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Earth Day: Who'll Watch the Planet's Future
By Dan Sorid
Staff Writer
posted: 06:20 am ET
22 April 2000
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<a href=mailto:dsorid@space Taking the mission of Earth Day to the atmosphere, NASA is planning to launch a series of satellites to keep a close eye on environmental problems. Several satellites are set to launch this year including: QuikToms, to map the global distribution of ozone; Jason-1, to measure the topography of the oceans; and GOES-L, to maintain a fleet of weather monitoring satellites. "It's only by understanding our Earth that we're going to have a better understanding of how we need to be careful of it," said Susan Digby, a spokesperson for Earth sciences at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Ca. "We are still in the dark when it comes to how the Earth works and what ramifications there are." The Quiktoms mission, set for launch in the fall, will improve our understanding of the change in the ozone level, and hopefully contribute to determining what processes are involved in formations of the ozone hole. | Stormy weather near Florida | | The Goes satellites snap detailed pictures of local weather, improvingforecasts. The satellites, which operate 22,240 miles (35,790 km) high, are a fundamental part of NOAA's weather forecasting program. | 
The first Goes satellite, Goes-I, was launched in April 1994. | NASA will point Quiktoms toward volcanic ash clouds, aerosols, and other plumes to measure how they interact with the ozone layer. It is hoped that the satellite will also determine when, or whether, ozone levels recover as a result of a decrease in dangerous gasses called chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs. While a good deal of evidence suggests that human behavior can affect the ozone layer, scientists still argue about whether ozone levels have more to do with natural processes than pollution. Also set for launch in the fall, the Jason-1 satellite will study the earth's oceans, a key aspect of the planet's environmental health. The oceans carry immense amounts of heat; in fact, the top three yards of the ocean contain an amount of heat equal to the entire atmosphere. The oceans are also a transit system for debris and chemicals. Keeping tabs on the oceans is an important aspect of environmental work. Jason will serve as a spaceborn eye to monitor sea level and water vapor. With Jason-1, and the Jason-2 follow-up mission, Digby said, "we'll have a sufficiently long length of sea level change that we'll be able to say relatively conclusively whether the global sea level is rising or not. Right now when you look at the record, there are so many fluctuations that it's very hard to figure out whether we're looking [at] global change." In May, the Goes-L satellite will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, adding a backup satellite to an advanced weather monitoring satellite system used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S.'s official weather center.
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