[Vision2020] 10-28-11: NASA/NOAA NPP Satellite Launch: CERES Monitors Earth’s Radiation Budget

[Ted Moffett]

After several recent climate science related satellite failures (I posted
on Vision2020 about the multi-hundred million dollar GLORY
polarimetry/aerosol satellite failure March 4,  2011, when it failed to
reach orbit, lost in the Pacific ocean: http://glory.giss.nasa.gov/aps/
http://www.space.com/11024-nasa-glory-climate-satellite-launch-failure.html
), the
NPP is in orbit, as related on climate science website Realclimate.org,
with discussion following. "Gavin" refers to NASA climate scientist Gavin
Schmidt, from Goddard Institute for Space Studies:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/gschmidt/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/npp-lift-off/

NPP lift off
 Filed under:

   - Climate Science<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/>
   - Instrumental
Record<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/instrumental-record/>

— gavin @ 28 October 2011

The launch of the NASA/NOAA NPP <http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/> satellite seems
to have gone off without a hitch this morning which is great news. This
satellite has instruments that are vital to continuing data streams that
were pioneered on the aging TERRA (1999), AQUA (2002) and AURA (2004),
satellites – including the CERES
instrument<http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/ceres.html>for monitoring the
Earth’s radiation budget, a microwave
sounder <http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/atms.html> to continue the AMSU data and
a visible/IR camera <http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/viirs.html> to complement the
work of MODIS.

We really need to apologise for the acronym soup though – it is an endemic
disease in satellite discussions. Indeed, NPP is a recursive acronym,
standing for NPOESS Preparatory Project, where NPOESS stands for the
National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.

Another satellite mission we’ve mentioned here,
Aquarius<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/06/the-age-of-aquarius/>(launched
in June), has recently released its first results on ocean
salinity:

The patterns are not particularly surprising, there is higher salinity in
the sub-tropical evaporative regions, lower salinity near the equator
(because of the rain!), and particularly low salinity near big river
outflows (the Amazon plume stands out clearly). However, as we noted
earlier, the main interest is going to be in the variability.

Results from the NPP mission will take a while to come out and be
cross-calibrated with the existing records, but given other recent
disappointments
(GLORY<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/03/glory-not-to-be/>and
OCO<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/its-wrong-to-wish-on-space-hardware/>),
this is a huge boost to the effort to monitor the Earth System.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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