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ESA Launches GOCE To Map Earth's Gravity

Posted by kdawson on from the go-see dept.

DSG2 sends in an ESA press release which reads in part: "This afternoon, the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite developed by the European Space Agency was lofted into a near-Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit by a Rockot launcher lifting off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia. GOCE is the first of a new family of ESA satellites designed to study our planet and its environment in order to enhance our knowledge and understanding of Earth-system processes and their evolution, to enable us to address the challenges of global climate change. In particular, GOCE will measure the minute differences in the Earth's gravity field around the globe." One consequence of mapping the planet's geoid in finer detail is that ocean currents can be limned more accurately. This BBC article from 2007 goes into some detail about this application.

3 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yeah... by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When did "Global Warming" become politically incorrect and "Climate Change" became politically correct?

    When they realized they might be wrong.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  2. Re:From the ESA website:.. by Star+Particle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmmmm... good question. I could launch into a wordy, detailed answer here, but it would inevitably end with me insulting your girlfriend once again.

  3. Re:Yeah... by khayman80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a climate scientist, I've seen that shift in wording too. I think it was largely a PR move, designed to combat fundamental misconceptions that laymen have regarding "Abrupt Climate Change" (the officially accepted title).

    1. Most people don't understand the difference between weather (purely local phenomena, hard to predict because it requires extremely complex vector-valued numerical models of the motion of the atmosphere) and climate (purely global phenomenon, easier to predict because it just requires summing energy input and subtracting energy output). They stuck the word "climate" in there to emphasize that today's cold temperatures in Joe Schmoe's town don't "disprove" climate change.
    2. Global warming is a little simplistic. A more accurate description is that our addition of greenhouse gasses has reduced the volume of energy leaving the planet while leaving the energy input constant. As a result, the average energy in the atmosphere is increasing, which allows the system to "explore more of its phase space". More energy means more opportunities for extreme weather- even weather that involves colder temperatures! (Again, note that weather is local.)
    3. The word "abrupt" was added to emphasize that what we're experiencing isn't a natural process. The ice core from Vostok shows that CO2 hasn't risen above 300 ppm in the last half million years. It's at 380 ppm now, which is almost certainly due to human activities. This rapid increase hasn't happened in the hundreds of thousands of years over which we have records. The consequences aren't likely to be pretty. Hence, "abrupt".

    I'm embarrassed to admit it, but climate change has me pretty scared. I might live to see some of the effects (drought, famine, extreme weather) and I wonder if my life will be as comfortable as my parents was. I used to assume that advancing technology would make my life much better, and I'm just now coming to grips with the possibility that it won't.

    But what really scares me is the ostrich-like manner with which people react to the problem. They seem to be in denial, which is understandable. Scientists aren't bringing good news, so it's natural to be resentful. But I figured that some deep survival mechanism would kick in eventually as people looked at the rigorous nature of the modeling, the diverse data sets all leading to the same conclusions, and the myriad positive feedback effects that makes climate change accelerate on its own.

    Instead, people seem to react as though the existence of climate change is somehow a political question rather than a scientific question. They don't seem to be looking at that evidence. Instead, they seem to decide that their political party's position on climate change is "X", so they believe "X". (Note that I'm talking about the existence of anthropogenic abrupt climate change. I realize that our response to climate change is a legitimate political question.)