Western Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image Eastern Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. + go to feature
The doors are open on NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite and the newest version of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument is scanning Earth for the first time, helping to assure continued availability of measurements of the energy leaving the Earth-atmosphere system.
The CERES results help scientists to determine the Earth’s energy balance, providing a long-term record of this crucial environmental parameter that will be consistent with those of its predecessors.
*** Click either image to enlarge it ***
CERES arrived in space Oct. 28, 2011, carried by NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, the recently renamed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense.
Instrument cover-opening activities began on the instrument at 10:12 a.m. Eastern time Jan. 26, an operation that took about three hours. The “first light” process represented the transition from engineering checkout to science observations. The next morning CERES began taking Earth-viewing data, and on Jan. 29 scientists produced an image from the scans.
“It’s extremely gratifying to see the CERES FM-5 instruments on Suomi NPP begin taking measurements. We’re continuing the legacy of the most accurate Earth radiation budget observations ever made,” said CERES project scientist Kory Priestley, of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
“It has taken an incredible team of engineers, scientists, data management and programmatic experts to get CERES to this point,” he said.
NASA instruments have provided the scientific community unprecedented observations of the Earth’s climate and energy balance for nearly 30 years. The first CERES instrument was launched in 1997. Before that, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) did the job beginning in 1984.
Langley Research Center has led both the ERBE and CERES experiments and provided stewardship of these critical climate observations.
For 27 years without a break, the instruments collectively have returned a vast quantity of precise data about the solar energy reflected and absorbed by Earth, the heat the planet emits, and the role of clouds in that process.
“CERES monitors minute changes in the Earth’s energy budget, the difference between incoming and outgoing energy,” said CERES principal investigator Norman Loeb, of Langley Research Center.
“Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget due to increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases warms the ocean, raises sea level, and causes increases in atmospheric temperature,” Loeb said. “Amassing a long record of data is important in order to understand how Earth’s climate is changing in response to human activities as well as natural processes.”
How It Works
In addition to observing changes in Earth’s radiation budget, scientists are also monitoring changes in clouds and aerosols, which strongly influence Earth’s radiation budget.
“Clouds both reflect sunlight and block energy from radiating to space,” Loeb said. “Which of these two effects dominates depends upon the properties of clouds, such as their amount, thickness and height.”
“As the Earth’s environment evolves, cloud properties may change in ways that could amplify or offset climate change driven by other processes. Understanding the influence of clouds on the energy budget is therefore a critical climate problem.”
The four other CERES instruments are in orbit on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites.
Overall Mission
The five-instrument suite on Suomi NPP collects and distributes remotely sensed land, ocean, and atmospheric data to the meteorological and global Earth system science research communities. The mission will provide atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, cloud and aerosol properties, total/profile ozone measurements, and monitor changes in the Earth’s radiation budget.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Suomi mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program provides the satellite ground system and NOAA provides operational support. Suomi NPP commissioning activities are expected to be completed by March.
NASA Langley manages the CERES experiment with additional contracted support from Science Systems and Applications, Inc. The TRW Space & Electronics Group in Redondo Beach, Calif., now owned by Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, built all of the CERES instruments.
MORE INFORMATION
› Q&A With CERES Principal Investigator
Michael Finneran
NASA Langley Research Center
Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says:
February 4, 2012 at 3:05 pm
I don’t know what altitude would make the “lower 48” fill the field of view. Wouldn’t be a difficult calculation – take width of US, divide by circumference, multiply by 360 for the arc it takes up. Oh what the heck, about 3000 miles, divive by 24000, (1/8), multiply by 360, so 45 degrees. cos(22.5) = r/(r + h), I get 330 miles, 525 km. Sounds low, yeah – the swath width of what VIIRS sees is 1865 miles from 512 miles up. Then again, I’m sure they don’t use horizon-to-horizon swaths. So maybe I’m right.
I’ve studiously ignored the “photo” from the western hemisphere, I don’t know what or if the geometry is realistic. Like everyone else, I still compare everything to 35 mm photography. For the Africa photo, recreating a view from 2 Earth radii up, I calculate the view subtends 39° (sin(half angle) = r/(r + 2r) = 1/3, half angle = 19.5° That would require a 28+ mm lens to take it all in. (Handy table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_view )
If it’s meant to be from an altitude low enough to avoid a lot of water, then not only would there be some “fisheye” distortion but the curvature of the Earth would add to the bulging effect because the “sub camera” point would be so much closer than the horizon.
Note that shot of Italy was likely taken with something that approximates a normal view, that would be about a 50 mm lens.
We probably have very few, if any, astronaut photos that could show the US like that. The shuttle never got higher than Hubble (347 miles, and at the the astronauts commented on the view). Apollo astronauts were minutes from reentry, and probably had the cameras long stowed.
For Barry Elledge, regarding Earth’s energy balance:
It does seem that at least in principle a satellite or ensemble of satellites could measure the incoming and outgoing radiant energy of the whole earth, and directly determine the energy budget of the planet. The warming or cooling of the earth thereby might be directly calculated independent of climate models
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. John E. Harries, Helen E. Brindley, Pretty J. Sagoo & Richard J. Bantges,
Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001) | doi:10.1038/35066553
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present. Jennifer A. Griggs and John E. Harries, Proc. SPIE 5543, 164 (2004); doi:10.1117/12.556803
Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006. Claudine Chen, John Harries, Helen Brindley, Mark Ringer.
mkelly says:
February 4, 2012 at 4:16 am
Suomi means Finnish. So why is it called “Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP.”
I believe this may be named after an old Prof of mine at Madison WI, one of the Godfather’s of satellite meteorology…in fact I’m right!
NASA Renames Earth-Observing Mission in Honor of Satellite Pioneer01.25.12 Verner Suomi
Credit: University of Wisconsin News
› Larger image NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honor of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognized widely as “the father of satellite meteorology.” The announcement was made Jan. 24 at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans.
Chas says:
February 4, 2012 at 3:36 am
– Julian Flood ” See the mouth of the Mississippi and the curious way the clouds avoid the area where the waters of that great and polluted river spill into the sea”
Thanks for pointing this out – I stumbled on a UNESCO review of studies on of oil films to reducing water evaporation from reservoirs:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000700/070035eo.pdf
What can be acheived depends on wind speed. However experiments in rice paddys showed increases in water temperature ~7-8 centigrade at midday on cloudless days. [Original page 37] and talking of a C18 C22 mixture it says “Since 1960 [The mixture] has been applied extensively by farmers to warm the water in rice nurseries.”
Of course, if oil films reduce the cloud cover too , then we have a virtuous(?) circle.
unquote
I reckon it’s the Kriegesmarine Effect: if you can find it then see “Global Warming in the 20th Century: An Alternative Scenario” which I posted on Judith Curry’s blog when she asked for alternative ideas about global warming.
Enough light oil flows down the rivers of the world to coat the ocean’s surface every two weeks. It’s good to see the effects shown so graphically by the Ceres image.
JF
George E. Smith; says: February 4, 2012 at 4:31 pm
I can agree with what you say George. I see the land as being different than the oceans. Perhaps more dynamic on a diurnal scale, heating more rapidly than water, and giving it up at night more rapidly, especially in drier climates.
Julian Flood says:
February 3, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Instead of the oil the other posters have suggested, it could be simply cold water coming down from the midwest. Warm water in the rest of the Gulf would be evaporating faster than cold Mississippi water, and there will be less convection over river water.
Perhaps I am wrong, but aren’t those contrails just south of the great lakes? If so there are lots in that area. Perhaps someone could exlpain.
Is there any way of merging the composite images into one image so that it can be one jpg? I’d like to put this image on my desktop, it looks pretty cool.
Ric – I have problems with the America pic, not the Africa one. Therefore there’s nothing we disagree about.
EJ says:
February 3, 2012 at 10:30 pm
We have data for earth’s lw emmisions for the last 25 years?
Where are the analyses in the IPCC?
Have a look at this analysis of earlier CERES data vs ARGO data and you’ll see why they don’t want to go there. The net imbalance is a slight LOSS of energy from Earth’s climate systems over the last 8 years, depending on whose rehash of the ARGO data you believe.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
david says:
February 5, 2012 at 12:45 am
Those caught my eye too. They might be streaks of snow left by snow squalls from a couple events (two sets of parallel streaks).
Larry in Texas says: February 5, 2012 at 1:24 am
Is there any way of merging the composite images into one image so that it can be one jpg? I’d like to put this image on my desktop, it looks pretty cool.
Here you go, I reduced it to about 1800 X 900 pixels, ~700Kb
http://i44.tinypic.com/xat7ix.jpg
Reblogged this on lisparc.
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Ric Werme says:
February 4, 2012 at 2:42 pm
A few decades ago when my father was planning a house in Plymouth, New Hampshire, we wanted to know what kind of view there would be, in particular, if we could see Mt Washington, the highest mountain in the American northeast. Besides the obvious tree climbing, I used a small telescope and a plastic relief USGS topgraphic map to try to get a sense of what we would see. I concluded we probably couldn’t see Mt. Washington, and it turned out to me the case. Someone who lived a couple hundred feet higher can see it, so we were close.
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I use my topographic relief maps to figure which mountains I’m seeing when I’m driving locally. Just bend the map so the eye can view as close as possible, looking in the proper direction. Very often, it’s not the mountain (or the part of it) that I had previously thought.
Steve Keohane,
Thanks, your photoshop ability is second to none. And that pic shows how difficult it is to factor in cloud albedo in models. The planet is self-regulating, which is why there has never been runaway global warming. The temperature limits are within definite parameters – and we are currently on the cool side. Warmer would certainly be better [with no downside; the biosphere has thrived during globally warmer periods].
But the real threat is another LIA – or worse. Gore, Mann, and the rest of the AGW propagandists have got it exactly wrong. The fact that they refuse to admit that is due to the taxpayer loot they’re pocketing in return for spreading their false alarmist propaganda. They are selling out the human race for filthy lucre. Reprehensible, self-serving, and dishonest:
Email #3408, 2008, from Phil Jones: “I’d like the world to warm up quicker, but if it did, I know that the sensitivity is much higher and humanity would be in a real mess!“
Jones would gladly condemn a large swath of humanity to eco-disaster and death – if it supported his debunked belief system. Could these climate charlatans be any more despicable? And Michael Mann is the worst of a bad lot. He even makes Phil Jones sound almost reasonable.
“Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget due to increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases warms the ocean,”
Isn’t this pretty much backwards? Doesn’t the ocean warm the air not vice versa? Wouldn’t extra heat from the air be contained in evaporation not rising ocean temps? Or am I missing something?
WUWT?
Ric Werme says: [re cloud discrepancy in Gulf]
quote
Instead of the oil the other posters have suggested, it could be simply cold water coming down from the midwest. Warm water in the rest of the Gulf would be evaporating faster than cold Mississippi water, and there will be less convection over river water.
unquote
Good thinking, Boy Wonder. Interesting — a testable theory, because we probably have a record of the sea temperatures. A testable theory about climate — whatever next?
JF
“The CERES results help scientists to determine the Earth’s energy balance, providing a long-term record of this crucial environmental parameter that will be consistent with those of its predecessors.”
“Hmmm, so if we weren’t getting the correct values before, they’d “correct” them to be the same? I would like to understand the differences between the before and after with available raw data thank you very much.”
The statement is meant to explain that the new NPP CERES instrument will provide a record of data that has been measured and analyzed in the same fashion as that developed from the preceding CERES instruments. That is the consistency.