Climate Archives

February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 by Matt Williams

Dust From the Moon Could Help the Shade the Earth and Slow Down Climate Change

View of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, taken during the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA

Alongside nuclear war or a massive impact from an asteroid, anthropogenic climate change is one of the greatest existential threats facing humanity today. With the rise in greenhouse gas emissions through the 20th century, Earth’s atmosphere continues to absorb more of the Sun’s energy. This has led to rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and increased drought, famine, wildfires, and other ecological consequences. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global temperatures will increase by an average of 1.5 to 2 °C (2.7 to 3.6 °F) by 2050.

For some parts of the world, the temperature increases will be manageable with the right adaptation and mitigation strategies. For others, especially in the equatorial regions (where most of Earth’s population lives), the temperature increases will be severe and will make life untenable for millions of people. For decades, scientists have considered using a sunshield to block a fraction of the Sun’s energy (1 to 2%) before it reaches Earth’s atmosphere. According to a new study by a team led by the University of Utah, lunar dust could be used to shield Earth from sunlight.

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023 by Matt Williams

NASA Satellites can Pinpoint the Exact Locations of Excessive CO2 Emissions

Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere if half of global-warming emissions are not absorbed. Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC

In 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) had reached four-hundred parts per million (ppm) for the first time since the Pliocene Era (ca. three million years ago). According to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), “excess carbon dioxide” in our atmosphere will result in a global average temperature increase of between 1.5 and 2 °C (2.7 and 3.6 °F) by 2030. This will significantly affect ecological systems worldwide, including species extinction, droughts, wildfires, extreme weather, and crop failures.

Aside from curbing emissions, these changes call for mitigation and adaptation strategies and climate monitoring. This is the purpose of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 2 and 3 missions, twin satellites that make space-based observations of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere to understand the characteristics of climate change better. Using the world’s fifth-largest coal-fired power plant as a test case, a team of researchers used data from OCO 2 and 3 to detect and track changes in CO₂ and quantify the emissions produced below.

January 3, 2023January 3, 2023 by Matt Williams

Seen From Space: Sand Dunes on Mars Covered by Frost

This image acquired on July 22, 2022 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows sand dunes moving across the landscape. Winter frost covers the colder, north-facing half of each dune. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

It’s winter here on Earth, for those living in the northern hemisphere. This means snow, rain, colder temperatures, and all the other things we associate with “the festive season.” Much the same is true for Mars (aka. “Earth’s Twin”), which is also experiencing winter in its northern hemisphere right now. This means colder temperatures, especially around the polar regions where it can get as low as -123 °C (-190 °F), as well as ice, snow, frost, and the expansion of the polar ice caps – which are composed of both water ice and frozen carbon dioxide (“dry ice”).

While Mars does not experience snowfall the same way Earth does, seasonal change results in some very interesting phenomena. Thanks to the many robotic explorers NASA and other space agencies have sent to Mars in the past fifty years, scientists have been able to get a close-up look at these phenomena. These include the Viking orbiters and landers that studied the planet in the 1970s (with groundbreaking results) to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers exploring the surface today.

December 11, 2022December 11, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

A Supercomputer Climate Model is so Accurate it Predicted the Weather Patterns Seen in the Famous 1972 “Blue Marble” Image of Earth

The “Blue Marble” was one of the most iconic pictures of the Apollo era. Taken by the astronauts of Apollo 17 on their return trip from the moon, the first fully illuminated image of the Earth taken by a person captured how the world looked on December 7th, 1972, just over 50 years ago. Now, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology has recreated that iconic image using a climate model.

December 10, 2022December 10, 2022 by Scott Alan Johnston

To Fight Climate Change, We Could Block the Sun. A Lightweight Solar Sail Could Make it Feasible

Could a solar-sail-like structure (or structures) tethered to an asteroid provide a sunshade for Earth to block sunlight and mitigate climate change? A recent study looks into it. Courtesy NASA.

Can we build an enormous umbrella to dim the Sun? Such a feat would be a megaproject on a scale like no other. It would take at least 400 dedicated rocket launches a year, for ten years (There have been 172 rocket launches by all nations so far in 2022). The project would weigh in at 550,000 tons: at its lightest. And it would be an ecological experiment that puts us all – the entire planet – in the petri dish, with high risk and high reward. But could such a project actually reverse climate change and bring us back from the brink of global disaster?

The answer seems to be yes, it could work. But there are consequences, and with the planet at stake, it seems wise to examine them before committing to such a thing.

October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

NASA is Mapping Giant Clouds of Methane Released by “Super-Emitters” Across the World

Methane super-emitters — This image shows a methane plume 2 miles (3 kilometers) long that NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation mission detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is much more effective at trapping hea... Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Everybody’s heard of methane. It’s a major part of the atmosphere in places like Uranus and Neptune. On Earth, it’s also part of our atmosphere, where it works to warm things up. Some of it gets there from natural causes. But, a lot of it comes from industrial super-emitters and other human-caused processes. That’s not good because too much methane works, along with other greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide, or CO₂) to “over warm” our atmosphere.

October 4, 2022October 4, 2022 by Cathrine Versfeld

27 to 78 cm of sea Level Rise Could be Locked in From Melting Greenland ice Caps

Image: The latest research using satellite data has confirmed that rising sea levels are inevitable. Credit: Annie Spratt.

Recent climate research, published in the Nature Climate Change journal has confirmed that melting icecaps in Greenland will contribute a minimum of 27cm rise in ocean levels even if we collectively stop burning fossil fuels immediately. We have reached a “point of no return”. And what makes it worse is that this is the most conservative estimate, as it only factors the contribution made by the ice shelf in Greenland. Projections have also confirmed that overall planetary warming has exceeded the original estimates for global heating, and that we are in for a difficult millennium if drastic action isn’t taken immediately.

September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Alaska Has New Lakes. Unfortunately, They’re Releasing a lot of Methane

methane in a thermokarst lake — Big Trail Lake is one of Alaska’s newest lakes and one of the largest methane emission hotspots in the Arctic. Credit: NASA / Katie Jepson

A NASA scientist is finding newly formed lakes in Alaska that are belching greenhouse gases at a high rate. The main one is methane, a gas many people use in their natural gas-fueled grills. She’s tracking these emissions in one of Earth’s most remote regions—the Arctic. It has millions of lakes, many of them hundreds or thousands of years old. But, only the youngest of them are releasing high amounts of methane. And that is due to the effects of climate change on these delicate environments.

September 27, 2022September 27, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Climate Change is Making the Skies Worse for Astronomy

climate change could affect observatories like these on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. — The top of Mauna Kea is a prime site for telescopes, as shown in this image. It boasts clear, dry atmospheric conditions. Global climate change could alter that. Image courtesy Mauna Kea Observatories

Light pollution. Satellite trains and radio frequency interference. Encroaching civilization. These all pose threats to ground-based astronomy. But, did anyone ever think that global climate change might wreak havoc on observatories? It turns out the answer is “yes.”

August 13, 2022August 13, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

MIT Researchers Propose Space Bubbles to Stop Climate Change

Artist's conception of bubbles used to reduce sunlight to combat climate change (Image credit: MIT)

Climate change is a real problem. Human caused outputs of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are the main driver of an unprecedented rise in global average temperatures at a speed never before seen in the Earth’s geologic record. The problem is so bad that any attempts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions may be too little and too late. And so a team based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have proposed a radical new solution: bubbles…in space.