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
Reasic:
Right, some patent office clerk has found something that actual physicists missed. Pffft… named it after his family too, relatives or something. That’s just pseudoscience, will never amount to anything, and couldn’t possibly be either practical, provable, or useful.
Maybe YOU can explain why you alarmists are irrationally obsessed with “peer review” and “consensus”, both easily demonstrated to be useless to actual science. Perhaps a review of the Scientific Method is in order for you, and possibly some history lessons.
Whatever caused the launch failure; I’m mildly perturbed that researchers have been denied a new source of raw satellite data to work with. The information thus garnered might even have helped shut down the shrill ‘CO2 rules the climate’ crowd and their alarmists in arms in Government and the Media.
Then again, perhaps I was being a smidgeon over optimistic.
Apologies for crossing the line that time Anthony, will try to stay the right side of it in future.
Reasic (06:20:45) :
That’s exactly what this satellite was supposed to help clarify. Just because every sink is not precisely quantified does not mean that we cannot know that CO2 concentrations have risen drastically since industrial activity. Law Dome measurements show CO2 concentrations to be relatively stable for hundreds of years
We actually do need to know where the flows are going to ,how and why.These are called initial conditions,and specific properties(parameters) are a prerequisite foe any biogeochemical model.
EG Falkowski et al.
First, in the recent history of Earth, the carbon cycle did not operate in a vacuum and was not constrained to a specific reservoir. Natural changes in the inventories of carbon, as inferred from the ice core records of glacial-interglacial transitions, are linked to other biogeochemical and climatological processes. Those linkages continue to the present, but the quantitative impacts in the coming century are obscured by simultaneous alterations of numerous biogeochemical cycles through human activities. Second, the scientific community has generally approached problems such as glacial-interglacial transitions from a disciplinary perspective. This approach has not produced completely satisfactory explanations for what is clearly a large natural perturbation in the global carbon cycle. Because of the disciplinary nature of research, interactions between components of the Earth system are not incorporated into present biogeochemical or climate models. When changes in isolated processes are considered, we usually understand the signs of feedbacks, if not the magnitudes of the responses. It is when processes interact that we have significant problems in reproducing the phenomena quantitatively. Clearly, a systems approach is needed. Third, reconstructions of the carbon cycle (for example, during glacial-interglacial transitions) provide testable hypotheses about the Earth system. Consensus on how a 100-ppmv change in atmospheric CO2 can occur naturally within a 100,000-year time frame (62) would imply some understanding of the feedbacks within the Earth system. Knowledge of these feedbacks does not give us predictive capability for the coming decades or centuries,
Mary Hinge (01:13:56) :
As CO2 levels increased so did the total amount of biosphere and this will continue. More CO2 simply means a more abundant plantlife, better crops, healthier plants.
So why do plants produce less stomata when CO2 levels are higher? Could it be that plants are adapted to lower CO2 levels? Could it be that higher CO2 levels without the extra water, nitrogen, phosphates etc are actually detrimental to the plants, hence the need to reduce CO2 input?
Increased UV-B also restrict water loss by plants through stomatal decrease
Plant Physiol, October 1999, Vol. 121, pp. 489-496
Characterization of Stomatal Closure Caused by Ultraviolet-B Radiation1
Salvador Nogués,2 Damian J. Allen,3 James I.L. Morison, and Neil R. Baker*
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom
The effects of ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation on stomatal conductance (gs) in pea (Pisum sativum L.), commelina (Commelina communis L.), and oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) plants were investigated. Plants were grown in a greenhouse either with three different high ratios of UV-B to photosynthetically active radiation or with no UV-B radiation. Pea plants grown in the highest UV-B radiation (0.63 W m-2) exhibited a substantial decrease of adaxial and abaxial gs (approximately 80% and 40%, respectively). With growth in 0.30 W m-2 of UV-B adaxial gs was decreased by 23%, with no effect on abaxial gs, and lower UV-B irradiance of 0.21 W m-2 had no effect on either surface. Although abaxial gs increased when leaves were turned over in control plants, it did not in plants grown with the highest UV-B. Adaxial gs in commelina and oilseed rape also decreased on exposure to high UV-B (0.63 W m-2). For previously unexposed pea plants the time course of the effect of UV-B on gs was slow, with a lag of approximately 4 h, and a time constant of approximately 3 h. We conclude that there is a direct effect of UV-B on stomata in addition to that caused by changes in mesophyll photosynthesis
Syl (07:11:33) :
I think I read somewhere that some leguminous plants have these genes as they have the ability to fix the nitrogen required for extra growth. As leguminous plants are only a small fpercentage of the plant species I doubt this won’t make too much of a difference to the flora of tropical forests. If you have any references it would be interesting to read them
Mary Hinge,
How many trillions of dollars do you think it will cost to reorganize the world into the imagined non-carbon based economy? That is the direction which the US government is headed, currently lacking in any checks and balances.
Did Dr. Hansen double check his facts before announcing that “Obama has four years to save the planet?” Did Al Gore check his facts before declaring that the glacial record shows that high CO2 levels always correlate with rising temperatures?
Perhaps you could try being more objective and less offensive? No one is attacking you.
Syl (07:20:35) :
said, responding to AndyW (01:20:33) :
“What are you talking about?”
Texas has already had blackouts when the wind stops that threaten to cascade through the system. I’ve heard Texas gets anywhere from 7 to 17% of its power from wind turbines. I don’t know the exact figure.
****************************
Allan’s comment:
As I said above:
The best report I’ve found on this subject is:
E.On Netz Wind Power Report 2005, Germany
http://www.eon-netz.com/Ressources/downloads/EON_Netz_Windreport2005_eng.pdf
Quoting from page 8:
The feed-in capacity can change frequently
within a few hours. This is shown in FIGURE 6,
which reproduces the course of wind power feedin
during the Christmas week from 20 to 26
December 2004.
Whilst wind power feed-in at 9.15am on
Christmas Eve reached its maximum for the year
at 6,024MW, it fell to below 2,000MW within only
10 hours, a difference of over 4,000MW. This corresponds
to the capacity of 8 x 500MW coal fired
power station blocks. On Boxing Day, wind power
feed-in in the E.ON grid fell to below 40MW.
Handling such significant differences in feed-in
levels poses a major challenge to grid operators
Also:
FIGURE 5 shows the annual curve of wind
power feed-in in the E.ON control area for 2004,
from which it is possible to derive the wind power
feed-in during the past year:
1. The highest wind power feed-in in the E.ON grid
was just above 6,000MW for a brief period, or
put another way the feed-in was around 85% of
the installed wind power capacity at the time.
2. The average feed-in over the year was 1,295MW,
around one fifth of the average installed wind
power capacity over the year.
3. Over half of the year, the wind power feed-in
was less than 14% of the average installed wind
power capacity over the year.
What this really means is that in Germany the average wind power generated is about 20% of installed capacity, for half the time it is less than 14%, and at some times it is zero. Huge drops in wind power can occur on very large grids over a matter of a few hours, and this can disrupt the entire power grid. A crash in the grid in mid-winter could be disastrous in a cold climate. Sooner or later this will happen, there will be loss of life, a public enquiry and this whole house of cards will come tumbling down.
As you may have gathered, I am not at this time a big “fan” of wind power.
My suggested slogan for the wind power industry:
“Wind power – it doesn’t just blow, it sucks!”
“Barely a Puff from Wind Energy”.
“A little over a week ago, Britain’s fleet of coal-fired power stations supplied
50% of the nation’s electricity, up from the average 35%. Gas-fired power
stations supplied 31% and nuclear stations 16%. While coal plants were being
ramped up to shoulder the lion’s share of our electricity demand during the
prolonged cold snap, wind energy provided only 0.4% of our total demand.
There were periods in January 2009 when wind hardly registered at all.”
“Wind energy’s failure to deliver during the continual cold period should be a
wake-up call”
Tony Lodge, Letter to the Times, February 16, 2009.
Reasic (06:36:35) :
anna v (21:24:34) :
See this link to see how life expands to the fertilizer available:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/in-the-news/qualitative_thoughts_on_co2/
Click on the plot:
You see how the rate of change of CO2 follows the temperature short term, up and down. That is also the BIO cycle at work, IMO.
Right, some civil engineer has found something that actual climate scientists missed. Why is it that you “skeptics” doubt actual science, and yet accept unpublished conjecture? Lansner is trying to go back and reinvent the wheel, ignoring the work of such previous climate science pioneers as Callendar and Keeling.
***********************
Please see how dCO2/dt follows temperature and CO2 lags by ~ 9 months at
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
After writing this paper, I found that Keeling et al had noted the lag of CO2 with temperature, but apparently not the closer dCO2/dt relationship, in 1995. Kuo et al preceded Keeling with the same conclusion in 1990.
This part of the science may not be quite as complicated as some people are saying – but it gets really complicated if you try to explain it in terms of CO2 driving temperature, because you creat an elaborate fabrication with multiple feedback loops, etc. Try explaining it more in terms of temperature driving CO2, possibly with some recent contribution from humankind (or not).
See the AIRS animation at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
From Reasic (09:56:29) :
“It helps if you first get your facts and figures right. The forcing due to ALL manmade GHGs is 2.30 W/m^2. Secondly, this number is the combined radiative forcing due to INCREASES in these GHGs, which pretty much renders your calculation useless.”
I was quoting from FAQ 2.1, Figure 2; the bottom line of the figure/table, captioned “Total net human activities” shows a value of 1.6 W/m^2, with error bars. The increase of GHG is offset in the table by manmade cooling, including aerosols and clouds. The max error value of “total net human activity” is 2.3; the minimum is 0.6. Why is the maximum the “right” value?
Yes, the number is the combined forcing due to INCREASES of GHG. It’s the contention of AGW proponents that the increases of GHG’s come from human activity and cause warming.
The calculation tells me that the increase of GHG due to humanity (i.e., AGW) causes 0.16 C of warming (or 0.3 C if we use Joe’s sensitivity value). Either number – representing warming due to humans, an increase in the greenhouse effect – is trivial in comparison with the natural greenhouse effect (33 C). A warming of 0.16 C is too weak to be considered a “driver”.
And, BTW, they’re not “my” facts and figures. They’re from IPCC Working Group 1.
I also note Joe’s comment “If you plug in the numbers, you end up with something like 0.3C, which is within a factor of 2 of the observed change.” Joe seems to agree that this forcing is the cause, and the approximate magnitude, of AGW. We differ on the proper sensitivity value, which is a major unknown and many have tried to estimate.
Interesting article related to NASA satellite loss.
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=c70934bc-4e5e-49d6-aa39-0239f7bbc731
NASA has also performed a successful launch.
I think that this satellite will provide us with more important data because it will investigate interstellar boundary.
“October 21, 2008 NASA has launched the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, which will observe the edge of our solar system from a 200,000-mile Earth orbit and determine whether or not we’re, well, doomed. Over the next two years, the 23-inch high octagonal craft will study the area of space where solar wind hits the wider galaxy – hopefully it will also find out why the solar wind, which shields us from harmful cosmic rays, has decreased by 25% in the last ten years”.
http://www.gizmag.com/nasa-launches-ibex-probe/10223/