Scientists take off on historic mission to measure greenhouse gases that have an impact on climateJanuary 08, 2009HIAPER, one of the nation's most advanced research aircraft, is scheduled to embark on an historic mission spanning the globe from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Starting Jan. 7, 2008, the HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) mission will cover more than 24,000 miles as an international team of scientists makes a series of five flights over the next three years sampling the atmosphere in some of the most inaccessible regions of the world. The goal of the mission is ambitious--the first-ever, global, real-time sampling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses across a wide range of altitudes in the atmosphere, literally from pole-to-pole.
To date, much of our understanding of global atmospheric greenhouse gasses has been acquired from distant satellites, balloon launches, or highly sophisticated supercomputer models. HIAPER's pole-to-pole mission will, for the first time, give scientists real-time global observation data to correlate with those climate models. HIAPER is short for the National Science Foundation's High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platfrom for Environmental Research. A modified Gulfstream V jet, it can fly at high altitudes for extended periods of time and can carry 5,600 pounds of sensing equipment, making it a premier aircraft for scientific discovery. National Science Foundation Science News and Science Current Events Tag Cloud This tag cloud is a visual representation of term frequencies of random science news topics with common terms grouped together and emphasized by their display size. Ebola Fuel Cells Upper Atmosphere Amazon rainforest Superconductor Bivalirudin Coronary Heart Disease Consumers Behavior Life Expectancy Depression Sleep-disordered Breathing Ozone Sleep Junk DNA Alcohol Addiction Caloric Restriction Bison Secondhand Smoke Periodontal Disease Hiv Vaccine Kidney Failure Electricity Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Cocoa
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Related Greenhouse Gas Current Events and Greenhouse Gas News Articles Sudden collapse in ancient biodiversity: Was global warming the culprit? Scientists have unearthed striking evidence for a sudden ancient collapse in plant biodiversity. A trove of 200 million-year-old fossil leaves collected in East Greenland tells the story, carrying its message across time to us today. Berkeley Lab Scientists Contribute to Major New Report Describing Climate Change Impacts on the U.S. Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Evan Mills and Michael Wehner, contributed to the analysis of the effects of climate change on all regions of the United States, described in a major report released today by the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program. Alaska researchers contribute to national climate change report Two University of the Alaska Fairbanks researchers are among key contributors to a new national report that details visible effects of climate change in the United States and how today's choices stand to affect the future. Reviving American chestnuts may mitigate climate change A Purdue University study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere. Meteorite bombardment may have made Earth more habitable, says study Large bombardments of meteorites approximately four billion years ago could have helped to make the early Earth and Mars more habitable for life by modifying their atmospheres. The Coming of Biofuels: Study Shows Reducing Gasoline Emissions Will Benefit Human Health President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steve Chu are consistent in their message that when it comes to transportation fuels, carbon-neutral biofuels as an alternative to gasoline are coming. While the focus of a shift from gasoline to biofuels has been on global warming, such a shift could also impact human health. All the carbon counts Cutting down forests for agriculture vents excess carbon dioxide into the air just as industrial activities and the burning of fossil fuels do. Biologists: Greening Arctic not likely to offset permafrost carbon release As the frozen soil in the Arctic thaws, bacteria will break down organic matter, releasing long-stored carbon into the warming atmosphere. A global responsibility to help vulnerable communities adapt For one international community - the 165,000 strong Inuit community dispersed across the Arctic coastline in small, remote coastal settlements in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Siberia - it is already too late to prevent some of the negative effects of climate change. Climate change odds much worse than thought The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that. More Greenhouse Gas Current Events and Greenhouse Gas News Articles |
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