Earth Equity News

A Climate Satellite is Lost. The Economist, February 26, 2009. "Attempts to understand more about the Earth's atmosphere and the effects on it of increasing levels of carbon dioxide suffered a blow on February 24th. A shroud protecting the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), an American satellite intended to monitor levels of the gas, failed to detach as it was being carried into space. Instead of going into orbit, the Taurus rocket carrying the craft crashed into the sea near Antarctica. The OCO, which cost $278m and took eight years to develop, would have been the first American satellite dedicated to the study of atmospheric carbon dioxide... What the researchers were trying to discover were the places on Earth where carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere and those where it is being removed. Including man-made emissions, the Earth's 'carbon cycle' releases about 330 billion tons of the gas each year. Most of this is then absorbed by so-called carbon sinks, a mixture of photosynthesising plants and chemical precipitation, while a small amount remains to contribute to the rise in carbon-dioxide concentration that has been going on for the past 150 years. About half of the sunk carbon is absorbed by oceans, but exactly where the rest goes -- and in what quantities -- is not well understood. Remote habitats such as rainforests are clearly involved, but the lack of instruments in these places means the details are hazy."