International Action Against Ozone Depleting Substances Claim Gains

Minimum concentration of ozone in the southern hemisphere for each year from 1979-2013 (there is no data from 1995). 

Each image is the day of the year with the lowest concentration of ozone. A graph of the lowest ozone amount for each year is shown.

Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/M. Radcliff

Worldwide action to phase out ozone-depleting substances has resulted in remarkable success, according to a new assessment by 300 international scientists.

The stratospheric ozone layer, a fragile shield of gas that protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet light, is on track to recovery over the next few decades.

The Assessment for Decision-Makers, a summary of the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014, provides new information to affirm that the 1987 international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has successfully resulted in global international policies to reduced levels of ozone-depleting substances.

The report is conducted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), and co-sponsored by NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the European Commission.

Science teams from these organizations and other countries have been monitoring the ozone layer on the ground, by balloon and with a variety of satellite instruments dating back to NASA's Nimbus 4 satellite, launched in 1970.

The most current ozone hole satellite data comes from the Ozone Monitoring and Profiler Suite (OMPS) instrument on the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (Suomi NPP), and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument and Microwave Limb Sounder (OMIMLS) on NASA's Aura satellite.

"It is particularly gratifying to report that the ozone layer is on track for recovery to 1980 benchmark levels by mid-century," said Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for atmospheres at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-chair of the WMO/UNEP report.

"Many of these early signs of ozone improvements are due to decades of work and contributions by NASA and NOAA instruments and scientists."

Ozone depleting substances are also powerful greenhouse gases. The Montreal Protocol provided a double benefit: stopping ozone depletion, and slowing the growth of greenhouse gases.

“Substitutes for ozone depleting substances are ozone safe, but many are powerful greenhouse gases.

These substitutes could offset the climate gains achieved by the Montreal Protocol in the future," Newman said.

The Assessment for Decision-Makers, a summary of the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014 is the first comprehensive update in four years.

The full report will be available in early 2015.

International Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) Data Goes Public

On March 17, 2014 the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over the East coast's last snow storm of the 2013-2014 winter season.

This was also one of the first major snow storms observed by GPM shortly after it was launched on February 27, 2014.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure - and how it will behave.

The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

For forecasters, GPM's microwave and radar data are part of the toolbox of satellite data, including other low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, that they use to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes.

One of the first storms observed by the NASA/JAXA GPM Core Observatory on March 17, 2014, in the eastern United States revealed a full range of precipitation, from rain to snow. 

Image courtesy NASA/JAXA.

The most accurate and comprehensive collection of rain, snowfall and other types of precipitation data ever assembled now is available to the public.

This new resource for climate studies, weather forecasting, and other applications is based on observations by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, a joint mission of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with contributions from a constellation of international partner satellites.

The GPM Core Observatory, launched from Japan on Feb. 27, carries two advanced instruments to measure rainfall, snowfall, ice and other precipitation.

The advanced and precise data from the GPM Core Observatory are used to unify and standardize precipitation observations from other constellation satellites to produce the GPM mission data.

These data are freely available through NASA's Precipitation Processing System at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We are very pleased to make all these data available to scientists and other users within six months of launch," said Ramesh Kakar, GPM program scientist in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

Instruments on the GPM Core Observatory and partner satellites measure energy naturally emitted by liquid and frozen precipitation. Scientists use computer programs to convert these data into estimates of rain and snowfall.

The individual instruments on the partner satellites collect similar data, but the absolute numbers for precipitation observed over the same location may not be exactly the same.

The GPM Core Observatory's data are used as a reference standard to smooth out the individual differences, like a principal violinist tuning the individual instruments in an orchestra.

The result is data that are consistent with each other and can be meaningfully compared. With the higher sensitivity to different types of precipitation made possible by the GPM Core Observatory's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), scientists can for the first time accurately measure the full range of precipitation from heavy rain to light rain and snow.

The instruments are designed not only to detect rain and snow in the clouds, but to measure the size and distribution of the rain particles and snowflakes.

This information gives scientists a better estimate of water content and a new perspective on winter storms, especially near the poles where the majority of precipitation is snowfall.

"With this GPM mission data, we can now see snow in a way we could not before," said Gail Skofronick-Jackson, GPM project scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Cloud tops high in the atmosphere have ice in them. If the Earth's surface is above freezing, it melts into rain as it falls. But in some parts of the world, it's cold enough that the ice and snow falls all the way to the ground."

MORPH International Exercise: Underwater UAV drones explore the Med

MORPH, the world's first fleet of "marine drones" is being put through its paces in the Mediterranean port of Toulon.

Five European countries -- France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal -- have sent prototypes here under a four-year, four-million-euro ($5.32-million) programme to build a squad of unmanned underwater rovers.

The MEDUSAS, first launched in 2010, has been thoroughly tested at sea and its autonomy and reliability have been instrumental in other projects. 

In previous missions, equipped with one acoustic modem, it collected data sets that are currently being used to test the efficacy of single beacon navigation algorithms. 

Deployed from a surface vessel, but communicating among themselves and using artificial intelligence, the wireless scouts would spread out in a surveillance network.

Using video cameras and echosounders, the explorers would help to create 3D maps of underwater terrain, benefitting oceanographers, archaeologists, offshore oil and gas drillers, pollution monitors, marine biologists and other civilian users.

But there is an obvious naval use too, for a flexible network of small, hard-to-detect drones would multiply the surveillance capacity against mines and other threats.

Vincent Rigaud

"Underwater robots are not new -- we've been involved in them for years," said Vincent Rigaud, director of underwater systems at the French Institute for Research for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer), one of the world's top names in oceanography.

"What is new, though, is creating a fleet of them, with autonomous capacity."

Achieving this means overcoming two major hurdles, Rigaud explained.

One is software: creating artificial intelligence programmes that give the options for cooperating in a group and coping with the uncertainties of the marine environment, with its tides and currents.

The other is communications. Airborne drones can talk to each other, and to their controller, by the instant means of radio.

But radio waves do not penetrate underwater, which leaves sound the only option for communication among the marine drones.

Rather like a school of dolphins chirping to each other, the robots use acoustic signals to swap information and instructions -- and as experiments have shown, this is not an easy thing.

The communication is frustratingly long because the data flow is so slow, and the tenuous sound link is easily disrupted by other sources of noise, such as a passing vessel.

Pere Ridao

"It's like going back to modems in the dawn of the computer age," said Pere Ridao of the University of Girona in Spain.

"The maximum flow rate is about 100,000 times slower than a typical ADSL connection. It takes several minutes to send a picture."

On a mission, the robots would share a rough map of the underwater terrain, showing major obstacles to avoid, but would then work by themselves within designated parameters.

What they see and monitor would be stored in onboard memories which would then be downloaded after they are recovered.

Powerful computers would crunch the raw data into useable applications.

Antonio Pascoal

"The vehicles are not physically connected but virtually connected," explained Antonio Pascoal, a professor at Portugal's Superior Technical Institute (IST).

"The idea is for them to dialogue and adapt to marine geometry without human intervention."

The programme, called MORPH (Marine Robotic System of Self-Organising, Logically Linked Physical Nodes), was launched in February 2012 with the help of the European Commission. Thirty-two scientists are taking part.

Bigelow Aerospace interested in building International Moon base

Vision of an international research base on the Moon. Credit: ESA

Two months ago NASA commissioned Bigelow Aerospace to conduct a survey of the corporate sector to learn about private enterprise plans for space exploration.

While the report has not yet been completed, Bigelow president Robert Bigelow and NASA's head of space operations William Gerstenmaier held a teleconference with reporter's to discuss findings thus far.

Bigelow told those on the line that he and his company have surveyed approximately 20 of the biggest names in aerospace, including some foreign entities.

He says the major area of interest for aerospace companies right now is in establishing a permanent presence on the moon.

William Gerstenmaier 

Gerstenmaier responded by suggesting NASA would welcome such a development as it would work well with the agency's future plans.

NASA plans to lasso an asteroid sometime early on in the next decade and drag it into orbit around the moon.

Robert Bigelow

Following that, the plan is to send manned missions to the captured asteroid—initially to learn more about its makeup—then later to work with private businesses in developing mining operations.

That would be a lot easier of course if private companies had already built a lunar base from which to operate.

Bigelow reported that private businesses have expressed interest in space exploration for a variety of reasons, ranging from pharmaceutical development via an Earth orbiting facility to lunar based projects based mostly on mining operations.

The moon is considered important both for its material composition and as a jumping off point for other ventures.

NASA, for example, has indicated in the past that it envisions sending spacecraft on deep space missions using the moon as a construction base and departure point. Its low gravity makes getting into a space a lot easier.

The initial draft of the report created by Bigelow is to be delivered to NASA in the next few weeks. A second report, due in the fall is to more specifically detail private sector plans for space exploration.

Gerstenmaier pointed out on the call that his agency is taking a different approach than usual with its request to Bigelow.

Normal protocol calls for the agency to develop its internal strategy then reach out to the private sector for help in achieving its goals.

This time around, NASA is looking to see what the private sector is up to, and then will make decisions about its own plans based on what is found.

Smartphone Photos From Earth Orbit

These images of Earth were reconstructed from photos taken by three smartphones in orbit, or "PhoneSats." 

The trio of PhoneSats launched on April 21, 2013, aboard the Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and ended a successful mission on April 27. 

The ultimate goal of the PhoneSat mission was to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics for a satellite in space.

During their time in orbit, the three miniature satellites used their smartphone cameras to take pictures of Earth and transmitted these "image-data packets" to multiple ground stations. 

Every packet held a small piece of the big picture. As the data became available, the PhoneSat Team and multiple amateur radio operators around the world collaborated to piece together photographs from the tiny data packets.

The PhoneSat project is a technology demonstration mission funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and the Engineering Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center. 

The project started in summer 2009 as a student-led collaborative project between Ames and the International Space University, Strasbourg.

› Read more

Images Credit: NASA Ames

Jet engine icing research tackles dangerous flight problem

Credit: NASA

Technicians install water sprayers in the jet engine icing test chamber at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center. The sprayers will produce tiny ice crystals that can clog or damage engines.

On a stormy July evening in 2004, more than five miles above the South China Sea, the engines powering a large passenger jet en route to Taiwan suddenly failed.

A simultaneous engine shutdown on a large, modern aircraft is almost unheard of.

After a harrowing 75 seconds, the pilots managed to restart them, and the jet landed at the Taipei airport without further problems. But the incident set off alarms in the aviation community.

Minutes before its engines quit, the jet had been skirting thunderstorms spawned by a distant typhoon.

Investigators first thought the storms' powerful updrafts had pulled rain high into the atmosphere, temporarily smothering the engines when they sucked in gouts of water instead of air.

The jet's pilots had seen and heard droplets hitting the windshield, bolstering the rain theory but the jet's radar sweeps were clear, with no echoes from rain and the temperature at the altitude where the trouble began was a frigid minus-44 degrees, far too cold for liquid water.

Researchers eventually concluded the engines must have been choked by tiny ice crystals as small as flour grains, a dangerous, unexpected phenomenon that aviation officials urgently want to learn more about so they can lessen its risk.

Much of that work will take place at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, where engineers are readying a unique test chamber capable of mimicking the odd weather conditions that threatened the Taipei-bound jet, and have caused more than 150 other in-flight incidents.

"These things are happening pretty frequently, like one incident every month or so," said Glenn project manager Ron Colantonio. "NASA is working with the aviation community to understand what's causing the problem and how to mitigate it."

Glenn officials recently unveiled the silvery, boxcar-sized engine icing tunnel during a visit by NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

Glenn engineers previously had used the tunnel for other types of jet engine tests. With $15 million in Recovery Act and NASA money, they've retrofitted it with water sprayers that will produce the minute ice crystals believed to be causing the engine problems.

Sensors will track the performance of jet engines mounted on a frame in the icy air stream.

Aviation safety experts have long recognized the danger from ice buildup on wings and other external aircraft surfaces.

The hazard is caused by super-cooled liquid water freezing on contact, disrupting smooth airflow and hampering lift.

For decades engineers in Glenn's Icing Branch have led international efforts to develop better ice forecasting methods, icing sensors, anti-icing aircraft designs, and improved pilot training.

Read more on this article here: 

Exmoor - Europe's First International Dark Sky Reserve

Click on the picture to visit the BAA Journal and the full article.

4th International GOCE User workshop

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising the 4th in a series of International GOCE User Workshops from 31 March to 1 April 2011 at the Technische Universität München (TUM), Germany.

It is intended to provide potential users of GOCE data products with the opportunity to obtain the latest information on satellite performance as well as details regarding ground segment operations, data products and user services. 

It will allow users to learn about product content and quality and the outcome of the data calibration and validation. This Workshop is seeking the presentation of new results based on GOCE data in all application areas. 

Two months prior to the Workshop, the European Space Agency will release the second generation gravity field solutions based on GOCE data.

Further details available on the GOCE Portal

UK Space Agency Funds International Mars Rover

UK Space Agency Funds International Mars Rover

The ExoMars rover is a robotic scientist which will search for evidence of past and present life and study the local Martian environment to understand when and where conditions that could have supported the development of life may have prevailed.

The UK Space Agency is announcing Pounds 10.5M for the development of instruments to search for signs of past or present life on Mars.

The instruments are part of the scientific payload on the ExoMars rover to be launched in 2018 as part of a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and US space agency NASA. ExoMars is a flagship project in the UK Space Agency's science and exploration programme.

A two-step programme, the adventure begins in 2016 when NASA will launch an ESA-led orbiter to try to understand the origin and distribution of trace gases in the atmosphere of the Red Planet. In particular, it aims to explain why methane - a gas which scientists know should be destroyed in the atmosphere within a few hundred years - seems to be continuously forming at certain places on the planet.

The orbiter will also release an experimental probe which will make a fiery descent into the thin Martian atmosphere and use its on-board rockets to demonstrate Europe's ability to make a controlled landing on another planet.

Then in 2018, NASA will land ESA's ExoMars rover alongside a NASA rover. Thanks to funding from the UK Space Agency, the rover vehicle for ExoMars is being designed and tested by leading UK space company EADS Astrium at its facility in Stevenage, Hertfordshire under a multi-million pound contract.

The ExoMars rover is a robotic scientist which will search for evidence of past and present life and study the local Martian environment to understand when and where conditions that could have supported the development of life may have prevailed.

Unlike previous US rovers, ExoMars will carry a radar able to search beneath it for scientifically promising locations under the surface and a drill to extract samples from 2 m down that will be fed to its on-board laboratory.

The UK is leading on developing two of the nine instruments (the Life Marker Chip and the Panoramic Camera) on the rover and has a major involvement in two other instruments (the Raman Laser Spectrometer and the X-Ray diffactometer).

David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister, said, "The UK's world-leading technology will play a major role in this international ExoMars project.

Our scientists will expand our knowledge of the red planet and help generate applications for these technologies here at home to benefit society and the economy. It's exciting to see UK engineers working on the most ambitious Mars mission ever attempted."

International Biodiversity Day (century)

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN's biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving "natural goods and services", such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

To mark the UN's International Day for Biological Diversity tomorrow, hundreds of British companies, charities and other organisations have backed an open letter from the Natural History Museum's director Michael Dixon warning that "the diversity of life, so crucial to our security, health, wealth and wellbeing is being eroded".

The UN report's authors go further with their warning on biodiversity, by saying if the goods and services provided by the natural world are not valued and factored into the global economic system, the environment will become more fragile and less resilient to shocks, risking human lives, livelihoods and the global economy.