New Findings on Earth by NASA
Lead author James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, states: “If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones.”
NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute research team has recently found that Earth is in serious trouble, with it’s climate being brought to a critical point due to excessive human-made greenhouse gases. This information was taken from climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records of NASA’s data records for the West Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic ice cover, and other areas that provided fresh water sources and species habitat. These findings show that Earth is under serious threat from a continuted global warming, regardless of opposite public opinion, and is the current issue of “Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. ” Another example is when a team of researchers led by NASA scientists returned from a three-week visit to Greenland to perform the annual check of its glaciers and ice sheet, which cover about 82% of the island. The Arctic Ice Mapping project involved measuring important areas of the ice to detect changes possibly caused by global warming.
Aircraft equipped with radar and laser instruments have been used since 1991 to monitor changes in the ice cover. Flying aboard a GPS-guided P-3B aircraft, always on the same flight path as other missions, a scanning laser system can accurately measure ice elevations to within a few inches. Also on board the aircraft is laser system which can penetrate the ice and provide measurements of the bedrock elevation as much as two miles below the surface of the ice sheet. Measurements provided by the two complementary systems enable researchers to gauge the thickness of the ice. Before choosing the areas to be mapped, information is obtained from NASA radar data, glaciologists and governmental agencies to determine areas in which more rapid change may be occurring.
Mapping has shown areas of ice along the coast which have been thinning, while areas of inland ice have been thickening; overall, however, the total amount of ice has decreased significantly. Some of the major glaciers have been moving more rapidly in the past several years. Seven years ago the glaciers were moving into the ocean at about 6 feet per year, while the latest measurements show that ice on the southern coast is traveling at more than 75 feet per year, and thinning of from 65 to almost 100 feet per year has been documented. Estimates are that a 9 inch change in the average height of Greenland’s ice sheet would mean a .12- inch change in the level of the world’s oceans. When the results of the mapping are finalized, they are expected to show a continuing trend of ice loss on Greenland.
NASA/German Aerospace Center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellites were designed to map changes in the mass of the Earth and, since being launched in 2002, have provided another means to monitor the glaciers and ice sheets of the planet. Measurements made by the twin satellites have shown that from 2002 to 2006, between 150 and 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of Greenland’s ice has been lost. One cubic kilometer is about 264 billion gallons of water, enough to raise sea levels world-wide .5 millimeters (.019 inch) per year.
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 7:57 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
