Solar Storms Affirmative – 4 Week Lab [1/3]
DSCOVR = Better Detection Times
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- DSCOVR = Tech Spillover
DSCOVR = Better Detection TimesDSCOVR will provide early warning of solar storms, which is k2 protect other satellites. SIO 11 (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, “The Oceans and Global Change”, subsection: “Monitoring the Climate from Deep Space”, UC San Diego, Copyright 2011, http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/About/Research_Overview/The_Oceans_and_Global_Change/ |SK) Monitoring the Climate from Deep Space Scripps is participating in the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite mission, which will collect key information about Earth's climate system using the first deep-space climate satellite. With new scientific instruments taking a broad set of measurements, the spacecraft will have a continuous view of the sunlit side of Earth from a vantage point 1.5 million kilometers away. DSCOVR's measurements of infrared radiation emitted by Earth will be used to monitor global warming and climate variability. Measurements of the solar wind, magnetic fields, and plasma will advance research and provide early warning of solar events that may pose threats to Earth satellites. DSCOVR's views of the details of Earth's atmosphere and surface will be distributed to schools and the general public via the Internet. Only DSCOVR can solve, the utility of other satellites is limited due to their location. Donahue 11 (Bill, staff writer for popsci, “Who Killed The Deep Space Climate Observatory?”, April 6, 2011, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/lost-satellite |SK) It all began so hopefully. Al Gore proposed the satellite in 1998, at the National Innovation Summit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gazing skyward from the podium, the vice president described a spacecraft that would travel a full million miles from Earth to a gravity-neutral spot known as the L1 Lagrangian point, where it would remain fixed in place, facing the sunlit half of our planet. It would stream back to NASA video of our spherical home, and the footage would be broadcast continuously over the Web. Not only would the satellite provide “a clearer view of our world,” Gore promised, but it would also offer “tremendous scientific value” by carrying into space two instruments built to study climate change: EPIC, a polychromatic imaging camera made to measure cloud reflectivity and atmospheric levels of aerosols, ozone and water vapor; and NISTAR, a radiometer. NISTAR was especially important: Out in deep space, it would do something that scientists are still unable to do today directly and continuously monitor the Earth’s albedo, or the amount of solar energy that our planet reflects into space versus the amount it absorbs. We know some things about the Earth’s albedo. We know that solar radiation is both absorbed and reflected everywhere on Earth, by granite mountaintops in New Hampshire and desert dunes in Saudi Arabia. We know that cloud cover also reflects some of it. We also know that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are currently causing the planet to retain more solar energy than it once did. But there is much we don’t know, because we don’t have a way to directly and constantly monitor albedo on a global scale—that is, to directly observe a key indicator of global warming. To understand changes in the Earth’s climate, scientists rely on multiple and frequent readings of precipitation, temperature, aerosol and ozone levels, and a variety of other measurements, many of which are taken by Earth-monitoring satellites run by agencies such as NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Space Agency. But these spacecraft are all relatively close—at least 50 times as close as the L1 point—so their utility is limited. No space agency has ever launched a satellite capable ofseeing the whole Earth as a single, solar-energy-processing orb. Million Mile Stare: The DSCOVR satellite was designed to continuously monitor the Earth’s radiation from deep space. Kevin Hand. That’s exactly what Gore’s satellite was meant to do. He named it Triana, after Rodrigo de Triana, the sailor in Christopher Columbus’s crew who first spied the New World. In 1998, NASA enlisted a 62-year-old physicist named Francisco Valero to lead in the design of Triana. The agency expedited the program, with the goal of moving from conception to launch in three years, instead of the standard five or six. Giulio Rosanova, the mechanical-systems lead engineer for Triana, remembers bringing pepperoni rolls into work on Fridays, to cajole his crew of 15 into coming in on weekends. “We were excited,” Rosanova says. In those days, optimism abounded in NASA’s earth-sciences division. In a promotional video, the agency suggested that its planet-monitoring mission would extend beyond Triana—that a subsequent companion satellite would be dispatched to L2, 930,000 miles away from Earth in the opposite direction, where it could constantly monitor the dark half of our planet. Together the two satellites would continuously watch the entire globe. But in 2001, just a few months after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Triana’s launch plan was quietly put on hold. “We were preparing to transport it to the launch site when we heard,” Rosanova says. Instead, they wheeled the $100-million satellite into storage. DSCOVR = Tech SpilloverWe need better technology to forecast solar storms accurately- or we’ll have to blackout continuously Pachal, 11 [6/8/11, Peter P., PCMag, “Solar Flare Misses Earth, but Are We Ready for the Big One?,” http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=265449,00.asp?hidPrint=true,] PHS Preparing for the Worst So how can we prepare for the very real possibility of "the big one"—a colossal solar storm hitting the earth in the next few years? Satellite owners (including the government) can do two things: first, they can harden their birds to be resistant to radiation, which can be expensive. Second, when data suggests a solar flare is about to strike, they can switch off as many systems as possible on the satellites, since typically they're more likely to fail when energized. Power plants have a much more troublesome dilemma in the event of a major storm. Faced with a potentially massive blackout that could last for days or weeks, they may need to contemplate a rolling, controlled blackout for the duration of a massive solar flare. "A controlled blackout is much better than a power outage that takes weeks or months," says Hesse. "If you know in advance, you can bring down the load. In the extreme case, it may be the lesser evil. Of course, a decision like that has to based on very, very solid evidence." The key to having that evidence is refined science in predicting solar flares. While progress is being made, Hesse says predictive models for space weather aren't anywhere near the accuracy of those used for the terrestrial variety. "I think the National Weather Service does a good job forecasting weather. Space weather is not a mature science. We actually have many things that we don't really understand properly. We're doing a pretty good job, but we need to do more to be able to really say with confidence, 'Tomorrow at this time, it would be a good idea if this satellite system were turned off.'" The DSCVR satellite will provide new forms of data on climate-change, while calibrating other satellites with incorrect models Anderson 10’ [Mitchell Anderson , January 20 2010, staff writer of The tyee newspaper, http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/01/20/DSCOVRSatellite/]JB Allow me to translate this dense jargon into English. CERES stands for Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System -- a five-satellite network launched by NASA dating back to 1997 to monitor heat flow in the upper atmosphere. The story you haven't heard is that scientists can't get the numbers to add up using existing climate satellites. After billions of research dollars spent and over a decade of trying, the energy budget of planet as measured by CERES and other low-Earth orbit satellite systems is out of whack by about six watts per square meter. That stubborn error in the satellite data is about six times larger than what is scientifically possible, and several times larger than the effect scientists are trying to see, namely planetary warming caused by continued massive emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. While this is a very big deal, it does NOT remotely suggest that climate change is a hoax. For evidence of that, you don't need a satellite, you can look out your kitchen window. The long-mothballed DSCOVR spacecraft, still languishing in clean storage here on Earth, is just such an instrument. Rather than seeing the planet from hundreds of kilometers away, DSCOVR was designed to track our orbit around the Sun from 1.5 million kilometers away. From a unique gravitational dimple called "L1", the spacecraft would continuously monitor the entire sunlit disc of our planet, providing an entirely new way of collecting data on the Earth's energy budget. This coincident data would compliment and calibrate more detailed measurements from CERES and other satellites that observe the Earth from much closer. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.93 Mb. Share with your friends:
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