ESA – Climate from Space

https://cfs.climate.esa.int/index.html#/

by lmc • 4 years ago

126 24 4 years ago

cfs.climate.esa.int

It's not a bad overview, but the level of discussion is fairly watered-down, scientifically speaking.

A more general way of looking at it would be helpful - i.e., explain how to apply the underlying concepts to any planetary body in the solar system to estimate its surface temperature. Why is Venus so hot? Why is Mars so cold? What's a radiative-convective model? How does an atmosphere affect a planet's surface temperature? What if the Earth's oceans were as shallow as those on Mars apparently were? Could Venus ever be terraformed into an Earth-like planet?

Additionally, a discussion of the economics and industry of the global fossil fuel production system (and of the staggering cost of completely replacing the existing infrastructure with non-fossil energy sources) should be included in the globe diagram in an up-front manner.

mistrial9• 4 years ago

a discussion of the economics and industry of the global fossil fuel production system

wait, you want science or not ?

photochemsyn2• 4 years ago

Well, industrial and engineering science definitely qualifies as science, for example the history of learning how to convert crude oil into hundreds of different chemical products is a story of scientific development. The economic theory stuff doesn't hold up so well, however.

For example, it doesn't seem to matter much what socio-economic ideology a given country adheres to when it comes to extracting fossil fuels from the ground - socialist or capitalist, authoritarian dictatorship or liberal democracy, if they discover oil and gas they start drilling and pumping, without fail, and if they've got an excess, they try to sell it on the global market.

enviclash• 4 years ago

I agree the human dimension of global change is ignored in these encyclopedic data collections. Indeed scientific criticism exists for these collections: just putting together data, without new enlightening algorithms or scientific advances, does little or nothing for scientific progress.

(Edit: here the source of the mentioned criticism: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-00986-y?utm )

moron4hire• 4 years ago

This was built with CesiumJS https://cesium.com/platform/cesiumjs/

gpa• 4 years ago

Perfect data visualization of the current environmental and climate challenges that is open to anyone. The current environmental issues we face are portrayed with "Data layers" and discussed with "Stories" beneath. Stories like this should reach mass media to raise public awareness. Before we can focus on the (final) outer space (frontier), we must first fix our inner (terrestrial) space (ship) with a priority. Or not?

spywaregorilla2• 4 years ago

No because there's very little reason we cannot do both simultaneously. Space is no more the opportunity cost of climate science than any other thing we do on earth.

earthscienceman3• 4 years ago

You would think that. But I'm one of a few scientists that work on the only fully integrated climate observation station for the Greenland ice sheet. I'm headed to Greenland as I type this. The Greenland ice sheet is the fastest melting piece of ice in the world, and is one of the canaries-in-the-coal mine that we need to observe to understand catastrophic climate change impacts. I was just discussing with my colleagues the other day the amount funding that projects such as the JWST get, and how it's extremely difficult to get funding for climate observations. We operate the station on a paltry shoestring budget and it was nearly shutdown by the NSF last year.

And. To be clear. It's a difficult discussion to have. Bickering about which science projects deserve more funding is a lose-lose battle, like cutting of each other's kneecaps (JWST is an incredible project). Yet climate science is extremely poorly funded, in particular monitoring projects or analysis. Climate science has also fallen prey to the "must be new big and shiny" problem that everything else has.

Silverback_VII• 4 years ago

I would say no. Without outer space there is simply not enough space (and resources) anymore. Too much tension to solve the major issues...

ehnto2• 4 years ago

Counterpoint, if we can't make earth work, how are we expecting to make another planet work? It will be inconceivably harder to turn Mars into something hospitable than it would be to remedy our current planet. We have the science and knowledge we need to make drastic changes here, we are just disorganized and unwilling.

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

Before we can focus on the (final) outer space (frontier), we must first fix our inner (terrestrial) space (ship) with a priority.

The idea that humanity can only do one thing at a time is both widespread, and absolutely bonkers!

We're 7 billion different people!

atoav2• 4 years ago

We're 7 billion different people!

Consider that it might in fact be harder to get 7 billion different people to do one thing than having them do 7 billion different things.

If we can't manage to exist in balance with this perfectly fine planet we evolved on, what makes you think we are even prepared in the slightest to do so with a new planet which would very likely be the equivalent of playing earth in hardcore mode?

I also think we should fix earth and explore the rest of the universe at the same time. But as of now we are doing a really, really shit job of doing the former, so maybe we should focus there first. Why, you might ask? Cause the negative impact of fucking that one up has a headcount of 7 billion + future generations.

RobertoG• 4 years ago

More like 8 billion (next year).

ESA – Climate from Space

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