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lillelily · 3 years ago

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Реанализ - набор значений метеопараметров за определенный, уже прошедший, период времени, полученный с помощью ассимиляции данных метеонаблюдений.

Если просто, то мы взяли данные метеостанций, спутников, аэрозондов, буев и т. д., согласовали их и интерполировали по площади, чтобы вместо реальных значений в нескольких точках, у нас появились рассчитанные значения в узлах равномерной координатной сетки.

Как логично предположить, основная проблема - неполность и разреженность данных, особенно до 70-х годов, когда спутников еще не было. Есть даже так называемая спутниковая ошибка - когда из-за появления спутникового наблюдения точность делает такой сильный скачок, что это отражается на результате. Приходится сглаживать эту погрешность

Поэтому для модели очень важны единство методов анализа (чтобы в месте смены метода не образовывалась "ступенька") и учет специфики наблюдений.

История реанализов проста: в 1974 году был GATE - GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Program) Atlantic Tropical Experiment, целью которого было понимание процессов в тропической атмосфере. Проект проходил под эгидой ВМО, и советские ученые там тоже участвовали - их делегацию возглавлял Михаил Армаисович Петросянц, недавно была конференция, посвященная столетию с его рождения.

На полученных в ходе эксперимента данных в 1984 году был создан первый реанализ: FGGE - First GARP Global Experiment. Данные загружались в модель, ассимилировались, и на выходе получались привязанные к координатной сетке наборы значений для температуры, завихренности, компонент скоростей ветра, дивергенции и т.д. для 1979 года. Собственно, с этого и началась история реанализов.

Из глобальных я бы упомянула ERA-5, созданный ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) на основе их современной модели численного прогноза для периода (1950) 1979 - 2021. Его я сейчас использую для магистерской. Шаг по сетке - четверть градуса, по времени - 1 час, и они ужасно тяжелые. Ну и 37 уровней давления до 0,01 гПа, это примерно 80 км.

До этого были версии ERA-15 (1979-1993), ERA-40 (1957-2002), ERA-Interim (1979-2019). От версии к версии уменьшается шаг по сетке и по времени, увеличивается количество вертикальных уровней, увеличивается число метеопараметров, улучшается ассимиляция данных. В последнее время добавилось использование ансамблей данных (это когда вместо одного набора показывается несколько наиболее вероятных развитий событий). Ну и увеличивается рассматриваемый период времени.

Так, существуют реанализы ERA-20C (1900-2010) и CERA-20C (1901-2010), реанализы от NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration): NOAA-CIRES-II (1871-2012) и NOAA-CIRES-2c (1851-2012), NOAA-CIRES-DOE-III ((1806) 1836-2015), но там мало параметров и они не сильно точные.

Отдельно стоит упомянуть NOAA Last Millennium Reanalysis-II (1-2000), созданный с помощью ассимиляции палеоданных (да-да, все эти керны льда, кольца деревьев, анализ пыльцы и т.д.). Шаг по времени 1 год, и это мало похоже на привычный реанализ, зато там есть расчеты всяких полезных климатических индексов.

Это не единственные реанализы, из известных глобальных еще часто использующаяся классика - NCEP-NCAR (R1), (1948-2020) с шагом 2,5 на 2,5 и с 28 вертикальными уровнями от NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) и NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). Я использовала его в курсовой. Свои реанализы есть и у NASA (MERRA (1979-2016), MERRA-2 (1980-2020), упор на аэрозоли), и у JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency). Существуют еще и региональные реанализы (для определенной территории).

Проблемы же у реанализов бывают весьма забавными. К примеру, в некоторых моделях не сходился водный баланс - осадков выпадало больше, чем испарялось влаги, а откуда берется лишняя вода - непонятно. Где-то не фиксировались приземные инверсии и были неправильные профили влажности, а где-то не были напрямую связаны между собой океан и атмосфера. Но наука движется вперед, и с каждой версией реанализы становятся все более точными.

P.S. На всякий случай еще раз: реанализы это не численные модели прогнозирования. Это всего лишь ассимиляция данных - интерполяция временных рядов на территории. Все. Их используют для науки (потому что данные в узлах сетки это удобнее, чем просто набор временных рядов), не для прогнозирования погоды.

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Saturday, January 16, 2021

Hot again: 2020 sets yet another global temperature record (AP) Earth’s rising fever hit or neared record hot temperature levels in 2020, global weather groups reported Thursday. While NASA and a couple of other measurement groups said 2020 passed or essentially tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, more agencies, including the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said last year came in a close second or third. The differences in rankings mostly turned on how scientists accounted for data gaps in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe. All the monitoring agencies agree the six warmest years on record have been the six years since 2015. The 10 warmest have all occurred since 2005. Temperatures the last six or seven years “really hint at an acceleration in the rise of global temperatures,” said Russ Vose, analysis branch chief at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

A siege on the U.S. Capitol, a strike against democracy worldwide (Washington Post) As the Trump administration sought to drive Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro from power, activist Jorge Barragán embraced the effort as the good and moral crusade of the world’s greatest democracy. Then came the siege on the U.S. Capitol. The 22-year-old student activist watched “in shock” from his hometown in western Venezuela last week as a mob inspired by President Trump invaded Congress to attempt to overturn an election loss. Barragán could not pull away from the YouTube images showing the pro-Trump marauders acting very much like Maduro’s colectivos—the extraofficial thugs that keep opponents in check and a dictator in charge. “Our main ally in the fight for democracy has tumbled,” Barragán said. “What does that mean for us?” Four years of Trump had already dimmed the United States’ democratic bona fides. From Egypt to Honduras to Saudi Arabia to North Korea, Trump signaled tolerance for human rights abuses. Analysts now warn of a herculean task ahead for Biden. Global inequality, historic migration and deep polarization have driven satisfaction with democracy to disturbing lows. Biden could be weakened by the millions of Trump voters who still say his victory was illegitimate. Meanwhile, any attempt to preach the rule of law to [other nations] could draw calls to get his own house in order first.

Biden Outlines $1.9 Trillion Spending Package to Combat Virus and Downturn (NYT) President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Thursday proposed a $1.9 trillion rescue package to combat the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, outlining the type of sweeping aid that Democrats have demanded for months and signaling the shift in the federal government’s pandemic response as Mr. Biden prepares to take office. The package includes more than $400 billion to combat the pandemic directly, including money to accelerate vaccine deployment and to safely reopen most schools within 100 days. Another $350 billion would help state and local governments bridge budget shortfalls, while the plan would also include $1,400 direct payments to individuals, more generous unemployment benefits, federally mandated paid leave for workers and large subsidies for child care costs. It is unclear how easily Mr. Biden can secure enough votes for a plan of such ambition and expense, especially in the Senate.

Mexico declines to prosecute ex-Defense Minister Cienfuegos on drug charges (Washington Post) Three months after Mexico’s former defense minister was arrested in Los Angeles on drug-trafficking charges—a shocking move that would strain U.S.-Mexican relations—the case came to a close on Thursday night, after Mexican authorities decided not to pursue charges against Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos. The U.S. Justice Department had initially billed the case against Cienfuegos as a blockbuster. The retired military leader was arrested on Oct. 15 on arrival at the Los Angeles airport on charges he had helped the H-2 cartel send thousands of kilos of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines to the United States. But weeks later, after intense pressure from the Mexican government, the Justice Department made the highly unusual decision to drop the charges and send him home for investigation. The case illustrated the power of Mexico’s military, which has become the main force fighting the country’s criminal cartels. Under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the armed forces have also assumed a variety of other roles—running ports, delivering vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, and building airports and other infrastructure projects. Many senior military officials were outraged at the detention of Cienfuegos, whom they viewed as an honest leader. They feared the U.S. arrest might lead to future investigations against other members of the armed forces, according to analysts and officials. Stung by the anger among the military and Mexican politicians, López Obrador threatened to limit anti-drug cooperation with Washington.

UK has ‘largest population fall since the Second World War’ (The Independent) Up to 1.3 million immigrants have left the UK—the largest population fall since the Second World War—with coronavirus the likely cause, a study says. In London alone, almost 700,000 foreign-born residents are believed to have moved out, leading to a potential 8 per cent shrinking of the size of the capital, it argues. The study, by the government-funded Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), draws a clear link with the devastation inflicted by the pandemic on sectors such as hospitality. “It seems that much of the burden of job losses during the pandemic has fallen on non-UK workers and that has manifested itself in return migration, rather than unemployment,” the authors concluded. “It seems that much of the burden of job losses during the pandemic has fallen on non-UK workers and that has manifested itself in return migration, rather than unemployment,” the authors concluded. Brexit is not being pinpointed as a cause of the sharp decline, but could yet have implications for filling jobs when the economic recovery comes.

Dutch government resigns over childcare subsidies scandal (Reuters) Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced the resignation of his government on Friday, accepting responsibility for years of mismanagement of childcare subsidies, which wrongfully drove thousands of families to financial ruin. The resignation follows a parliamentary inquiry last month that found bureaucrats at the tax service had wrongly accused families of fraud. The inquiry report said around 10,000 families had been forced to repay tens of thousands of euros of subsidies, in some cases leading to unemployment, bankruptcies and divorces, in what it called an “unprecedented injustice”. Many of the families were targeted based on their ethnic origin or dual nationalities, the tax office said last year.

Spain rejects virus confinement as most of Europe stays home (AP) While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up. The government has been fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases. Unlike Portugal, which is going on a month-long lockdown Friday and doubling fines for those who don’t wear masks, officials in Spain insist it will be enough to take short, highly localized measures that restrict social gatherings without affecting the whole economy.

Merkel’s CDU Gathers to Choose New Leader (Foreign Policy) The next chair of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and possibly the next leader of the country, will be decided over the next two days, as 1,001 party delegates meet virtually to select a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel as party leader. No matter who wins, they will not only have to live up to German expectations, but the world’s too. For the third year running, Germany topped a Gallup poll where respondents were asked to rate their approval of a country’s leadership. A Pew poll of 14 countries, taken in the summer, showed confidence in Angela Merkel was at all time highs.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan cut to 2,500, lowest level since 2001 (Washington Post) The Pentagon has reduced the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 2,500, according to a statement Friday, completing a previously announced rapid drawdown despite a Congressional prohibition of the move and rising levels of violence in the country. “This drawdown brings U.S. forces in the country to their lowest levels since 2001,” said Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller in the statement. Miller also said “the United States is closer than ever to ending nearly two decades of war and welcoming in an Afghan-owned, Afghan-led peace process to achieve a political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.” But violence is increasing in many parts of Afghanistan, and peace talks in Qatar have made little progress since they were launched in September.

N.Korea holds huge military parade as Kim vows nuclear might (AP) North Korea displayed new submarine-launched ballistic missiles under development and other military hardware in a parade that underlined leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand the country’s nuclear weapons program. State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night’s parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting in which he vowed maximum efforts to bolster the nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as U.S. hostility. During an eight-day Workers’ Party congress that ended Tuesday, Kim also revealed plans to salvage the nation’s economy, hit by U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions, pandemic-related border closures and natural disasters that wiped out crops. Kim’s comments are likely intended to pressure the incoming U.S. government of Joe Biden, who has previously called the North Korean leader a “thug” and accused Trump of chasing spectacle rather than meaningful curbs on the North’s nuclear capabilities. Kim has not ruled out talks, but said the fate of bilateral relations depends on whether Washington abandons its hostile policy toward North Korea.

Indonesia quake kills at least 42, injures hundreds (Reuters) A powerful earthquake killed at least 42 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi on Friday, trapping several under rubble and unleashing dozens of aftershocks as authorities warned of more quakes that could trigger a tsunami. Thousands of frightened residents fled their homes for higher ground when the magnitude 6.2-quake struck 6 km (4 miles) northeast of the town of Majene, at a depth of just 10 km, shortly before 1.30 a.m. The quake and aftershocks damaged more than 300 homes and two hotels, as well as flattening a hospital and the office of a regional governor. The heightened seismic activity set off three landslides, severed electricity supplies, and damaged bridges linking to regional hubs, such as the city of Makassar. Heavy rain was also worsening conditions for those seeking shelter.

Palestinians announce first elections in 15 years, on eve of Biden era (Reuters) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced parliamentary and presidential elections on Friday, the first in 15 years, in an effort to heal long-standing internal divisions. The move is widely seen as a response to criticism of the democratic legitimacy of Palestinian political institutions, including Abbas’s presidency. It also comes days before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, with whom the Palestinians want to reset relations after they reached a low under President Donald Trump. According to a decree issued by Abbas’s office, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, will hold legislative elections on May 22 and a presidential vote on July 31. Hamas, the Islamist militant group which is Abbas’s main domestic rival, welcomed the announcement. But veteran West Bank analyst Hani al-Masri was sceptical that the elections would happen. He cited internal disagreements within Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, and likely U.S., Israeli and European Union opposition to any Palestinian government including Hamas, which they regard as a terrorist group.

CNN’s correction of the week (Business Insider) After a tumultuous week in the US, most Americans could likely use a little humor. And they got it in the form of an amusing correction from CNN regarding what Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California grabbed during the Capitol siege. “CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Rep. Ted Lieu grabbed a crowbar before leaving his office. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar,” a correction for a CNN story states.

#headlines #news

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tatmanblue · 4 years ago

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Ari Atoll, Maldives by European Space Agency Via Flickr: The Maldives are featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. A popular tourist and diving destination with white sandy beaches, the Republic of Maldives is located in the Indian Ocean, around 700 km southwest of Sri Lanka. This island nation consists of a chain of around 1200 small coral islands that are grouped into clusters of atolls – scattered across 90 000 sq km of ocean. An atoll is a circular or oval-shaped reef structure with a lagoon in the centre. These structures typically form around a volcanic island that has subsided while the coral grows upwards. The Maldives actually rests on top of an ancient volcanic mountain range. In this image, the Ari Atoll in the west of the archipelago is featured. Ari Atoll is one of the largest atolls in the Maldives, and is around 90 km long and 30 km wide. The turquoise colours in the image depict clear, shallow waters which contrasts with the dark coloured waters of the deep Indian Ocean. Several clouds can be seen at the bottom of the image. One of the world’s lowest-lying countries, more than 80% of the Maldives’ land is less than one metre above average sea level. This extremely low elevation makes the country, and its inhabitants, particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Satellite data has shown that the global ocean has risen, on average, 3 mm a year over the last 25 years. But more alarmingly, satellite data shows the rate of the rise has accelerated over the last few years, and has been rising at around 5 mm per year. Warming ocean waters, melting glaciers and diminishing ice sheets is making rising sea levels a real threat for low-lying islands such as the Maldives. The upcoming Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, set to launch in November 2020, will map up to 95% of Earth’s oceans every 10 days. The satellite carries a new generation radar altimeter that will observe annual changes in mean sea level with millimetre precision, together with measurements of surface wind speed, sea state and geostrophic ocean currents. This new satellite will assume the role as a reference mission to provide critical data for the long-term record of sea-surface height measurements. These measurements are not only essential for monitoring our rising seas, but also for climate prediction, sustainable ocean-resource management, coastal management and environmental protection. ESA is jointly developing the mission with its partners NASA, the European Commission, EUMETSAT and NOAA, with support from CNES. This image, which was captured on 12 April 2019, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme. Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

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chartsjust · 2 years ago

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Nasa picture of the day august 24 2010

#NASA PICTURE OF THE DAY AUGUST 24 2010 SERIES#

Scientists watch closely when volcanic materials reach this relatively dry layer of the atmosphere because particles linger much longer and travel much farther than if they remain in the lower, wetter troposphere. The eruption was powerful enough to inject volcanic material into the stratosphere, which generally begins above 15 kilometers (9 miles) in this part of the world. CALIPSO was launched in 2006 by NASA and France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES). “This is by far the highest volcanic plume we've ever measured with CALIPSO,” said Jason Tackett, a researcher at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Other CALIPSO data collected on January 15 indicates that a small amount of ash and gas may have reached as high as 39.7 kilometers (24.7 miles). The second image, based on data collected on January 16 by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission, shows material from the eruption rising to an altitude of 31 kilometers (19 miles).

#NASA PICTURE OF THE DAY AUGUST 24 2010 SERIES#

(NASA builds and launches the GOES series of satellites for NOAA.) local time (04:00 to 07:00 Universal Time) as the volcanic plume expanded upward and outward over the South Pacific. The natural-color views from the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager were acquired between 5 and 8 p.m. NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 17 (GOES-17) captured the images for the animation above. However, the involvement of water in the Tonga eruption may have increased the explosivity compared to a purely magmatic eruption like Pinatubo.” “That is comparable to Pinatubo and one of the largest of the satellite era. “The umbrella cloud was about 500 kilometers (300 miles) in diameter at its maximum extent,” said Michigan Tech volcanologist Simon Carn. As shown in the animation above, a vast plume of material created what volcanologists call an umbrella cloud with crescent-shaped bow shock waves and a vast number of lightning strikes. The sheer power of the eruption was quickly apparent in satellite imagery. Scientists affiliated with NASA’s Disasters program are now gathering imagery and data, and they are sharing it with colleagues around the world, including disaster response agencies. Several Earth-observing satellites collected data during and after the eruption. Relatively powerful blasts shook Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai on January 13, but it was an even more intense series of explosions early on January 15 that generated atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms, and tsunami waves that traveled the world. The most recent activity began in late December 2021 as a series of Surtseyan eruptions built up and reshaped the island, while sending bursts of tephra and volcanic gases spewing from the vent. The volcano had sporadically erupted multiple times since 2009. Damage assessments are still ongoing, but preliminary reports indicate that some communities in the island nation of Tonga have been severely damaged by volcanic ash and significant tsunami waves. Editor’s Note: This story was updated on January 19, 2022, to add more context and quotes from scientists studying the volcano.Ī powerful volcanic eruption has obliterated a small, uninhabited South Pacific island known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai.

#Nasa picture of the day august 24 2010

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spaceandisronews · 6 years ago

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Soyuz-ST-B Arianespaces Flight VS19 Successfully Launches MetOp-C Satellite

Arianespace launched a new European weather satellite Tuesday, using a Soyuz rocket to deploy the Metop-C spacecraft into orbit around the Earth. Liftoff from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou, French Guiana, occurred at 21:47:27 local time (00:47 UTC on Wednesday).

The Meteorological Operational (Metop) satellites are operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), making up the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). Operating in near-polar sun-synchronous orbits, Metop satellites carry a suite of instruments to study and monitor the Earth’s weather.

The EUMETSAT Polar System contributes to the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS), an international partnership between EUMETSAT and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). IJPS, which also incorporates the NOAA’s Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES), sees the two agencies share data and use each other’s ground stations to control their satellites and downlink data. The NOAA has also provided several of the instruments that fly aboard Metop satellites.

Metop is one of two series of weather satellites operated by EUMETSAT: the organization also operates a fleet of spacecraft in higher geostationary orbits, Meteosat. EUMETSAT also partners with the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Commission on the Sentinel Earth science missions, and with ESA, NOAA and NASA on the Jason ocean research satellites.

Constructed by Airbus Defence and Space – formerly EADS Astrium – the 4,084-kilogram (9,004 lb) Metop-C is based on the SPOT Mk.3 satellite bus, a platform originally developed for France’s SPOT imaging spacecraft. The satellite is three-axis stabilized and uses a deployable solar array to generate power for its onboard systems.

The sun-synchronous orbit in which Metop satellites operate allows each spacecraft to pass over the Earth’s surface at approximately the same mean solar time in each location. Metop-C will orbit the Earth at an altitude of approximately 811 kilometers (504 miles, 438 nautical miles), inclined at 98.74 degrees. The orbit Metop satellites use is designed so they can observe points on the surface in the mid-morning – about 09:30 – in their local time. NOAA’s satellites use orbits suited to afternoon observations, complementing Metop’s data.

Metop-C will be the third member of the Metop constellation, joining the Metop-A and Metop-B satellites which were launched in 2006 and 2012 respectively. While each Metop satellite is designed to operate for five years, both Metop-A and Metop-B have exceeded their design lives and remain in service. The three spacecraft are of the same design, carrying the same suite of instruments.

Three of these instruments were provided by the NOAA. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer 3 (AVHRR/3), Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit A (AMSU-A) and Space Environment Monitor 2 (SEM-2) are identical to instruments that were flown aboard the NOAA’s fifth-generation POES satellites, that were being launched at the time the Metop spacecraft were developed. All three instruments have previously flown aboard five US weather satellites, beginning with NOAA-15 in 1998, and the two previous Metop spacecraft.

Metop-C is the final first-generation Metop satellite to be launched. The Metop Second Generation (Metop-SG or MSG) satellites are scheduled to begin launching in the early 2020s. Metop-SG will use two satellites equipped with different instruments to collect complimentary data, with three satellites of each type launching sequentially to continue data collection for almost another thirty years.

Arianespace used a Soyuz ST-B rocket with a Fregat-M upper stage to place Metop-C into orbit. The Soyuz ST-B is a version of the Soyuz-2-1b vehicle, optimized for launch from Arianespace’s Centre Spatial Guyanais launch site in French Guiana.

Both previous Metop satellites also launched aboard Soyuz-2 rockets. Metop-A was the first payload to be launched aboard a Soyuz-2, flying on the second Soyuz-2-1a in October 2006, after the rocket’s maiden flight had carried an inert, obsolete, spacecraft. This was also the first Soyuz-2 launch with a Fregat upper stage.

Metop-B was launched atop a Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat-M in September 2012. Both launches were conducted by Arianespace’s subsidiary Starsem, with the rockets flying from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Soyuz-2 is a modernized version of Russia’s Soyuz family of rockets. First flown in 1966, Soyuz was an upgraded version of the earlier Voskhod rocket, itself developed from Sergei Korolev’s R-7 missile. Soyuz-2 introduced upgraded first and second stage engines and a new digital flight control system.

Three different versions of the Soyuz-2 have been flown: The Soyuz-2-1a is the basic version, modernizing the previous-generation Soyuz-U, while the Soyuz-2-1b also upgrades the upper stage with an RD-0124 engine. The Soyuz-STA and STB configurations incorporate additional modifications, including flight termination packages, necessary for operation from French Guiana.

The third configuration, Soyuz-2-1v, is a smaller vehicle without the first stage boosters used on the Soyuz-2-1b. However, it is only launched from Russia.

The Soyuz-STB/Fregat-M is a four-stage rocket, consisting of the three-stage Soyuz and the Fregat upper stage. All three stages of the Soyuz burn RG-1 fuel – a refined petroleum product – oxidized by liquid oxygen, while Fregat uses storable propellant. Designated VS19 under Arianespace’s numbering scheme for its missions, Soyuz will take just over an hour to place Metop-C into orbit.

The Metop-C mission was Arianespace’s eighth launch of 2018. It is also the twelfth flight of Soyuz this year, although only one of the year’s previous launches was conducted by Arianespace. Tuesday’s launch took place less than a month after the failure of a Soyuz-FG launch, in a mission out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome that was to carry a crew of two to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft. Soyuz has since returned to flight with two successful launches for the Russian military in the last fortnight. This was the third success.

Up to five more Soyuz launches could take place before the end of the year. The next of these is scheduled for 18 November, with a Soyuz-FG launching the Progress MS-10 resupply mission to the International Space Station. If this goes to plan, another Soyuz-FG will launch at the start of December with Soyuz MS-11 and a crew of three bound for the station.

Arianespace has one more Soyuz launch on their books for 2018, planned for mid-December with France’s CSO-1 reconnaissance satellite aboard. Two more launches at the end of the year – from the Vostochny and Baikonur Cosmodromes respectively – will deploy a pair of Kanopus-V spacecraft and the EgyptSat-A remote sensing mission.

Before next month’s Soyuz launch, Arianespace will fly missions with both of the other rockets in their fleet. Around 20 November a Vega rocket will launch Mohammed VI-B for Morocco, while an Ariane 5ECA is expected to lift off in early December with India’s GSAT-11 communications satellite and South Korea’s geostationary Cheollian-2A weather satellite. An additional Ariane 5 launch could also take place later in December.

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dendroica · 7 years ago

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Sea Level Rise is Accelerating : Image of the Day

Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. This acceleration has been driven mainly by increased ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and it has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100, according to lead author Steve Nerem, a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the University of Colorado.

If things continue to change at the observed pace, sea level will rise 65 centimeters (26 inches) by 2100, enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities. The team—comprised of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Colorado, the University of South Florida, and Old Dominion University—recently published their work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is almost certainly a conservative estimate,” said Nerem, who is a member of NASA’s Sea Level Change team. “Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that is not likely.”

Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which causes sea level to rise in two ways. First, warmer water expands, and this “thermal expansion” of the ocean has contributed about half of the 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) of global mean sea level rise that has been observed over the past 25 years, Nerem said. Second, the water from melting land ice flows into the ocean, which also increases sea level around the world.

The rate of sea level rise has risen from about 2.5 millimeters (0.1 inch) per year in the 1990s to about 3.4 millimeters (0.13 inches) per year today. These increases have been measured by satellite altimeters since 1992, including the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, and Jason-3 missions, which have been jointly managed by NASA, France’s Centre national d'etudes spatiales (CNES), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The maps on this page depict the changes in sea level observed by those satellites between 1992 and 2014.

#climate change #sea level rise #ocean #maps #environment

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spaceexp · 7 years ago

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New Study Finds Sea Level Rise Accelerating

NASA - IceSat-2 Mission patch / NASA & DLR - GRACE Mission patch. Feb. 13, 2018 Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, rather than increasing steadily, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data.

Sea Level Rise Accelerates Over Time

Video above: Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Kathryn Mersmann. This acceleration, driven mainly by increased melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100 when compared to projections that assume a constant rate of sea level rise, according to lead author Steve Nerem. Nerem is a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, a fellow at Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and a member of NASA's Sea Level Change team. If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 -- enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The team, driven to understand and better predict Earth’s response to a warming world, published their work Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This is almost certainly a conservative estimate," Nerem said. "Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely." Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which causes sea level to rise in two ways. First, warmer water expands, and this "thermal expansion" of the ocean has contributed about half of the 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of global mean sea level rise we've seen over the last 25 years, Nerem said. Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also increasing sea level across the globe.

Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). Image Credit: NASA

These increases were measured using satellite altimeter measurements since 1992, including the Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3 satellite missions, which have been jointly managed by multiple agencies, including NASA, Centre national d’etudes spatiales (CNES), European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the U.S. portion of these missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The rate of sea level rise in the satellite era has risen from about 0.1 inch (2.5 millimeters) per year in the 1990s to about 0.13 inches (3.4 millimeters) per year today. "The Topex/Poseidon/Jason altimetry missions have been essentially providing the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million accurate tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years," said Brian Beckley, of NASA Goddard, second author on the new paper and lead of a team that processes altimetry observations into a global sea level data record. "As this climate data record approaches three decades, the fingerprints of Greenland and Antarctic land-based ice loss are now being revealed in the global and regional mean sea level estimates." Even with a 25-year data record, detecting acceleration is challenging. Episodes like volcanic eruptions can create variability: the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 decreased global mean sea level just before the Topex/Poseidon satellite launch, for example. In addition, global sea level can fluctuate due to climate patterns such as El Niños and La Niñas (the opposing phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation), which influence ocean temperature and global precipitation patterns. Nerem and his team used climate models to account for the volcanic effects and other datasets to determine the El Niño/La Niña effects, ultimately uncovering the underlying rate and acceleration of sea level rise over the last quarter century. The team also used tide gauge data to assess potential errors in the altimeter estimate.

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment & Follow-On (GRACE-FO). Image Credit: NASA

“The tide gauge measurements are essential for determining the uncertainty in the global mean sea level acceleration estimate,” said co-author Gary Mitchum, University of South Florida College of Marine Science. “They provide the only assessments of the satellite instruments from the ground.” Others have used tide gauge data to measure sea level acceleration, but scientists have struggled to pull out other important details from tide-gauge data, such as changes in the last couple of decades due to more active ice sheet melt. In addition to NASA's involvement in missions that make direct sea level observations from space, the agency's Earth science work includes a wide-ranging portfolio of missions, field campaigns and research that contributes to improved understanding of how global sea level is changing. Airborne campaigns such as Operation IceBridge and Oceans Melting Greenland gather measurements of ice sheets and glaciers, while computer modeling research improves our understanding of how Antarctica and Greenland will respond in a warming climate. In 2018, NASA will launch two new satellite missions that will be critical to improving future sea level projections: the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, a partnership with GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) in Germany, will continue measurements of the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets; while the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) will make highly accurate observations of the elevation of ice sheets and glaciers. Related links: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES): https://cires.colorado.edu/ Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2): https://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/icesat2/mission_overview.php Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/index.html GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ): https://www.gfz-potsdam.de/startseite/ Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Sara Blumberg/Goddard Space Flight Center, by Patrick Lynch/Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, by Katie Weeman. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

#space #science

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annychristine831 · 4 years ago

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Everything to Know About Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Mission

Satellite technology and space expeditions are working towards a better tomorrow. With the ever-changing global climatic conditions, efforts are being made to mitigate the catastrophic phenomenon. A micro-assessment is a must to build and design such measures. The rise in ocean level is another primary concern. To observe the same, NASA-ESA collaborated ‘Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission got launched a few days back.

Why such missions?

The mission is about understanding the height of the oceans – the major hydrosphere of Earth. Dedicated to monitoring the oceans, it will try to track global warming’s effects on the rise of ocean levels. Some of the other missions that launched earlier for similar functioning:

Jason-1

OSTM/Jason-2

TOPEX/Poseidon

The mission has the name of Michael Freilich, the director of NASA’s Earth Science Division (2006-2019), who died this year in August. Organizations that worked to develop this mission are:

NASA

ESA

Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Centre for Space Studies (CNES)

How will the mission work?

At the initial stage, the satellite will send pulses towards the Earth, once it sits in the expected orbit. It will try to read the time it takes the landscape and water bodies (mainly oceans) to return the signal. As per the data, it will analyze the height of the oceans and seas. The mission will also track the position of water vapor using GPS and grounded lasers. Apart from this, it will try to study oceanography to enhance the short-term weather patterns ranging from two-to-four weeks. It will assess the movements of ocean currents and waves and wind conditions. The monitoring of primary weather conditions like La Nina and El Nino affect the oceanic temperatures and give rise to cyclones and hurricanes. This will help build a robust system to get an understanding of any random and frequent change.

Benefits:

The benefits related to Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Mission are:

Assess the growth rate of the rising ocean level for a specific time. Extrapolating the values of pollution levels will help understand the effects of pollution and other environmental malfunctions on oceans.

Thermal sensing of the ocean will provide details of ocean acidification and ocean temperature, and their impact on coral reefs. As a result, scientists will be able to track the oceanic heat budget.

Weather conditions like La Nina and El Nino and local marine nature have increased cyclones and hurricanes phenomena in recent times. Assessing such situations will help to design resilient infrastructure near the vulnerable zones mapped through analysis.

Assist in building solutions related to water security in the countries that will face a significant crisis in the next 10 to 20 years.

Future Prospects

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission is a sub-part of a significant assignment. The entire space mission has two satellites, one has already been launched and another named Sentinel-6B is slated to launch in 2025. It will help to maintain the continuity along with a broader range of monitoring due to the two satellites.

Conclusion

The objective of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission works towards improving the environment and is in line with Paris 2015 and other climate agreements. The functionality and niche of this mission can generate enhanced results and analysis of the water bodies. This intervention should promote more such missions in the future to avoid any catastrophe.

Source: Everything to Know About Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Mission

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facts-before-ideology · 7 years ago

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Climate Change?

“The scientists still aren’t sure if climate change is our fault or not.”

Scientists are always aware that new data can overturn old data and ideas previously thought to be true can be proven false. But the more a theory is established and the older it becomes, the less likely it is to be false. The Greenhouse Effect theory is over 100 years old and the first predictions of human-induced (anthropogenic) climate change occurred in 1896. Since then scientists have accumulated decades of research on global climate change. Every major scientific institute that concerns itself with climate change understands that anthropogenic climate change is a very real phenomenon and is very much happening. What is less certain is other factors, such as how high temperatures will rise and how fast ecosystems will begin to spiral out of control.

“One record year of high rates of carbon is not indicative of anthropogenic climate change.”

[Also see, “One really warm year does not mean climate change is real”]

This is correct. High rates in single year cannot indicate a trend. 2005 was a record year for having the hottest globally averaged temperature.

But every year since 1992 has been warmer than 1992. The ten hottest years on record occurred within the last 15 years. Every year since 1976 has been hotter since 1976. The 20 hottest years on record occurred within the last 25 years. Every year since 1956 has been warmer than 1956. Every year warmer than 1917 has been warmer than 1917.

From NASA: “Record warmth in 2005 is notable, because global temperature has not received any boost from a tropical El Niño this year. The prior record year, 1998, on the contrary, was lifted 0.2°C above the trend line by the strongest El Niño of the past century.”

What change occurred during the 1800s to spike fossil fuel usage and global changes in atmospheric CO2 over time? The industrial revolution.

“Global Warming is a hoax perpetrated by liberal and environmental extremists that want an excuse to put more power into the hands of our government”.

There is quite a large list of organizations that understand anthropogenic global warming as a real phenomenon:

NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS): http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

National Academy of Sciences (NAS): http://books.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html

State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC) –http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html

The Royal Society of the UK (RS) – http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135

American Geophysical Union (AGU): http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html

American Meteorological Society (AMS): http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html

American Institute of Physics (AIP): http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR): http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html

American Meteorological Society (AMS): http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/jointacademies.html

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS): http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html

Every major scientific institution dealing with climate, ocean, and atmospheric research knows that the climate is changing rapidly and agrees that human carbon emissions is the primary cause. Other countries outside of the U.S. have endorsed these conclusions [PDF]:

Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias (Brazil)

Royal Society of Canada

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Academie des Sciences (France)

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)

Indian National Science Academy

Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)

Science Council of Japan

Russian Academy of Sciences

Royal Society (United Kingdom)

National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)

Even if scientists are “too liberal” for you and you don’t trust politicians, industry representatives also acknowledge that climate change is real and human-induced:

BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world, has this opinion:

There is an increasing consensus that climate change is linked to the consumption of carbon based fuels and that action is required now to avoid further increases in carbon emissions as the global demand for energy increases.

Shell Oil (yes, as in oil, the fossil fuel) says:

Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.

Eighteen CEOs of Canada’s largest corporations had this to say in an open letterto the Prime Minister of Canada:

Our organizations accept that a strong response is required to the strengthening evidence in the scientific assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We accept the IPCC consensus that climate change raises the risk of severe consequences for human health and security and the environment. We note that Canada is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“Global Warming isn’t real because some sites have shown cooling trends.”

Global warming is a long-term effect in the increase of globally and seasonally averaged surface temperatures. Not all regions are expected to show the same rain patterns or increase in temperature. Regions will have variation, however there has been significant warming in the global average temperature: NASA GISS, CRU, Hadley Centre.

“Climate change is natural and it’s happened before. Greenland used to be green and it was warmer during the Holocene Climactic Optimum.”

NOAA:

“In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was generally warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the northern hemisphere. More over, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven “astronomical” climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years.”

So while some temperatures were the same as today’s, they were only confined to the northern hemisphere during the summers. The cause of this phenomenon was from orbital forcing, whereas the cause of climate change today is understood to be from anthropogenic C02 emissions.

Greenland is part of a single region and cannot be considered to represent a total global climate shift. There is variation in regions, but the seasonal and global average temperature show significant warming. Moreover, Greenland was never really green, though it was probably a bit warmer back in the day than it is now. Erik the Red wanted to attract people to a new colony and figured that whatever he called Greenland would make people want to immigrate there (the European Vikings didn’t survive well in icy Greenland anyway and were easily outlasted by the Inuit).

It is true that there are natural cycles and variations in global climate, but there is no existing climactic theory in which carbon does not influence global temperatures, and natural cycle precedents do not match today’s extreme changes.

“Global Climate Change is not Caused by C02.”

[See also: “Climate scientists don’t ever talk about water vapor.”]

Water vapor is very much explored and explained in climate research and climate textbooks. Water contributes to 66% of the effect of vapor alone, and that percentage increases to 85% when clouds are considered. But it’s not considered climate forcing because the amount of H20 in the atmosphere varies as a function of temperature.

Water is removed from the atmosphere when it condenses into rain, which occurs when temperatures in the atmosphere cool. However, carbon stays in the atmosphere for centuries until natural sinks absorb it, and because of how long carbon lingers, the climate is affected. As the climate warms in response to high carbon levels in the atmosphere, there are higher humidity levels and an accumulation of more water vapor. This water vapor doubles or triples the effect of carbon on climate change. See: “Water Vapor: Feedback or Forcing?

Thanks, grist.org, for the wonderful list and links.

#climate change #global warming #climate change deniers #climate change denial #science #environment

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km-science · 7 years ago

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The dark side of Earth

Nasa has released stunning new images showing how humans have lit up every corner of the Earth.

The space agency has spent years collecting and analysing satellite images of Earth and have put together the clearest yet composite view of Earth's 'night lights'.

The maps reveal how human settlements have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness.

Satellite images of Earth at night, often referred to as 'night lights', have been a fundamental research for nearly 25 years.

Produced every decade or so, such maps have spawned hundreds of pop-culture uses and dozens of economic, social science and environmental research projects.

Satellite images of Earth at night, often referred to as 'night lights', have been a fundamental research for nearly 25 years.

Produced every decade or so, such maps have spawned hundreds of pop-culture uses and dozens of economic, social science and environmental research projects.

But now Nasa aims to be able to update its stunning maps of Earth at night as often as every day.

A research team led by Earth scientist Dr Miguel Román of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, will spend this year trying to make this goal a reality.

In the years since the 2011 launch of the Nasa-Noaa Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, Dr Román and colleagues have been analyzing night lights data and developing new software and algorithms to make night lights imagery clearer, more accurate and readily available.

They are now on the verge of providing daily, high-definition views of Earth at night, and are targeting the release of such data to the science community later this year.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA released a new Earth at night map in 2012.

Since then, researchers have been working to integrate nighttime data into NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) and Worldview mapping tools.

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mindblowingscience · 8 years ago

Link

Funding for US science agencies will stay flat or even increase over the next several months, under a US$1-trillion spending deal announced on 30 April. The plan devised by Congress, which covers the remainder of the 2017 budget year, avoids the sharp cuts to science proposed by US President Donald Trump.

The biggest winner is the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose budget would rise by $2 billion compared to the 2016 level, for a total of $34 billion. The National Science Foundation would remain steady at just under $7.5 billion, while NASA’s budget would rise by about 2%, to $19.7 billion. And the Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump wants to cut by 31% in fiscal year 2018, would receive roughly $8.1 billion, a decrease of about 1% from 2016.

“From our perspective this is a great package, so we can put [fiscal year 2017] behind us and move on with our lives,” says Jennifer Zeitzer, director of legislative relations at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Rockville, Maryland.

But that does not mean that scientists can breathe easy just yet: the largely positive 2017 deal does not necessarily indicate how Congress will handle funding for 2018, says Michael Lubell, a physicist at City College of CUNY in New York City. Lawmakers “have a year to fall in line [with the president] if they want to”, he says.

Trump’s 2018 budget request, released in March, seeks an 18% cut for the NIH and a 5.6% cut to the Department of Energy. It also proposes to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which funds high-risk, high-reward research, along with a global-health research centre at the NIH and the Sea Grant education and research programme at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

#Donald Trump #uspoli #science #science funding #scientific research #stem #sciblr #scienceblr

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yahoonewsdigest-gb-extra · 8 years ago

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Backlash as EPA chief Scott Pruitt questions science of global warming

World

Backlash as EPA chief Scott Pruitt questions science of global warming

The head of America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reportedly been deluged with angry phone calls after publicly doubting the role that carbon dioxide plays in climate change.The Washington Post said that "according to three agency employees", calls to Scott Pruitt's main office number were so relentless on Friday that "agency officials created an impromptu call centre". One employee apparently told the paper that interns were asked to answer some of the calls.The EPA did not speak to the Post directly.Meanwhile, a blog on the Union of Concerned Scientists' website said: "Dear Scott Pruitt: Stop lying. We see what you are doing."

Mr Pruitt sparked the controversy when he contradicted his own organisation's advice by saying he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a main contributor to global warming.Speaking on CNBC show Squawk Box, he said:

Scott Pruitt: Stop

His own organisation's position on the subject is summarised on its website, which says: Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change. Mr Pruitt's position also differs from that of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA .

#yahoo news digest #World

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natashabriggs · 4 years ago

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Gold and Silver shortage, let’s go to space to get some precious metals

The current state of the global economy has led to a shortage of available physical Gold and Silver bullion.Hard rock minerals could be mined from an asteroid or a spent comet. Precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum group metals could be transported back to Earth, while iron group metals and other common ones could be used for construction in space.

Being the largest body in the asteroid belt, Ceres could become the main base and transport hub for future asteroid mining infrastructure,[54] allowing mineral resources to be transported to Mars, the Moon, and Earth. Because of its small escape velocity combined with large amounts of water ice, it also could serve as a source of water, fuel, and oxygen for ships going through and beyond the asteroid belt.[54] Transportation from Mars or the Moon to Ceres would be even more energy-efficient than transportation from Earth to the Moon.[55]

Hobe explains that the Outer Space Treaty “explicitly and implicitly prohibits only the acquisition of territorial property rights” but extracting space resources is allowable. It is generally understood within the space law authorities that extracting space resources is allowable, even by private companies for profit. However, international space law prohibits property rights over territories and outer space land. Hobe further explains that there is no mention of “the question of the extraction of natural resources which means that such use is allowed under the Outer Space Treaty” (2007: 211). He also points out that there is an unsettled question regarding the division of benefits from outer space resources in accordance with Article, paragraph 1 of the Outer Space Treaty.[82]

The Article 11 establishes that lunar resources are “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”[85] However, exploitation of resources is suggested to be allowed if it is “governed by an international regime” (Article 11.5), but the rules of such regime have not yet been established.[86] S. Neil Hosenball, the NASA General Counsel and chief US negotiator for the Moon Treaty, cautioned in 2018 that negotiation of the rules of the international regime should be delayed until the feasibility of exploitation of lunar resources has been established.[87]

The broader impacts of the control subchallenge help solve open problems in industrial production and metabolic engineering. These include, respectively, the sensing of and (optimal) response to complex environments such as those found in large bioreactors, and providing a means of flux regulation to facilitate unnatural chemical production. Similar to the versatile abiotic applications of control engineering, it is anticipated that the accomplishment of generic biological control that is independent of host system and that can compensate for certain off-pathway effects, recoverable mutations and environmental fluctuations will have many uses beyond space-related applications. Additionally, solutions to the artificial life subchallenge may constitute future Earth-based medical technologies, for instance, hybrid robot versions of tumour-killing bacteria .

Synthetic biological control systems for use in space. (a) A traditional feedback control system consists of a controller, an actuator, a sensor and a system to be controlled, all arranged within a feedback loop. (b) ‘Biology-in-the-loop’ control refers to contemporary electromechanical (e.g. microfluidic or optical) techniques of externally controlling a biological system. (c) Challenge 5 moves towards a methodology that completely integrates biological controllers (perhaps based on gene regulatory networks), actuators (perhaps one or more proteins) and sensors (perhaps levels of chemicals of interest) with the biological system to be controlled (the control subchallenge). (d) Challenge 5 also includes the case where biological controllers and the systems to be controlled constitute separate biological subsystems that individually interact with abiotic sensors and actuators, all of which are part of a larger system, e.g. a hybrid robot (the artificial life subchallenge).

Accordingly, there is a need to identify the potential near-term and longer-term goals that space synthetic biology can progress towards. There is also a need to outline the anticipated techniques that can achieve these objectives, and a need to document the impact that attaining these milestones can have on the space community and, more broadly, humankind. The associated challenges and opportunities deal with the biological extraction and utilization of limited space resources, the manufacture and construction of products useful in space, the support of human life, the treatment of human health, the development of biological devices that can emulate and interact with non-biological components and, ultimately, the large-scale transformation of worlds from harsh environments into more hospitable ones. These challenges and opportunities are illustrated in figure 1, summarized in box 1, and elucidated in the following sections.

Development of an infrastructure for altering asteroid orbits could offer a large return on investment.[69] Private companies like Planetoid Mines has developed ISRU equipment to mine and process minerals in space, and piggybacked a process to extract water and helium-3. Producing Curiosity class rovers, launching a satellite to LEO producing ZBLAN optical fiber, and developing space “tugs”, they are building what NASA calls the “workhorse of the solar system” propulsion and are utilizing the mission parameters from NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission by using a gravitational assist maneuver to redirect an asteroid to cislunar orbit mining. ISRU raw materials will be fabricated on-site for the manufacturing of building materials, landing pads, spaceports and spacecraft, and a moon base.

The framers of Outer Space Treaty initially focused on solidifying broad terms first, with the intent to create more specific legal provisions later (Griffin, 1981: 733–734). This is why the members of the COPUOS later expanded the Outer Space Treaty norms by articulating more specific understandings which are found in the “three supplemental agreements” – the Rescue and Return Agreement of 1968, the Liability Convention of 1973, and the Registration Convention of 1976 .

It states when natural resources exploitation is “about to become feasible”, the state parties to that treaty will agree on an appropriate international regime. But the Moon Agreement has only 18 state parties, and was never agreed to by any major space power such as Russia, China or the US.

Space weather forecasting NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is the official source for space weather forecasts for our nation. They forecast solar storms, much like our National Weather Service offices forecast weather here on Earth. SWPC forecasters use ground-based instruments and satellites to monitor the active regions of the Sun for any changes and issue watches, warnings, and alerts for hazardous space weather events. Just like there are categories used to classify hurricanes, there are also Space Weather Scales for communicating the severity of solar storms. To predict these storms, forecasters watch the Sun for solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Solar flares are massive explosions on the Sun’s surface. They often arise near sunspots and release a wide spectrum of photons such as X-Rays, visible light, and ultra-violet light, as well as highly energized protons outward into space. The biggest solar storms arise from coronal mass ejections (CME). A CME is an enormous bubble of plasma expelled by the Sun; it contains billions of tons of fast-moving solar particles as well as the magnetic field that binds them. The velocity of a CME can even exceed 5 million miles per hour!

In 2006, the Keck Observatory announced that the binary Jupiter trojan 617 Patroclus,[16] and possibly large numbers of other Jupiter trojans, are likely extinct comets and consist largely of water ice. Similarly, Jupiter-family comets, and possibly near-Earth asteroids that are extinct comets, might also provide water. The process of in-situ resource utilization—using materials native to space for propellant, thermal management, tankage, radiation shielding, and other high-mass components of space infrastructure—could lead to radical reductions in its cost.[17] Although whether these cost reductions could be achieved, and if achieved would offset the enormous infrastructure investment required, is unknown.

The US executive order acknowledges space resource mining activities are subject to international law. But from the US perspective, the relevant law is centred around the Outer Space Treaty, with the Moon Agreement playing no part.

These are all “guesstimate” figures. But they serve to demonstrate just how plentiful are the resources of the Solar System, in terms of minerals, metals and energy, once we decide to go out and get them.

Bibliography

Asteroid mining 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining>.

Grand challenges in space synthetic biology 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707852/>.

Sci/Tech | Gold rush in space? 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm>.

Space weather | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/weather-atmosphere/space-weather>.

Steven Freeland 1970, Giant leap for corporations? The Trump administration wants to mine …, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://theconversation.com/giant-leap-for-corporations-the-trump-administration-wants-to-mine-resources-in-space-but-is-it-legal-136395

Source: https://www.jupiterfuture.com/blogs/space-1/gold-and-silver-shortage-let-s-go-to-space-to-get-some-precious-metals

from Jupiter Future https://jupiterfuturespaceshop.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/gold-and-silver-shortage-lets-go-to-space-to-get-some-precious-metals/

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opscatwoman · 4 years ago

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Gold and Silver shortage, let’s go to space to get some precious metals

Bibliography

Asteroid mining 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining>.

Grand challenges in space synthetic biology 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707852/>.

Sci/Tech | Gold rush in space? 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm>.

Space weather | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1970, Viewed 5 August 2020, <https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/weather-atmosphere/space-weather>.

Source: https://www.jupiterfuture.com/blogs/space-1/gold-and-silver-shortage-let-s-go-to-space-to-get-some-precious-metals

source https://jupiterfuturespaceshop.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/gold-and-silver-shortage-lets-go-to-space-to-get-some-precious-metals/

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