from the Calgary Herald: Canadian mini-satellite may solve carbon puzzle (h/t to WUWT reader “Freezedried”)
Tom Spears Canwestnews Service
Friday, February 27, 2009
While NASA lost a $285-million US satellite this week, a Canadian microsatellite that does the same job is chugging along happily in orbit –at 1/1,000th the cost.
The 30-centimetre-long University of Toronto satellite is searching for the “missing” carbon dioxide–the vast amount of Earth’s main greenhouse gas that somehow vanishes each year.
That’s what NASA’s OCO(orbiting carbon observatory) satellite would have done, if it had survived launch on Tuesday. The big difference: Canada built and launched its tiny version for $300,000.
The OCO launched but failed to reach orbit. (see WUWT story here)
Details on the hardware are here
Meanwhile, the U of T’s CanX-2 is cruising 700 kilometres above Earth “and functioning really well,” after some glitches that followed its launch last April, said Ben Quine, the director of space engineering at York University–which made an instrument aboard the tiny CanX. Its job, like OCO’s, is to find Earth’s missing greenhouse gas.
“The measurement principle is almost exactly the same as the one for the OCO,”he said. “It’s very sad when you lose a spacecraft, but it also means that we are the only people in orbit with one-kilometre resolution on the ground.”
That means York’s Argus instrument can look at details below. A Japanese satellite does the same job, but can’t look at features less than 10 kilometres wide.
The problem is that where carbon dioxide comes from, and where it is sucked out of the atmosphere, remains poorly understood.
“Clearly, if we’re going to do something about climate change, we need to understand where CO2 is produced and particularly where it’s absorbed.That’s much less clear,” Quine said.
Yes, but the millions we spent on the OCO counts as stimulus. Think how much more stimulated we will be if we build another one!
Did I detect a certain smugness in this report?
Regarding where the CO2 goes. Has anyone looked at the Grand Canyon? There is almost a 1/2 mile of limestone in those layers and the layers extend through most of the American west. Guess where it came from? It was deposited there by mirco organisms in shallow seas. Guess what will happen to all the CO2 from burning fossile fuels? It will be absorbed following the natural cycles that it always has been. Will a higher steady state CO2 concentration from burning fossile fuels change things? Probably some but remember, nature has been there before and probably has well evolved ways to deal with it.
Here is an interesting read on these type of nano satellites http://www.ottawa.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/html/Space-eng.html
From the hardware web link above:
The agenda is biased. Let’s see if all the data become accessible for everybody to examine.
Ceolfrith, The CO2 is not really ‘missing’. Basically they want to know more about how and why the northern hemisphere has such huge fluctuation in CO2 from summer to winter.
One idea is the dieing vegetation in the fall and subsequent increase in photosynthesis in the spring and summer. This makes since to me, but doesn’t really explain the whole change. First you have to understand that north of the equator is the vast majority of earth land mass. South of the equator you have Australia, Half of south America and a little over half of Africa. (and Antarctica which hardly counts IMHO)
When I was a child, I was told by science teachers that the jungles in Brazil and Africa were responsible for most of the carbon reduction from the atmosphere. Today we know the Boreal Forrest, and the Oceans are larger players.
Science is always evolving, and anyone who tells you science is settled is usually trying to sell something. When it comes to the “Big Bang” talk to Dr. Arp. When it comes to Environmental Science, talk to Dr. Christy, or any other field of science there is someone with a logical argument that is opposed to the paradigm. Sometimes they are kooks, often they are right. Rarely proven so in their lifetime.
Neil Crafter (10:53:23) :
JohnH (09:38:26) :
“How was the Candian satellite launched?”
Slingshot……..
LMAO! Classic! 😀
How does that CO2 spotter at Google Earth work, I wonder?
http://truemors.nowpublic.com/?p=36843
Does it use something like this Canadian satellite, or it it just more best guess science?
TonyB – look at this atmosphereic rape (I mean rip) of Mars: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/21nov_plasmoids.htm
Most likely it is happening also from Venus since it has a small induced magnetosphere, but not enough to block all of the solar wind. Most likely, CO2 from Venus is getting ripped off also… and heading our way. Maybe those micro-satellites should be turned toward space since it could be another source of CO2… who knows?
Here’s a part of the carbon cycle rarely given serious consideration:
American taste for soft toilet roll ‘worse than driving Hummers’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america
I believe that about 50% of the CO2 produced cannot be accounted for in known sinks. This should really shake people’s faith in climate models as the modelers don’t have a clue as to where 50% of the gas they say is going to kill us actually goes. If they don’t understand the CO2 cycle how can they accurately model it? Yet so many people put blind faith in model projections. It is very depressing to think so many are so willing to be led.
Off Topic but perhaps a future posting
“Carbon Dioxide Drop and Global cooling caused Antartic Glacier to form”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226141146.htm
“Temperatures in some regions, just before the Antarctic glaciers formed, were surprisingly higher than current climate models predicted, suggesting that these models underestimate high-latitude warming under high CO2 conditions,” said lead author Zhonghui Liu, Pagani’s postdoctoral associate who is now an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. Further, he said, the substantial cooling that occurred in both Northern and Southern high latitudes suggests that a decline in CO2 level, rather than a localized change of ocean circulation drove the climate transition.”
My original link
http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/HTML/FAQS/thin_atm.html
See para 7.
and a follow up from Ray.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/21nov_plasmoids.htm
I repeat my question in the hope someone here has some knowledge on this subject;
“Now obviously Mars isn’t Earth but is there any relevance to our circumstances at all? Can Co2 be stripped away into space-in other words do we ‘leak’ co2? If so how much?
Tonyb
If we put enough satellites into orbit, will they block the sun and stop global warming?
TonyB
The short answer is that the loss is insignificant.
There is a spread of kinetic energies due to the temperature of the atmosphere, and there will always be a slim probability that an atom or molecule has enough kinetic energy to escape a planet’s gravity and will do so if it’s high enough in the atmosphere to avoid collision. The lighter the atom or molecule is, the greater the percentage reaching escape velocity. Also, the atmopheric gases tend to stratify in layers based on atomic/molecular weight, so the lightest gasses would be highest up in the atmosphere and easiest to boil off. Over it’s 4+ billion years the Earth still retains most of it’s atmosphere, and CO2 is heavy relative to O2, N2, and Argon. The Earth should have a significant amount of Helium in it’s atmosphere from alpha decay, but this has been lost to space.
Mike D. – they are now litteraly after our a**es!!!
The funny thing in that article is that it is coming from the Natural Resources Defence Council. But I am sure this area of research will need much more fundings to get to the “bottom” of things.
Good stuff! But where is the CO2 data???
Ecotretas
Gibsho (10:23:53) :
AND they have universal health care
So does the U.S..
JohnH (09:38:26) :
“How was the Candian satellite launched?”
Neil Crafter (10:53:23) :
Slingshot……
Nope.
Hockey stick.
TonyB – Some yes. How much, never quantified by any study I know. Likely VERY VERY little. CO2 is much heavier than many other gasses in the atmosphere (O2, N2, etc), and is only 380 parts per million in the lower atmosphere.
As for Mars, well that planet is an oddity. Not real sure what to think of that report, but so many things about mars do not apply to any other planet, nothing would surprise me (other than little green men).
Durring times of heavy solar activity, you have
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
and some how that is because I drive a V6 SUV I am sure.
Slingshot…
Squidly: you are correct. Its part of our anti-missile program…..
darn…picture did not embed.
REPLY: just put in the URL to the image
They need to find the missing C02 so they can tax it.
The Canadian’s have always been a thrifty bunch. When they named their country, rather than hire an expensive marketing firm to come up with a fancy name, they simply drew letters out of a hat:
C, eh?
N, eh?
D, eh?
CANADA!!!