Clouds falling according to NASA research
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Clouds falling according to NASA research
Alison Caldwell reports.
ALISON CALDWELL: For the first time, researchers have been able to measure the height of clouds on a global basis.
In 1999, NASA launched its Terra satellite into space.
On board was a Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR).
It uses nine cameras at different angles to produce a stereo image of clouds around the world, allowing measurement of their altitude and movement.
Researchers at the University of Auckland studied the measurements taken over a decade.
Lead researcher, Professor Roger Davies.
ROGER DAVIES: Over 10 years we noticed some changes and the changes were that overall, the clouds had come down in altitude a little bit.
ALISON CALDWELL: How much?
ROGER DAVIES: About 30 to 40 metres, just depending on how you did it. And that's actually a little bit more than would be needed to compensate for the effective increased C02 over the same 10 years.
ALISON CALDWELL: Why do you think this is happening?
ROGER DAVIES: Well that's a good question and we don't know the answer. It's most likely due to a change in the circulation of the atmosphere. You need to get rising air to form a cloud and if the winds aren't quite strong enough, then you won't get that. And so we suspect that's the cause but we don't know quite the details and how that was actually happening.
ALISON CALDWELL: If this continues what sort of effect do you think this could have on say the Earth's climate?
ROGER DAVIES: If it continues, and it's a big if, but if it does continue then what would happen it would slow down the global warming that we would expect. The C02's increasing all the time and that's tending to heat the planet up and raise surface temperatures, and this is a cooling mechanism. It's not strong enough to make the temperatures come down again, but it may slow how quickly they rise.
ALISON CALDWELL: The Terra satellite will keep gathering data til 2020. What will you be able to deduce from the measurements over the next 8 to 10 years do you think?
ROGER DAVIES: If the second 10 years plays out the same as the first 10 years, then we'll have some sort of confidence that this is actually a response by the clouds to the surface temperatures. It could be just a one-off. It could be just a 10 years just doing the low thing and if it goes back up again then it wouldn't have such a strong effect.
So that's why we're going to be very interested in looking at this over the next 10 years.
ALISON CALDWELL: How low would you say clouds can actually go?
ROGER DAVIES: What's going on at the moment is most of the clouds are just staying put; it's the ones that are very high up - we're seeing fewer very high clouds and there's only so many of those clouds up there and once they're gone they're gone and things will stay pretty stable.
But it would take a few hundred years before we ran out of these high clouds at the rate that they're coming down.
ALISON CALDWELL: The research has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Alison Caldwell.
ALISON CALDWELL: For the first time, researchers have been able to measure the height of clouds on a global basis.
In 1999, NASA launched its Terra satellite into space.
On board was a Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR).
It uses nine cameras at different angles to produce a stereo image of clouds around the world, allowing measurement of their altitude and movement.
Researchers at the University of Auckland studied the measurements taken over a decade.
Lead researcher, Professor Roger Davies.
ROGER DAVIES: Over 10 years we noticed some changes and the changes were that overall, the clouds had come down in altitude a little bit.
ALISON CALDWELL: How much?
ROGER DAVIES: About 30 to 40 metres, just depending on how you did it. And that's actually a little bit more than would be needed to compensate for the effective increased C02 over the same 10 years.
ALISON CALDWELL: Why do you think this is happening?
ROGER DAVIES: Well that's a good question and we don't know the answer. It's most likely due to a change in the circulation of the atmosphere. You need to get rising air to form a cloud and if the winds aren't quite strong enough, then you won't get that. And so we suspect that's the cause but we don't know quite the details and how that was actually happening.
ALISON CALDWELL: If this continues what sort of effect do you think this could have on say the Earth's climate?
ROGER DAVIES: If it continues, and it's a big if, but if it does continue then what would happen it would slow down the global warming that we would expect. The C02's increasing all the time and that's tending to heat the planet up and raise surface temperatures, and this is a cooling mechanism. It's not strong enough to make the temperatures come down again, but it may slow how quickly they rise.
ALISON CALDWELL: The Terra satellite will keep gathering data til 2020. What will you be able to deduce from the measurements over the next 8 to 10 years do you think?
ROGER DAVIES: If the second 10 years plays out the same as the first 10 years, then we'll have some sort of confidence that this is actually a response by the clouds to the surface temperatures. It could be just a one-off. It could be just a 10 years just doing the low thing and if it goes back up again then it wouldn't have such a strong effect.
So that's why we're going to be very interested in looking at this over the next 10 years.
ALISON CALDWELL: How low would you say clouds can actually go?
ROGER DAVIES: What's going on at the moment is most of the clouds are just staying put; it's the ones that are very high up - we're seeing fewer very high clouds and there's only so many of those clouds up there and once they're gone they're gone and things will stay pretty stable.
But it would take a few hundred years before we ran out of these high clouds at the rate that they're coming down.
ALISON CALDWELL: The research has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Alison Caldwell.
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source abc.net. au
AJE - Al Jazeera English - CBS - Fox news - cnn - Bbc London - La nacion
Argentina - Reuters London - El diary - La era - La razón (Bolivia)
Municipal Prefecture of Curitiba, Curitiba-Paraná-Capital Chamber of Councillors of Curitiba
State Government of Paraná-Legislature of the State of Paraná-
Rede Globo, the State Government of Rio de Janeiro Municipality of Rio de Janeiro-Government
Federal-Brasilia-DF-Band Curitiba-Bandeirantes - See Magazine -
The Globe - Rpctv Paranaense -
Roberto Marinho Foundation
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