NASA study: Earth's energy budget 'out of balance'

02.01.12 By Adam Voiland, NASA's Earth Science News Team A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity—not changes in solar activity—are the primary force driving global warming. The study offers an updated calculation of the Earth's energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth's surface and the amount returned to space as heat. The researchers' calculations show that, despite unusually low solar activity between 2005 and 2010, the planet continued to absorb more...

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NASA study solves case of Earth's 'missing energy'

01.31.12 By Alan Buis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Two years ago, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., released a study claiming that inconsistencies between satellite observations of Earth's heat and measurements of ocean heating amounted to evidence of "missing energy" in the planet's system. Where was it going? Or, they wondered, was something wrong with the way researchers tracked energy as it was absorbed from the sun and emitted back into space? An international team of atmospheric scientists and oceanographers,...

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NASA mission takes stock of Earth's melting land ice

02.08.12 By Alan Buis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Steve Cole, NASA Headquarters In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise. Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland...

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'First Light' Taken by NASA's Newest CERES Instrument

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. Thick cloud cover tends to reflect a large amount of incoming...

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Detecting detrimental change in coral reefs

02.09.12 By Laura Rocchio, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover’s Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs. Dustan — a young ocean ecologist who had worked in the lush coral reefs of the Caribbean and Sinai Peninsula — found this difficult to believe. It was December 1974. Reef environments provide habitat for hundreds of fish species including the queen angelfish shown here in the Florida Keys National...

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Infrared eye opens

02.09.12 By Cynthia O'Carroll, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, John Leslie, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration A powerful new infrared instrument, flying on NASA's newest polar-orbiting satellite, designed to give scientists more refined information about Earth's atmosphere and improve weather forecasts and our understanding of climate, has started sending its data back to Earth. The Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) joins four other new instruments aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, which NASA...

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NASA map sees Earth's trees in a new light

02.21.12 By Alan Buis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth's forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth's vegetation. Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Mass., created the map...

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Trekking the global in search of answers

02.15.12 By Alan Buis, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory While NASA's fleet of Earth science spacecraft — its "eyes on the Earth" — continues to monitor the pulse of our home planet, 2012 is also shaping up to be an extraordinary time for NASA's Airborne Science Program and its Earth system science research initiatives. Multiple aircraft and specialized instruments, including several from JPL, will operate in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America this year in support of studies conducted by NASA and the Earth science community, improving...

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Earth's clouds are getting lower

02.22.12 By Alan Buis, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth's clouds got a little lower — about one percent on average — during the first decade of this century, finds a new study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate. Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The study, published...

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Watching the planet breathe

Scientists have come up with an entirely new way to monitor the health of Earth’s plants from space. In work published in Geophysical Research Letters [1], researchers working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and in Germany and Japan report on how measurements taken from space can open a whole new window onto the planet’s carbon cycle. Carbon is a building block of life. It is also a key component of our climate. Carbon dioxide — a gas that exists naturally in the air, but is also produced by humans when we burn fossil fuels, drive cars...

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