The first images from Terra are now available (submitted by George Seielstad)

NASA Terra images

After eleven weeks of on-orbit checkout and verification and a series of orbital ascent maneuvers, the Terra Spacecraft reached its final orbit on February 23.  This event was a culmination of years of work for the Terra team with the acquisition Terra's first engineering images.  Terra's spacecraft subsystems continue to perform flawlessly, with almost all systems now in their operational science mode. Terra's ground system is providing excellent support for spacecraft command and control, and is performing nominally for the capture and processing of Terra data.

 "We're very excited to see the first engineering images from Terra," said Dr. Yoram Kaufman, Terra project scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  "They show that the Terra instruments, with their delicate optics and electronics, made it safely to space. The images give us a glimpse of the unprecedented clarity and richness of the data that we anticipate from Terra in the months and years to come. With these data, Terra starts a revolution in Earth Sciences by observing simultaneously many of the processes in land, ocean and atmosphere that form the Earth System in which we live."

 "Terra's final ascent maneuvers were successfully performed," said Kevin Grady, Terra project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.  "Terra is now flying on the World Reference System (WRS), on the same ground track as Landsat 7.  Following the initial orbit raising attempt, the Terra team developed a revised plan with eight maneuvers required to raise Terra's orbit.  Each maneuver was performed as planned.

 "This performance demonstrates the quality and commitment of the entire Terra Operations Team.  Everyone involved deserves congratulations for the successful ascent of Terra to its operational orbit," Grady added.

 On February 24, the Moderate-resolution, Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) opened the Earth view door during a pass over eastern North America.  The acquisition of science data on board proceeded nominally, and the initial MODIS measurements were successfully downlinked and captured on the ground.  The initial image produced by the MODIS Team is a spectacular color image of eastern North America, extending from Canada down through Mexico.

 "A 'first light,' engineering quality, swath of MODIS data over eastern North America reveals that the instrument is working quite well," said Dr. Vince Solomonson, principal investigator for the MODIS instrument.  "These data corroborate that MODIS will provide global, daily, multispectral simultaneous observations of land, ocean, and atmospheric features that will improve substantially our understanding of how the Earth works as a system.  Unprecedented views of ocean fluorescence, the intensity of fires over land and eruptions of volcanoes, and properties of clouds (e.g, the extent of cirrus clouds) will be forthcoming.  MODIS is designed to play a significant role as the Terra mission provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of the planet Earth."

 Later that morning, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Team opened their instrument cover over central Canada.  Again all operations proceeded as planned.  Shortly thereafter, the MISR Team produced a spectacular image over Ontario, Canada.

 "These first pictures illustrate many of MISR's new and unique capabilities," said MISR Principal Investigator Dr. David J. Diner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  "The instrument, operations system, and science data processing software are performing extremely well and the quality of the images, particularly at the very challenging oblique angles, is outstanding."
 

 As the week was ending, the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Team had just completed opening the contamination cover on the CERES aft and fore instrument.  Once again, the activation of the cover was nominal.  Later in the day, the instruments were configured in the normal mission mode, with one sensor in crosstrack mode, and one in the biaxial mode.

 "Both instruments are on and appear to be working very well," said Dr. Bruce Barkstrom, principal investigator for the CERES Instrument at NASA Langley Research Center.  "In normal operation one instrument will scan perpendicular to the Terra ground track, in order to spatially sample the Earth.  The other instrument samples the angular distribution of radiation.  These two Terra instruments join a previous CERES scanner on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which was launched on November 27, 1997.  They complement TRMM by extending the observations to cover the globe and by improving sampling of the large diurnal cycle of radiation."

 The Advanced spaceborne thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) completed imaging over Japan on February 24.

 The week of February 27, the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument doors were opened.  Later that week, MOPITT's coolers were commanded on and they began collecting science data.

 After a little over two months on-orbit, Terra is beginning to produce spectacular imagery. Operationally, Terra will produce 6 terabytes (6 trillion bytes) of data every month, all of which will be available to users for many purposes including science research, applications, and education.



The following is a joint press release made by the American Geophysical Union and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (as posted on sci.environment and sci.bio.ecology on February 26 by Jim Scanlon)

Record breaking temperatures seen as evidence of faster rate of global warming
 

WASHINGTON - Researchers at NOAA's National Climate Data Center (NCDC) have found evidence that the rate of global warming is accelerating and that in the past 25 years it achieved the rate of two degrees Celsius (four degrees Fahrenheit) per century. This rate had previously been predicted for the 21st Century.

Writing in the March 1 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, Dr. Thomas R. Karl, Director of NCDC, and colleagues analyze recent temperature data. They focus particularly on the years 1997 and 1998, during which a string of 16 consecutive months saw record high global mean average temperatures. This, Karl notes, was unprecedented since instruments began systematically recording temperature in the 19th Century. During much of 1998, records set just the previous year were broken.

  Karl and his colleagues conclude that there is only a one-in-20 chance that the string of record high temperatures in 1997-1998 was simply an unusual event, rather than a change point, the start of a new and faster ongoing trend. Since completing the research, the data for 1999 have been compiled. They found that 1999 was the fifth warmest year on record, although as a La Nina year it would normally be cooler. Outside the band between 20 degrees north latitude and 20 degrees south latitude, 1999 was the second warmest year of the 20th Century, just behind 1998, an El Nino year.

  The researchers at NCDC, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), based in Asheville, North Carolina, analyzed data from land based and satellite instruments for their study. They conclude that the rate of warming since 1976 is clearly greater than the average rate over the late 19th and 20th Centuries. To account for the string of record setting temperatures, the average rate of global temperature increase since 1976 would have to be three degrees Celsius (five degrees Fahrenheit) per century.

  In its Second Assessment Report in 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected the rate of warming for the 21st Century to be between one and 3.5 degrees Celsius (two and six degrees Fahrenheit). Karl and his colleagues have already observed over the past 25 years a rate that is between two and three degrees Celsius (four and five degrees Fahrenheit) per century. The IPCC study used a "business as usual" scenario with regard to manmade influences on climate, such as carbon dioxide and other atmospheric constituents.

  Karl and his colleagues are not ready to say with certainty that the rate of global warming has suddenly increased, because they recognize that unusual events sometimes happen. There is strong evidence, they say, that the faster rate of climate change since 1976 is human-induced. Given the steady increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and the length of time, ranging from decades to centuries, that they remain in the atmosphere, they urge that studies be conducted to enable society to minimize the risks of climate change and prepare for more, and perhaps even more rapid, changes to come.
(Submitted by David Givers)


A Forest From the Past  -  Ice Age Tees  Ice Age Trees Record  the Toll of the Last Time  the World Warmed
(Submitted by Don Vig)



Polar bears as in indicator of temperature

Ian Stirling writes a telling article, "Running Out of Ice?," in Natural
History magazine, Vol. 109, No. 2, March 2000, p. 92.  He and colleagues
have been monitoring the condition and reproductive rates of polar bears
along the western Hudson Bay since 1981.  During that time the bears have
been coming ashore in progressively poorer condition and their birth rate
has steadily declined.  Cubs are also staying longer with their parents.
The fraction of bear cubs who mature early (in less than 2 years), so that
they are able to hunt seals on their own, has declined from 40 pearcent to
10 percent in two decades.  The documented poorer health of adults is
declining weight and reduced stored fat when they come ashore during the
summer.

The cause of the decline is less arctic ice.  Polar bears require ice as a
platform from which to hunt seals.  Steadily rising Spring temperatures over
two decades have caused the ice to break up earlier and the bears to come
ashore two weeks earlier.  There they fast, living off stored fat.  The
drop-off in the latter is seriously impacting them.

Stirling cannot answer definitively whether the warming and reduction and
thinning of ice cover is part of a larger natural pattern or a condition
humans are aggravating.  But he does interpret the observed trend as yet
another warning.  His analog to the canary in the coal mine is a polar bear
in Hudson Bay.   He advocates we should "quickly reduce production of
greenhouse gases."

Submitted by  George Seielstad


Bernice Wuethrich, February 2000.  "When Permafrost Isn't," Smithsonian 30 (11), 32.

 Modelers of climate change have long predicted that warming would be largest at higher latitudes.  Evidence from Alaska confirms this prediction.  North of the Yukon River, the mean annual temperature of the top of the permafrost layer has risen 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit in just the last two decades.  South of the Yukon River the permafrost has warmed 1-2.7 degrees F.  The effects are being seen in structures and highways*which, after all, were built upon a frozen foundation*as well as in landscapes.  Much of the active layer of permafrost is frozen peat, rich in organic matter.  Warming this layer could speed the decomposition of organic matter, a process that results in "frozen" carbon being released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.  So one scenario is an accelerating spiral: warmer air temperatures, deepening frozen layers, more CO2, higher air temperatures, on and on.  But, to appreciate the difficulty of modeling future climates, consider other possible scenarios.  As tundra warms, perhaps the tree line will move north.  The new forests might take up carbon dioxide, and who knows whether their uptake will balance or exceed the additional release of CO2 from the tundra.  Optimism about a possible expansion of forests is tempered by the reality that more northern forest acreage burns each year because of climatic warming, and burning of forests releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide.  Once again, humans seem engaged unwittingly in an experiment with the planet, the consequences of which need much more careful thought.  (Submitted by George Seielstad, UMAC, UND, UMAC News )
 
 

THE WHITE HOUSE                      Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   February 3, 2000
 

             President Clinton's FY2001 Climate Change Budget

"The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global
warming ... If we fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases,
deadly heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas
will flood, and economies will be disrupted.  That is going to happen,
unless we act.  Many people ... still believe you cannot cut
greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth.  In the
Industrial Age that may well have been true.  But in this digital
economy, it is not true anymore.  New technologies make it possible to
cut harmful emissions and provide even more growth."

                                       -- President Bill Clinton,
                                          State of the Union Address,
                                          January 27, 2000
 

Meeting the Challenge of Global Warming.  Against a backdrop of growing
scientific consensus that the Earth is warming -- and that human
activities are at least partly to blame -- President Clinton's FY 2001
budget is proposing over $2.4 billion (a more than 40 percent increase
over FY 2000 enacted levels) in funding to combat global climate change.
This includes a series of new initiatives, such as accelerated efforts
to develop clean energy sources both at home and abroad and a new Clean
Air Partnership Fund to boost state and local efforts to reduce
greenhouse gases and air pollution, as well as a five-year package of
tax incentives to spur clean energy technologies and increased
investment for R&D in energy efficient technology and renewable energy.
In addition, the President is proposing more than $1.7 billion for
global change research, for a total package for FY 2001 of over $4
billion.

International Clean Energy Initiative.  To help accelerate the
development and deployment of clean energy technologies around the
world, President Clinton is proposing $200 million this year (more than
a 100 percent increase over FY 2000 enacted levels) for a multi-agency
initiative to encourage open competitive markets; remove market barriers
in developing countries to clean energy technologies; and to provide new
incentives for clean energy technology innovation and export.  The
initiative will promote U.S. clean energy exports, create high-value
jobs, and assist developing countries in fighting air pollution and
climate change.

Bioenergy & Bio-based Products Initiative.  The budget includes $289
million to accelerate the development of bio-based technologies, which
convert crops, trees and other "biomass" into a vast array of fuels and
products - an increase of $93 million over FY 2000 enacted levels.  In
addition to helping meet environmental challenges like global warming,
this initiative will increase the viability of alternative energy
sources, support farm incomes, and diversify and strengthen the rural
economy.

Clean Air Partnership Fund.  The President proposes $85 million for a
new fund to provide grants to state and local governments for projects
that reduce greenhouse gases and pollutants like soot, smog, and air
toxics.

Climate Change Technology Initiative (CCTI).  The CCTI is a package of
targeted tax incentives and investments aimed at increasing energy
efficiency and spurring the broader use of renewable energy.  The
package will save consumers money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at
the same time.  CCTI investments have risen substantially each of the
past two years.  The President's new budget proposes a still more
accelerated effort.

     $4.0 billion in Tax Incentives over 5 years.  The proposed package
     contains $4.0 billion over five years in tax cuts ($201 million for
     FY 2001) for consumers who purchase energy efficient products and
     for producers of energy from renewable sources.  This year's CCTI
     tax package is $400 million more than last year's proposed
     five-year package.  Highlights include

     -  Tax credits for energy efficient homes.  Consumers can receive
        a $1000-2000 credit toward the purchase of a new energy
        efficient home; a 20 percent tax credit for the purchase of
        selected energy efficient products for homes and buildings;
        and a $1000-2000 credit for installing a solar energy system.

     -  Tax credits for fuel-efficient cars.  The package extends the
        current tax credit (up to $4000) through 2006 for qualified
        electric and fuel cell vehicles and also includes a tax credit
        of $500-3000 for the purchase of a qualifying hybrid vehicle
        from 2003-2006.

     -  Tax credits for clean energy.  The package extends the 1.5
        cent per kilowatt hour tax credit for the production of
        electricity from wind and closed-loop biomass; provides
        credits for open-loop biomass facilities and coal-biomass
        cofiring; and provides credits for electricity produced from
        methane from certain landfills.

     $1.4 billion for Energy Efficiency & Renewables.  The proposed
     package contains over $1.4 billion in FY 2001 to research, develop,
     and deploy clean technologies for the four major carbon-emitting
     sectors of the economy -- buildings, transportation, industry, and
     electricity -- a 30 percent increase over the amount appropriated
     in FY 2000.  Highlights include

     -  Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles.  PNGV is a
        government-industry effort to develop comfortable, affordable
        cars that meet all applicable safety and environmental
        standards and get up to three times the fuel efficiency of
        today's cars.  The combined proposal for PNGV in the FY 2001
        budget is $255 million, an increase of $30 million over FY
        2000 enacted levels.

     -  Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing.  PATH is a
        government-industry partnership to improve the energy
        efficiency of new homes by more than 50 percent and to
        retrofit 15 million existing homes to make them 30 percent
        more energy efficient within a decade.  The FY 2001 budget
        request for building efficiency efforts, such as PATH, Energy
        Star, and Building America, totals $275 million, a 42 percent
        increase over FY 2000 appropriations.

     -  Renewable Energy.  The President proposes $410 million for the
        Department of Energy's solar and renewable energy programs, a
        32 percent increase over the amount appropriated in FY 2000.
        The package includes expanded efforts in key renewable
        technologies, such as wind, bioenergy, photovoltaics, and
        geothermal energy.

Cleaner Fossil Fuels.  The budget request contains $233 million for R&D
to develop next-generation technologies for coal combustion with much
higher energy efficiency and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Weatherization & State Energy Grants.  The budget request includes $191
million -- a $22 million increase over FY 2000 appropriations -- to
deliver energy conservation services to low-income Americans and to
assist state energy offices in addressing their energy priorities.

U.S. Global Change Research Program.  The FY 2001 request includes over
$1.7 billion for scientific research to improve our understanding of
human and natural forces that influence the Earth's climate system and
to assess the likely consequences of global warming.

Submitted by  George Seielstad



AT YELLOWSTONE, AN ECOSYSTEM TEETERING ON A NUT
from The New York Times

BIG SKY, Mont. -- At the very top of a rocky, wind-whipped ridge above this
sprawling ski resort west of Yellowstone National Park stands a towering
grove of ancient whitebark pine trees. They are one of the few living things
that thrive in the harshness at such altitudes, and they produce a large nut
that is rich in fat and critical to wildlife.

There is mounting concern among biologists and other researchers, however,
that global climate change may be creating conditions in and around the park
that are inhospitable for the tree. If climate warming is the real,
long-term phenomenon that many experts think it is, scientists believe it
could set off a series of changes that could kill 90 percent or more of the
whitebark pine trees and possibly compromise the future of the threatened
grizzly bear.

The whitebark pine produces cones with pea-size nuts that bears eat in the
fall. "Of all the vegetable foods in the ecosystem, whitebark pine is
probably the most important," said Chuck Schwartz, leader of Interagency
Grizzly Bear Study Team, a federal agency responsible for protection of the
bear. "They are critical to the fall fattening process to get the bears
through the winter."

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/020800sci-environ-tree.html


 Global warming
( Official Word on Climate Change Incomplete - January 12 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been the official word on global climate change research, but some scientists like Roger Pielke Sr. at Colorado State University think that the IPCC reports doesn't include enough of the factors of climate change. Pielke says that the IPCC has failed to look at the climate as an integrated system and to incorporate land use changes in their reports. (Associated Press). Submitted by Dr. Leigh Welling, Director, Northern Great Plains Regional Earth Science Applications Center Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium, John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, University of North Dakota)


 Native Americas Journal Cornell University

The Fall/Winter 1999 issue has several articles on global warming and global change (Submitted by James Rattling Leaf, a UMAC leader at Sinte Gleska University)