Interview by Patrick Lynch, NASA Langley Research Center
1. You’re project scientist for NASA’s CLARREO mission. Tell us about the project.
One of the things that prevents us from making definitive statements about climate change is the accuracy of the current observing system we have. A major goal of the CLARREO mission is to provide extremely accurate climate measurements — at the accuracy level of tenths of a percent per decade. By knowing these trends very precisely, we can improve the accuracy of climate change forecasts, which will help society make the tough decisions we’re facing.
2. So what sort of data will it collect, and how?
CLARREO won’t measure individual aspects of our climate, such as changes in carbon dioxide levels or ice sheet changes. Instead, it will look at the climate system as a whole, by tracking the amount of energy entering and leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. We’ll do this by making measurements of the entire spectrum of electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere, including wavelengths that are invisible to the eye such as infrared waves (heat) and near-ultraviolet radiation (reflected sunlight). These are the two components of what we call the Earth’s “energy budget,” which can tell us over time whether or not the planet is getting warmer or cooler.
Source: climate.nasa.gov