Tiny Satellites Watch Earth Warm

[baps]

By John Hudson| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jan, 11, 2007

A constellation of microsatellites launched into low Earth orbit earlier this year is proving to be a worthwhile investment, providing more accurate weather forecasting and climatic data than ever gathered before.The six tiny satellites, weighing in at just 155 pounds each, were lofted into orbit April 14 from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard an Orbital Sciences Minotaur rocket. Although small, the satellites are making as many as 1,600 readings per day, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, or UCAR, which designed the system.
That's a mountain of data compared to the balloon-launched radiosonde instrument packages that have traditionally provided snapshots of the Earth's thin skin of air. Balloon observations of the atmosphere are launched just twice daily from roughly 900 locations around the globe, with only a small fraction of these occurring over the ocean, where killer hurricanes can breed.
The satellite constellation, called Cosmic (for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate), uses available GPS radio signals to collect data on atmospheric temperature, water vapor and electron density. As signals from the existing fleet of 24 GPS satellites race through the atmosphere, they are bent and delayed by variations in the atmospheric profile in much the same way a lens refracts a light beam.
"It's the world's most accurate climate thermometer," said Richard Anthes, president of UCAR. "As a (Cosmic) satellite sets behind the Earth in relation to the GPS satellite, it receives the GPS signal through multiple angles, giving us the ability to analyze the atmosphere in 'slices.'"
The science of quantifying the delay of a radio signal through the atmosphere is known as "radio occultation," and was devised by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s as a means to study the atmospheres of distant planets. It wasn't used to study our own world, however, until 1995, when Microlab-1 intercepted a GPS beam just above the Earth's horizon.
By interpreting the degree and characteristics of this radio occultation, Cosmic will provide complete global coverage, even from polar areas where no data was previously available. Measurements of atmospheric temperature, density, water vapor and pressure are expected to provide new insights and more accurate forecasts for phenomena such as hurricanes and global warming
"What we can say is that the higher sea-surface temperatures of water vapor make for more intense storms, and so this is consistent with the evidence we're seeing," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at UCAR, during a news conference at the Center for Health and the Global Environment. "And so the environment in which these hurricanes form is changing, and it's changing in ways that provide more fuel for them through the water vapor and the changes in sea-surface temperature."
Cosmic spacecraft will also fill a crucial role in the study and prediction of space weather phenomena by using a Tiny Ionosphere Photometer that measures electron density, and a magnetometer that analyzes variations in the Earth's geomagnetic field. The effects of solar events such as coronal mass ejections, which can play havoc with telecommunications networks, can now be monitored and studied in unprecedented detail

[stubacca68]

you been visiting the sites i go on?? hehe good find

[Arwen]

Good idea and well worth the investment imo

[TGLucario]

sounds good

[baps]

nope Stubacca it was the one i go on just a random reuters i think lol