last
updated 29th September 05
by 4ecotips.com
Providing better
info on how climates develop
Two NASA satellites, planned for
launch later next month (October),
will give us a unique view of Earth's
atmosphere. CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol
Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite
Observations (CALIPSO) are undergoing
final preparations for launch from
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
CloudSat and CALIPSO will provide
a new, 3-D perspective on Earth's
clouds and airborne particles called
aerosols. The satellites will answer
questions about how clouds and aerosols
form, evolve and affect water supply,
climate, weather and air quality.
Both satellite systems employ revolutionary
tools that will probe Earth's atmosphere
and each carries an "active"
instrument that transmits pulses of
energy and measures the portion of
the pulses scattered back to the instrument.
CloudSat's cloud-profiling radar
is over 1,000 times more sensitive
than typical weather radar. It can
detect clouds and distinguish between
cloud particles and precipitation.
"The new information from CloudSat
will answer basic questions about
how rain and snow are produced by
clouds, how rain and snow are distributed
worldwide and how clouds affect the
Earth's climate," says Dr. Graeme
Stephens, CloudSat principal investigator
at Colorado State University, Fort
Collins, Colo.
CALIPSO's polarization lidar instrument
can detect aerosol particles and can
distinguish between aerosol and cloud
particles.
"With the high resolution observation
that CALIPSO will provide, we will
get a better understanding of aerosol
transport and how our climate system
works," said Dr. David Winker,
CALIPSO principal investigator at
NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton,
Va.
The satellites will be launched into
a 705-kilometer (438-mile) circular,
sun-synchronous polar orbit, where
they will fly in formation just 15
seconds apart as members of NASA's
"A-Train" constellation
with three other Earth Observing System
satellites. The A-Train includes NASA's
Aqua and Aura satellites and France's
Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances
for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with
observations from a Lidar satellite.
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