NASA CERES — Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Information and Data

Patrick Taylor from the NASA Langley Science Directorate was at the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris. He presented with Dr. John P. Holdren (Assistant to the President for Science and Technology).

Thursday, December 10 @ 3:45 – 4:45 PM CET (Paris) 9:45 am to 10:45 am EST.
Sponsors: NASA and U.S. Department of State

Event Summary:
Today, the Arctic is changing at a dramatic pace as a result of global warming. Temperatures in the Arctic region are rising at more than twice the average global rate -- altering the lives of its approximately four million inhabitants. The impacts of Arctic climate change have become worse with wider implications, ranging from shifts in atmospheric circulation patterns to acceleration of global sea level rise.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, you are connected to the Arctic region. The Arctic affects our daily weather, our security, the food we eat, and our vast coastlines. As the Arctic continues to warm, dangerous feedback loops come into play. Shorter winters mean an increased prevalence of carbon-releasing wildfires. Warming also promotes thawing of permafrost, soil that remains frozen throughout the year, which could release as much 150 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere by the end next century – the equivalent of adding 300 million cars to the road. Scientists and global leaders understand the transformations occurring in the Arctic as signs of the global crisis unfolding – one that can only be effectively addressed through international collaboration. This event will discuss the global implications of Arctic climate change and the international approaches needed to adequately address them.

+ View the presentation on youtube at:
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NciOiAvdLQ0

When the mercury thermometer was invented in 1714, it took the scientific world by storm. On his transatlantic crossing in the year 1724, Benjamin Franklin recorded water temperatures by periodically dipping a thermometer into the ocean. By 1850, weather stations across the globe had gleaned a record of air temperatures over land. For the first time, scientists could track Earth’s temperature. And over time, it became clear that temperature was rising.

+ Read the rest: here

NASA satellite instruments have observed a marked increase in solar radiation absorbed in the Arctic since the year 2000 – a trend that aligns with the steady decrease in Arctic sea ice during the same period.

While sea ice is mostly white and reflects the sun’s rays, ocean water is dark and absorbs the sun’s energy at a higher rate. A decline in the region’s albedo – its reflectivity, in effect – has been a key concern among scientists since the summer Arctic sea ice cover began shrinking in recent decades. As more of the sun’s energy is absorbed by the climate system, it enhances ongoing warming in the region, which is more pronounced than anywhere else on the planet.

+ Read the rest: here
+ View the 2014 AGU Fall Meeting Press Conference:
     Artic Heating: 15 years of Artic Sea Ice Loss and Absorbed Solar Radiation Gains.

On Tuesday, Aug. 5 atmospheric scientist Norm Loeb from the NASA Langley Science Directorate will present "The Recent Pause in Global Warming: A Temporary Blip or Something More Permanent?" at 2 p.m. in the Reid Conference Center. Loeb's presentation will provide a summary on recent research related to a slow-down in surface warming referred to as the "Global Warming Hiatus." Over the last 15-years, the global mean surface temperature of Earth has increased at a rate that is roughly one-third of that over the past 60 years.

That same evening at 7:30, Loeb will present a similar program for the general public at the Virginia Air & Space Center in downtown Hampton.

The global warming hiatus occurred despite record-breaking temperatures in the 2000s, retreating Arctic sea ice, rising sea levels and a record high global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Opinions vary about the hiatus, as some view it as evidence that man-made global warming is a myth. Others explain that it is simply due to climate variability that is temporarily masking a longer-term temperature trend.

Loeb is the principal investigator of a satellite project called Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). Observations from CERES are used to determine the Earth’s radiation budget or measurements of the incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy back to space that determines our planet's temperature and climate.

With a doctorate in atmospheric sciences from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Loeb's awards include the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, and the William T. Pecora Group Award.

+ View the article: here
+ View the presentation: here

The retreat of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is diminishing Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, by an amount considerably larger than previously estimated, according to a new study that uses data from instruments that fly aboard several NASA satellites.

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A quick glance at a world precipitation map shows that most tropical rain falls in the Northern Hemisphere. The Palmyra Atoll, at 6 degrees north, gets 175 inches of rain a year, while an equal distance on the opposite side of the equator gets only 45 inches.

Scientists long believed that this was a quirk of Earth's geometry -- that the ocean basins tilting diagonally while the planet spins pushed tropical rain bands north of the equator. But a new University of Washington study shows that the pattern arises from ocean currents originating from the poles, thousands of miles away.

The findings, published Oct. 20 in Nature Geoscience, explain a fundamental feature of the planet's climate, and show that icy waters affect seasonal rains that are crucial for growing crops in such places as Africa's Sahel region and southern India.

+ View the article: here

Much has changed since Magellan circumnavigated Earth almost 500 years ago or since the first astronaut orbited Earth over 50 years ago. August 26, 2013 marks another historical event in exploring our earth. Terra, the flagship Earth Observing Satellite, sees the Earth for the 5,000^th day celebrating its 5,000^th day on orbit.

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NASA has enlisted the help of smartphone users around the world to monitor the effect of clouds on the Earth's climate. Information collected by users of the CloudSpotter app - where people take pictures of clouds and try to identify their type - will be used by the space agency's scientists to calibrate its Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument.

CERES comprises a set of instruments on three satellites that measure the sunlight that is reflected back into space from the Earth and the heat it emits. The amount of sunlight reflected is greatly affected by cloud cover. "If you have no clouds, then clearly you are going to be seeing the Earth's surface," said Lin Chambers, a scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. "If you are over the Black Forest in Germany, you're going to get very little reflection from those trees. If there's clouds over the black forest, you would get a lot more reflection. Reflection of sunlight is strongly dependent on whether there's clouds there or not."

Since 1997, Chambers's team has worked with school pupils to gather independent observations of clouds, so that CERES scientists can ensure that the measurements recorded by the satellites tally with evidence from the ground.

+ View the article: here