NASA’s new Earth System Observatory will guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes – including helping to better understand Category 4 to 5 hurricanes such as Hurricane Maria, shown here in a 2017 thermal image captured by NASA’s Terra satellite.Credits: NASA
NASA will design a new set of Earth-focused missions to provide key information to guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. With the Earth System Observatory, each satellite will be uniquely designed to complement the others, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to atmosphere.
“I’ve seen firsthand the impact of hurricanes made more intense and destructive by climate change, like Maria and Irma. The Biden-Harris Administration’s response to climate change matches the magnitude of the threat: a whole of government, all hands-on-deck approach to meet this moment,” said NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson. “Over the past three decades, much of what we’ve learned about the Earth’s changing climate is built on NASA satellite observations and research. NASA’s new Earth System Observatory will expand that work, providing the world with an unprecedented understanding of our Earth’s climate system, arming us with next-generation data critical to mitigating climate change, and protecting our communities in the face of natural disasters.”
The observatory follows recommendations from the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which lays out ambitious but critically necessary research and observation guidance.
Areas of focus for the observatory include:
- Aerosols: Answering the critical question of how aerosols affect the global energy balance, a key source of uncertainty in predicting climate change.
- Cloud, Convection, and Precipitation: Tackling the largest sources of uncertainty in future projections of climate change, air quality forecasting, and prediction of severe weather.
- Mass Change: Providing drought assessment and forecasting, associated planning for water use for agriculture, as well as supporting natural hazard response.
- Surface Biology and Geology: Understanding climate changes that impact food and agriculture, habitation, and natural resources, by answering open questions about the fluxes of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy within and between ecosystems and the atmosphere, the ocean, and the Earth.
- Surface Deformation and Change: Quantifying models of sea-level and landscape change driven by climate change, hazard forecasts, and disaster impact assessments, including dynamics of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, groundwater, and Earth’s interior.
NASA is currently initiating the formulation phase for the observatory. Among its first integrated parts is NASA’s partnership with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which brings together two different kinds of radar systems that can measure changes in Earth’s surface less than a half-inch. This capability will be utilized in one of the observatory’s first missions intended as a pathfinder, called NISAR (NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar). This mission will measure some of the planet’s most complex processes such as ice-sheet collapse and natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. NISAR can assist planners and decision makers with managing both hazards and natural resources in the future.
For more information about NASA’s Earth science programs, visit:
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How is NASA going to ensure that it does not continue to operate under groupthink? New initiatives mean nothing until there is a removal of group think, all that happens if group think continues is that millions are wasted because minds are closed.
“Tackling the largest sources of uncertainty in future projections of climate change ….. ”
So the science isn’t settled after all.
Somebody tell the MSM and the politicians.
ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES….according to Smokey the Bear
Not about that. Needs a new title – “NASA Scientists know best, ready to tell entire world how their lives and businesses should be run properly.”
There has been no increase in hurricane severity or frequency, just more damage as there is more to damage as wealth and population increase.
gee, but Nelson says, “I’ve seen firsthand the impact of hurricanes made more intense and destructive by climate change….”. He seem to think it’s proven- now if only he presents the proof to the rest of us.
If he said anything contrary to that he wouldn’t be serving under the Biden Administration.
It’s his truth, man. Dig it?
You know that adage, “If you repeat a lie often enough……”
w4nkers
O/T and FYI….Tony Heller’s site is down. (Error 522)
Probably just sheer coincidence after he eviscerated ex-VP Al Gore 15 years after his An Inconvenient Truth comedy has been proven wrong on all counts.
Maybe WUWT should be aware of possible incoming attacks on your own ‘site?
So it is
Tony’s site is back.
Not on my system it isn’t. Still 522.
I get the 522 error
oops- I meant his YouTube site is OK- I didn’t think to check his web site
“I’ve seen firsthand the impact of hurricanes made more intense and destructive by climate change, like Maria and Irma.
Says who, Bill Nelson? The data doesn’t.
I experienced a once in 300 year hurricane event and that was in 1987. The so-called Great Storm. Chances are another one will be along in 250 years. We certainly haven’t had anything like it since despite all the naming – light breeze Naomi etc.
Nasa, it seems to me, is back on a downward slope.
Bill Nelson also said:
And what we learned from 30 years of satellite observation was that there were long periods of time where none of the predictions of climate modelling came true. And when the climate did seem to fit the models, it was always just after a super El Nino had occurred, which is entirely natural. Not what they were looking for so they never talk about that part.
Well, this seems to me to be useful. But it looks like it’s going to come equipped with a narrative.
If NASA would just make the images available and let users get what they need and make of it what they will without any accompanying sermons, it might be a valuable tool.
But nooooo…
From the announcement, it looks like NASA is going to get into the projections and forecasting business. And given NASA’s dependence on political support, the projections and forecasts will agree with and bolster the views and agendas of the Powers That Be.
Too bad.
Whatever usefulness it might have had will be buried under a mountain of garbage, misinformation and spotty climate enthusiasts preaching to the world about how everyone (else) should live.
Remove the words “climate change” from the description, and all of the science is still worth doing.
It is sad how modern day wokism has to worm it’s way into all conversations.
Ten plus years ago, the Sierra Club supported the construction of hundreds of windmills along a 100 mile stretch of I-70 through Kansas range and prairie land. They said these huge eyesores were to be sited in an industrial area. I guess definitions matter more than the actual facts. I further noted in my travels across the state that at any given time only about half were turning.
Been there, seen that. I always, while driving across this amazing country, look over the eyesores along the highways and estimate the % of down bird choppers. Usually between 10 to 20%. Of course, this is anecdotal and only those I can see from the road.
Why is this type of info not readily available from the US Government?
I can’t drive that stretch road between Colorado Missouri it makes my stomach churn.
Bill Nelson “sees climate change” the same way Greta thunderpants “sees” CO2.
I once heard an interview with a prominent CAGW activist scientist in which she bemoaned the difficulty in talking with skeptics. She would think she had proven the case to the skeptic but the skeptic would always bring up something else. It was like playing Whac-A-Mole. So, the more data this new satellite provides, the better.
It’s been said that a regime topples when it loses confidence. More and more good data will nibble away at the confidence of the alarmists. Sooner or later their house of cards will collapse.
More data isn’t really the issue. It is how the data is used (or mis-used), and the spin put on it.
Having more data may be useful but it doesn’t mean they’ll be able to explain the relationship between all the variables that make up the climate. This data won’t give them the proof that CO2 is the control knob over the climate.
The more different kinds of data there are, the harder it is to control the spin on all of it. WUWT often features stories from different areas of science that contradict the CAGW narrative.
More data, more cherries to pick from.
Hmmm . . . haven’t we already seen how easily certain prominent “scientists” dismiss or even “adjust”/manipulate data and facts out-of-had if such don’t conform with their current mindset?
Do we really need more (satellite) data in the hope that this will change this situation?
It’s not how many votes or who votes that counts it’s who counts the votes – no wait….!
It would be great if NASA finally would correct the blunder on cloud forcing, which they promoted for decades now. That would actually contribute to understanding the nature of the climate system. However I am not sure they have any interest in it.
Fact is that clouds are warming Earth and GHGs play a much smaller role than suggested. Here is why..
https://www.greenhousedefect.com/the-beast-under-the-bed-part-1
https://www.greenhousedefect.com/the-cloud-mess-part-2-something-spooky
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s response to climate change matches the magnitude of the threat: a whole of government, all hands-on-deck approach to meet this moment,”
Oh yeah, totally going to swing it around Bill, CO² won’t know what hit it when these two come rolling into town.
Nice of old Joey to give you a job after you lost your last one, that was close phew!, better keep singing his praises if I were you, actually he’s probably forgotten who you are already.
Why not just use what they already have? Oh, yea, got to piss away as much money as possible on nonexistent problems.
The “New NASA Earth System Observatory”—apparently not yet even a draft design on computers—promises to do so much for humanity . . . all from just one spacecraft!
Thus, it appears that NASA is close to having an inanimate object couple into, and use, “The Force”.
Good luck with that.
Celebrating 50 years of NASA preventing the exploration of space since 1971
If you get that far in reading the news release, with Senator/administrator Bill Nelson starting from that position, you just have to know that there won’t be anything sensible to follow. NASA is completely committed to furthering the confirmation bias sponsored by the next generation energy oligopoly. Really, there’s no good reason to read past the title.
Bill Nelson is a seer. Only in the supernatural world can those things he sees happen. The good news is the new missions will focus on hard data. Hopefully.
If the purpose is to support a fraud it will be useless or dangerous.
The only way these morons are going to the moon again is in a comic book.
Yep, that’s the reason the whole world has gone crazy – a few NASA “scientists” making sure they keep their pay packets fat.
What, OCO-2 didn’t provide the information they expected? What happened to all that data? Inconvenient truth? It just disappeared after a lot of fanfare when the CO2 sources weren’t damaging to the West.
When the truth is inconsistent with your deepest beliefs and aspirations, stair at your navel and marvel at the beauty.
OMG, thanks to this artcle, I am able to see climate change in another perspective. I even don’t know before the climate change will lead to the severe hurricane…. My focus is always on emission and pollution, which in my point the biggest source of green gas. So I am just confused why people continue to buy the diesel-powered suzuki carry….