The third in a collection of 5 polar-orbiting satellites developed by NASA and the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to review Earth’s climate and atmosphere will launch on Tuesday (Nov. 1).
Using atop an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg House Pressure Base in California, the JPSS-2 satellite, a part of the Joint Polar Satellite tv for pc System, will blast off to supply meteorologists and climatologists vital knowledge to assist predict excessive climate occasions and to higher perceive how these occasions have an effect on our planet.
JPSS-2 will be part of the Suomi Nationwide Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), which launched in 2011, and NOAA-20, which launched in 2017 as JPSS-1, in polar orbit round Earth. JPSS-2 will probably be renamed NOAA-21 as soon as it’s in orbit and conducting scientific operations. Two additional launches, JPSS-3 and JPSS-4, are deliberate for 2027 and 2032, respectively.
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Of their polar orbits, the satellites circle the Earth 14 occasions per day. From this vantage level, “JPSS-2 will observe each place on Earth at the least twice a day because the satellite orbits the Earth from pole to pole,” Tim Walsh, director of NOAA’s JPSS program, mentioned throughout a information convention held on Oct. 4. “To foretell climate, we actually want to have the ability to observe Earth’s atmosphere from this international perspective.”
To perform its mission, JPSS-2 will carry 5 key devices into orbit, most of that are additionally on Suomi NPP and NOAA-20.
Two of those devices, the Superior Expertise Microwave Sounder (ATMS) and the Cross-Observe Infrared Sounder (CrIS), will monitor atmospheric temperature and moisture content material, “giving climate forecasters a worldwide 3D image of … essentially the most basic data required by forecast fashions,” Walsh mentioned.
The 2 devices will complement one another. CrIS is restricted in how far it might see into clouds as a result of water vapor absorbs infrared gentle, however ATMS’ microwave instrument can penetrate these clouds, permitting the instrument to see into the hearts of storms.
One other instrument is named Libera, which can play the identical function that the much less superior Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Vitality System (CERES) instrument does on Suomi NPP and NOAA-20. These devices research the energy balance of Earth’s floor and environment, or how a lot vitality is absorbed by Earth’s floor and environment versus how a lot is emitted again into space, and the way this impacts temperatures on Earth.
The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) will observe the ozone layer, searching for holes and the way the focus of ozone and different aerosols varies globally.
Lastly, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is “basically the eyes of the satellite,” Walsh mentioned. VIIRS will seize imagery of Earth’s floor, oceans and environment in seen and infrared gentle, revealing how a lot snow and ice covers the planet, how a lot of the planet is roofed by clouds (which might have an effect on the vitality stability), the place fog shrouds the skies, the colour of the ocean and the way that pertains to the abundance of microscopic phytoplankton, the well being of vegetation primarily based on the presence of chlorophyll, and the habits of hurricanes, floods, wildfires and dust storms.
Particularly, the Joint Polar Satellite tv for pc System venture focuses on observing excessive climate occasions to know them higher. For instance, Hurricane Ian, which slammed into the Caribbean, Cuba and the southeast United States on the finish of September, initially started as a tropical atmospheric wave off the coast of West Africa.
“A storm in Africa can have an effect on the event of a hurricane that hits the East Coast ; a storm in Japan may cause heavy rain in California a number of days later,” Walsh mentioned.
This “butterfly impact” reveals how interconnected Earth’s climate techniques actually are; the Joint Polar Satellite tv for pc System venture’s mission is to attempt to disentangle the components that affect Earth’s climate and atmosphere on a worldwide scale.
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