html
It is too bad they lost that bird but certainly not unexpected.
Larry
This is a fun article:
Ice Age or global warming… There is too much snow in Oslo…
BTW: It’d great if WUWT had some sort of article submission form to prevent thread hijacking like this…
Well as a Taxpayer at both the Federal and now newly exhorbitant CA State level, I consider it a giant waste of 273 million dollars. They build a fancy machine, and they can’t get the celophane wrapping to peel off properly.
So what is the carbon footprint of that fiasco.
But in any case; remember what it was going to be used for; to figure out where the carbon dioxide comes and goes from (thought that was settled).
Has it dawned on anybody, that even putting such a satellite in orbit suggests that there is a presupposition that the source of the CO2 matters.
That is the fallacy. If CO2 plays no major role at all in earth climate; whereas Water, the main GHG does; then who the blazes cares where the CO2 comes and goes from/to.
The AGWers keep telling us they know it is fossil carbon because they can tell real carbon from fossil carbon by the C13/C12 signature or the C14/C12 signature; or that atmospheric O2 is declining proving that combustion is happeneing.
So is not firewood, peat, coal cow dung, and so on all biological carbon of the good natural kind that doesn’t stay in the atmosphere for 200-1000 years like the manmade fossil carbon comes from oil wells or maybe natural gas.
This satellite would simply have been a diversion; ok the data would be nice to have if you don’t have anything better to do with your time and my tax money; but I would rather see the money spent establishing that it is water and the ocean/cloud sytem that is in total control of the earth’s mean surface temperature, and CO2 plus all the other GHGs add a negligible amount to the total GHG molecules, which are mostly water that absorbs over a much wider total energy spectral range than all the other GHGs combined.
So let’s get back to the main problem; showing that CO2 is quite innocent of global warming; the total global daily temperature range still spans a range of at least 120 deg C and can be as much as 150 deg C, so who cares about a 1/2 degree change in 100 years.
I finally figured out the fallacy of GISStemp and HadCRUT, while reading a bunch of nonsense over at the Wonkroom.
Quite apart from the scandalous sloppiness that Anthony has exposed in the official stations with their errant owl boxes; the entire process is an exercise in self delusion.
Now I do believe those places are useful to weather forecasters; but remember that climate is “The long term average of weather” and as we were told last year the wild Jan 2007 to jan 2008 GISStemp anomaly drop, isn’t significant; it’s just weather because a year does not a climate make.
So why doesn’t Hansen just give us one number for the long term average of the weather which climate is supposed to be, instead of the graphs which he passes off as climate.
Just asking.
George
Reasic (14:33:46), did you even read Dr. Hug’s experiment? Any of it? At all?
It is only your opinion that the experiment cited is, in your words, “bogus,” but that means nothing at all.
I suspect that what bothers you is the experiment’s Summary:
Replicate the experiment described, and show us where Dr. Hug went wrong. If you can. In other words, falsify the experiment. That’s how science is done.
If you can’t recognize psuedoscience, that’s your problem.
If Dr. Hug is right, then there should be no radiation leaving the top of the atmosphere (and radiating out into space) in the wavelengths absorbed by CO2 (around 15 microns).
But there is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Q12AaljGQvYC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=top+of+atmosphere+radiation+CO2&source=bl&ots=v7wekC3KVO&sig=Iaz1eBmxzXsmjB8XFQKjn-32JuI&hl=en&ei=ZKakSay3G-PetgeW2-nHBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA71,M1
The thing Dr. Hug misses is that the atmosphere re-radiates almost all the energy it absorbs, and higher up in the atmosphere there is much less water vapor, so the CO2 winds up doing most of the absorption of that re-radiated energy.