MAR NASA - 302

NASA, or the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, is an independent United States Agency with two missions. One is space exploration, and the other is keeping an eye on the health of Earth. The second is critical to our survival. Their main focus is climate change, and it has been for decades.

 

The mission to inform us about our home planet is called the Earth Science Enterprise. The centerpiece of this enterprise is NASA's "Earth Observing System, EOS". The EOS is done by scientific platforms that orbit the Earth: satellites, instrument-laden aircraft, and surface-based observation posts.

 

 According to NASA's Earth Observing System mission page, over 30 satellite missions remain active. The data is captured from these sources in an information system called EOSDIS or Earth Observing System Data and Information System. NASA uses this data to study changes in the biosphere of Earth. The focus of this data collection surrounds climatic science.

Given their massive observation and analyzing capability, how does NASA sum up the climate situation?

 

Their website quotes: "Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth's local, regional, and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.

 

Changes observed in Earth's climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere, raising Earth's average surface temperature. Natural processes, which have been overwhelmed by human activities, can also contribute to climate change, including internal variability (e.g., cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and external forcings (e.g., volcanic activity, changes in the Sun's energy output, and variations in the Earth's orbit.)

 

Scientists use observations from the ground, air, and space, along with computer models, to monitor and study past, present, and future climate change. Climate data records provide evidence of climate change key indicators, such as global land and ocean temperature increases; rising sea levels; ice loss at Earth's poles and in mountain glaciers; frequency and severity changes in extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover changes."

 

"As Earth's climate changes, it is impacting extreme weather across the planet. Record-breaking heat waves on land and in the ocean, drenching rains, severe floods, years-long droughts, extreme wildfires, and widespread flooding during hurricanes are all becoming more frequent and more intense."

 

You can access NASA's home page on climate by going to http://climate.nasa.gov. From here, you can self-educate yourself about carbon dioxide, global temperature, methane, ocean warming, ice sheets, sea level, and arctic sea ice extent. As you would expect from a premier public science institution, the website is professional and presented at a level we can understand.

The NASA teams are men and women, like our soldiers, marines, and sailors, who are committed to protecting us. They do this by diligently gathering and analyzing information from the satellites they designed, engineered, built, and launched. They present what they know to us via the NASA website.

 

We paid for the satellites, websites, and local libraries where we can access this hard-earned information. If we choose to remain ignorant, and catastrophe descends upon us, we have only ourselves to blame.

 

Remember in 1988, it was NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, then head of NASA's Goddard Institute, who gave sworn testimony to the US Senate that first alerted the world to the dangers of global warming caused by greenhouse gases emitted by humans burning fossil fuels.

 

He retired from NASA in 2013 and is now an adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he continues his service to humanity.

 

We have the privilege of being served by the best and most dedicated scientists in the world. They literally never quit, and they are committed to duty. 

 

What is our duty? How radical is it to be curious, read, attempt understanding, and speak up for future generations?

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