> In a rare bit of budgetary good news for climate and Earth-science
> research, the White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2009
> includes money for new satellite missions.
>
> The proposal would give NASA a $103 million down payment on new
> missions given top priority for the coming decade in a 2007 survey
> by the US National Research Council. And the National Oceanic and
> Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would get $74 million to help pay
> for instruments needed to extend three key sets of climate data.
>
> The NASA project is aimed at new capabilities to replace a shrinking
> fleet of US instruments. The decadal survey warns that these
> instruments, which numbered about 120 at their peak in 2005, could
> drop by more than a third by 2010.
>
> To stem the tide of these losses, NASA would receive $910 million
> through 2013 to develop at least three new missions recommended by
> the panel, according to forecasts in the proposed budget.
>
> These include one called ICESat II, designed to measure changes in
> the height of ice sheets and planned for launch in 2015, and another
> called SMAP, which would launch in 2012 to measure soil moisture and
> freeze-thaw cycles. But the proposed amount is well short of the
> $1.5 billion the panel had recommended for their top priorities from
> 2010 to 2013.
>
> Massive overruns
> The NOAA funding is intended to rescue instruments threatened with
> cancellation by massive overruns on a joint military-civilian
> programme called the National Polar-Orbiting Operational
> Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
>
> In mid-2006, projected costs of the six-satellite NPOESS system, in
> planning since 1994, crossed a threshold that forced major cutbacks.
> Pentagon managers made weather forecasting their top priority and
> cut the fleet to four satellites, with the first to fly in 2013.
>
> Among the casualties were five key climate instruments, three of
> which are restored in the 2009 budget. The cuts had originally
> removed the ability to profile the vertical distribution of ozone –
> which, at high altitudes, protects the planet from the Sun's harmful
> ultraviolet rays.
>
> Continuous record
> But in April 2007, NOAA restored that capability and announced plans
> to launch the whole Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS-Limb)
> instrument in 2010 on another satellite called NPP (NPOESS
> Preparatory Project). Continued funding is included in NOAA's 2009
> budget proposal.
>
> CERES, a sensor to measure the Earth's radiation budget, had already
> been finished when it was bumped from NPOESS. Researchers consider
> it critical to assure the continuity of data with another CERES
> instrument launched on the Aqua satellite in 2002, so NOAA has
> already booked space for the completed instrument on NPP. It also
> plans to build another CERES for launch on the first NPOESS mission
> in 2013.
>
> NOAA is shifting some money from the 2008 budget to a third
> cancelled instrument for measuring total solar irradiance – the
> amount of solar energy that passes through a 1-square-metre patch
> outside the Earth's atmosphere every second. In 2009, it will
> continue that development and try to find a satellite to carry it.
> Solar irradiance measurements are particularly tricky because they
> need to be accurate to about 1 part in 1000, and with a data set
> going back to 1979, many researchers are particularly keen on
> maintaining a constant stream of data.
>
> Despite the good news, the NRC's 2007 decadal survey also urged the
> restoration of the other two instruments that had been cut from
> NPOESS, intended to measure sea-surface temperatures and wind
> directions over the oceans. Those instruments are not mentioned in
> the White House's 2009 budget request.
>
The solar irradiance data was one of the key pieces that showed that
the current global warming was due primarily to anthropogenic effects
rather than an increase in irradiance. See here: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irrad.html
. Two satellites will be key in improving the accuracy of how much we
will be warming, clouds and ice measurements. The latter is of
importance since ice melt has been much more drastic than current
models have predicted. The former will give a better handle on the
feedback mechanisms for water in the atmosphere. All the above are
money well spent because fighting climate change is not without cost
and policy makers need the most accurate information possible to make
the critical tradeoffs. Kudos to the administration for restoring it.
The DOE budget for renewable energy for FY '09, particularly in the
Energy Star and weatherization areas, was a disappointment though and
did not match the rhetoric of the SotU. More here: http://www.ad-hoc-news.de/Aktie/12717288/News/15323833/UCB.html
. AAAS will have a preliminary analysis for the research budgets
February 9 here: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/brief09.htm
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Received on Mon Feb 4 22:34:25 2008
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