ABSTRACT: NASA WAS A CREATION OF THE SPACE RACE BETWEEN THE USA AND THE SOVIET UNION AND IT LOST BUDGET AND POWER WHEN THAT CONFRONTATION WAS OVER ESPECIALLY SO AFTER THE ENTRY OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN SPACE EXPLORATION. AN ALTERNATIVE MISSION WAS NEEDED FOR NASA TO SURVIVE AS A US GOVT AGENCY AND TO REGAIN ITS LOST BUDGET. THIS CRISIS IN NASA COINCIDED WITH THE ADVENT OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING CONCERNS BY CALLENDAR, REVELLE, KEELING, SCHNEIDER, AND OTHERS. CLIMATE CHANGE OFFERED NASA AN OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE GEARS AWAY FROM SPACE EXPLORATION TO CLIMATE SCIENCE AS A SURVIVAL STRATEGY.

NASA BUDGET IN MILLIONS OF 2014 CONSTANT DOLLARS 1960-2020

FIGURE 1: FULL SPAN 1960-2020

FIGURE 2: SINCE 1975: POST MOON LANDING AND SPACE STATION

FIGURE 3: SINCE 2000: POST XXXX

FIGURE 4: SIGNIFICANT NASA SPACE PROJECTS

NASA CLIMATE CHANGE “EARTH SYSTEM” PROJECTS

1. AIM: NOCTILUCENT CLOUD PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE 2018

2. AQUA: Earth Science satellite collects information on earth’s hydrological system. Launched 2002.

3. AQUARIUS: Sea Surface Salinity data. Launched 2013.

4. ARCTAS: Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites for the study of smoke plumes from northern latitude forest fires.

5. ATTREX: Study of stratospheric water vapor.

6. AURA: Measure ozone, trace gases, and aerosols.

7. CALIPSO: Data from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder combined with data from CloudSat for 3-D perspectives of how clouds and aerosols form, evolve, and affect weather, climate and air quality.

8. CATS: The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System measures the coverage and properties of clouds and aerosols to study their impact on Earth’s climate.

9. CLARREO: The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory mission will improve climate models by increasing accuracy and range of climate-related measurements in space.

10. CLOUDSAT: Radar, 1,000 times more sensitive than weather radars, penetrates clouds to reveal their vertical structure for the study of how clouds and aerosols form, evolve and affect weather, climate and air quality.

11. CYGNSS: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System measures GPS signals reflected by the ocean during hurricanes. Analyzing how the choppy waters distort the signals will enable predictions of wind speed and ocean surges when the storm hits land.

12. DSCOVR: A partnership of NOAA. Data on Earth’s atmosphere and solar wind for space weather forecasts such as geomagnetic storms caused by changes in solar wind.

13. ECOSTRESS: The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment is a new Space Station system that measures plant temperatures to reveal their water needs with forecasts of how different plants will respond to climate change.

14. GEDI: Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation is a new Space Station, system consisting of a space-borne laser that measures the 3D structure of Earth’s tropical and temperate forests at high resolution. Ready by 2018.

15. GEO-CARB: Geostationary Carbon Observatory on a satellite in geostationary orbit that will collect 10 million daily observations of the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF). Scheduled launch: Early 2020s.

16. GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement. International network of satellites to measure rain and snow worldwide to study water and energy cycles and improves forecasting of destructive climate change storms.

17. GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment. Measures changes in gravity distribution over Earth’s surface to reveal movement of large masses of water and ice.

18. ICESAT-2: Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2. measures ice-sheet elevation, sea-ice thickness and tree-canopy height to observe changes in Greenland and Antarctica ice and estimate the total mass of the world’s vegetation.

19. Jason-3: Measures variations in ocean-surface height, continuing the study begun in 1992to study ocean circulation patterns, global and regional sea-level changes, and climate change.

20. Landsat 8&9: #8 was launched in 2013 and #9 will be launched in 2020 with more sensitive sensors than earlier Landsats to track urban expansion, forest loss and regrowth, glacier melting, changes in farmland and other land use, and water use by crops.

21. LIS: Lightning Imaging Sensor mounted on the International Space Station measures the amount, rate and energy of lightning around the world. Improved understanding of lightning improves our understanding of climate change and atmospheric chemistry and physics: 2017.

22. NISAR: NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar to measure deformation of Earth’s surface to determine likelihood of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides, and to monitor groundwater, land and sea ice, and carbon storage in vegetation. With India’s space agency, ISRO: 2022.

23. OCO-2: Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2. To study atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is linked to global warming and climate change. The mission’s goal is to improve understanding of the carbon cycle and the processes that regulate atmospheric CO₂ concentration so scientists can better predict CO₂ increases and their impact on Earth’s climate.

24. OCO-3: Instrumentation for the International Space Station to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide for understanding of Earth’s carbon cycle, especially with regard to the roles of the ocean and cities. Future plans,

25. OSTM: Ocean Surface Topography Mission on the Jason-2 satellite measures ocean height by timing how long microwave pulses take to travel from the spacecraft to the ocean and back at the speed of light. It will measure sea-level rise and to see how the ocean stores and transports heat—an important factor in understanding climate change and forecasting hurricanes and other weather events.

26. PACE: Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem. will study phytoplankton diversity, ocean color, and atmospheric particles and clouds that scatter and absorb sunlight to help us understand ocean ecosystems, the marine carbon cycle, and Earth’s climate. Scheduled launch: 2023

27. RainCube: Will study Earth’s precipitation to help improve weather forecasting.

28. SAGE III: The third Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment, launched in 2017, is a mounted on the International Space Station. Peering to study ozone, aerosols and trace gases.

29. Sentinel-6/Jason-CS: Two identical satellites scheduled to launch five years apart to study ocean circulation and ocean altimetry variables in climate change. Scheduled launch: 2020/2025

30. SMAP: Soil Moisture Active Passive mission will measure soil moisture and detect where soil is frozen or thawed and thereby increase our understanding of the links between water, energy and carbon cycles and improves the ability to monitor and predict floods, droughts and crop yields.

31. Suomi NPP: will monitor the planet’s climate and . NPP measurements will be used to map land cover and monitor changes in vegetation productivity. NPP tracks atmospheric ozone and aerosols as well as takes sea and land surface temperatures. NPP monitors sea ice, land ice and glaciers around the world. In addition to continuing these data records, NPP is also able to monitor natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, wildfires, droughts, floods, dust storms and hurricanes/typhoons.

32. SWOT: Surface Water and Ocean Topography will collect data on water bodies on Earth – lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans and improve ocean circulation models, and weather and climate prediction. Scheduled launch: 2021.

THE OLD NASA … NASA THE SPACE AGENCY

In the post 2nd War period, the victors, particularly The Soviet Union and the USA, gained rocket and atomic bomb technology from the Germans and deployed these technologies with German help. The USA detonated the world’s first nuclear bomb in 1945 but it was the Russians who who won the race to space in 1957 with Sputnik, an event that captured the world attention and started the space race. The USA, left behind, rushed to catch up. NASA IS A CREATION OF THESE EVENTS. The most significant political event in the rise of NASA was this famous speech by President Kennedy: “I believe this Nation should commitment itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.“

THE SPACE RACE AND THE RISE OF NASA

The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Americans listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. The U.S. government, military, and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the “space race.” The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31, 1958. By then, the Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2. The Soviet space program went on to achieve a series of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s: first man in space, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon. However, the United States took a giant leap ahead in the space race in the late ’60s with the Apollo lunar-landing program, which successfully landed two Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the moon in July 1969.

NASA HISTORICAL DATA BOOK#1 FULL TEXT PDF: LINK https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012v1.pdf

COLD WAR+SPUTNIK=NASA: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), created as a national decision by the Congress and the President, began operations on October 1, 1958. In effect, its coming-in-to-being was a direct response to the U.S.S.R.’s first achievements in space. On August 27, 1957, the Soviet news agency Tass announced in Moscow that Russia had successfully tested an intercontinental-range ballistic missile.! The United States had earlier done the same, and the decision by these two large powers to add intercontinental ballistic missiles to their military arsenals had quickly advanced the art of rocket propulsion and related technology. The large thrust of these liquid-fueled rockets had made space flight a practical possibility for the first time. Six weeks after its missile test, the U.S.S.R. was the first to orbit an artificial earth satellite, Sputnik I on October 4, 1957.2 Reaction in the U.S. immediately following Russia’s success was a concern blending both chagrin and alarm. The chagrin came from the knowledge that the U.S. might have been first to orbit a satellite if it had used military missiles, but instead had allowed the Soviets to capture this world scientific triumph. The alarm was for the challenge to national security; many feared that we had fallen far behind, especially in nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. The much heavier Sputnik II, in November, carrying the dog Laika, compounded the technological surprise and worldwide propaganda harvest for the Kremlin. Significant amidst the initial flurry of U.S. activity immediately following the Soviet Sputniks were sweeping congressional hearings.

NASA HISTORICAL DATA BOOK#2 FULL TEXT PDF: LINK: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012v2.pdf

Established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of July 1958, NASA, a
civilian organization, was charged with managing those aeronautics and space activities sponsored by the United States that fell outside the purview of the Department of Defense. Included in the space act were eight general objectives for the new agency: (1) to expand man’s knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space; (2) to improve the usefulness and performance of aeronautical and space vehicles; (3) to send instrumented vehicles into space that could support life; (4) to study the long-range benefits that might result from utilizing space; (5) to preserve the role of the U.S. as a technological leader; (6) to support national defense by providing other agencies with information on new discoveries; (7) to cooperate with other countries in the peaceful utilization and exploration of space; and (8) to utilize existing scientific and engineering facilities and personnel. To meet these objectives, NASA channeled its resources into five programs: space science and applications, manned spaceflight, launch vehicle development, tracking and data acquisition, and advanced research and technology. The procurement and development of launch vehicles was a critical first step for NASA. Chapter 1 discusses the military vehicles used by the agency in its early years and the stable of launchers designed and developed by NASA and its contractors. Saturn V, the largest and most powerful of these vehicles, was built for a specific purpose–manned expeditions to the moon. Chapter 2 outlines for the reader NASA’s manned spaceflight program. Project Mercury proved that one man could safely orbit the earth at_,t return. Pairs of astronauts in larger vehicles performed larger, more sophisticated missions during Project Gemini. But it was the ambitious Apollo program that captured the attention and the purse of the nation. In 1961 in answer to Yuri A. Gagarin’s successful orbital flight, which preceded John H. Glenn, Jr.’s orbital mission by 10 months, President John F. Kennedy declared that before the end of the decade the U.S. would send a man to the moon. At the close of NASA’s first decade, three Americans circled earth’s natural satellite aboard Apollo 8, first of six Apollo lunar landers touched down safely on the moon. Although it received less fiscal support, the space science and applications program brought the agency its first and steadiest supply of results.

THE NEW NASA … NASA THE CLIMATE SCIENTIST

RELATED POST ON THE HANSEN 1988 TESTIMONY https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/05/09/hansen88/

NASA conducts a program of breakthrough research on climate science, enhancing the ability of the international scientific community to advance global integrated Earth system science using space-based observations. The agency’s research encompasses solar activity, sea level rise, the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans, the state of the ozone layer, air pollution, and changes in sea ice and land ice. NASA scientists regularly appear in the mainstream press as climate experts.

SO HOW DID A SPACE AGENCY END UP IN CLIMATE SCIENCE?

When NASA was first created by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, it was given the role of developing technology for the space race, first to catch up with the Sputnik of the Soviets and then to seize the lead by “putting a man on the moon and bringing him safely back to earth. The agency’s leaders embedded the technology effort in an Earth. Observations program centered at the new Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Other agencies of the federal government were responsible for carrying out Earth science research: the Weather Bureau (now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Applications program signed cooperative agreements with these other agencies that obligated NASA to develop observational technology while NOAA and the USGS carried out the scientific research. The Nimbus series of experimental weather satellites and the Landsat series of land resources satellites were the result of the Applications program. This Applications model of cross-agency research failed during the 1970s, though, due to the bad economy and an extended period of high inflation. Congress responded by cutting the budgets of all three agencies, leaving NOAA and the USGS unable to fund their part of the arrangement and putting pressure on NASA, too. At the same time, congressional leaders wanted to see NASA doing more research toward “national needs.” These needs included things like energy efficiency, pollution, ozone depletion and climate change. In 1976, Congress revised the Space Act to give NASA authority to carry out stratospheric ozone research, formalizing the agency’s movement into the Earth sciences. NASA’s planetary program had a lot to do with scientific and congressional interest in expanding the agency’s role in Earth science. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s lead center for planetary science, sent Mariner series probes to Venus and Mars. Astronomers considered these to be the “Earth-like” planets in the solar system, most likely to have surface conditions able to support life. But that’s not what they found. Venus had been roasted by a super-charged greenhouse effect. In contrast to Earth, Venus had about 300 times more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, no significant water vapor and a surface temperature hotter than molten lead. Mars, on the other hand, had an atmospheric pressure about 1 percent of that of planet Earth and temperatures far below freezing. Pictures showed no surface water – it would have been frozen anyway – but they also seemed to show that it once had liquid water. These discoveries left planetary scientists with unanswered questions. How did Earth, Venus and Mars wind up so radically different from similar origins? How could Mars have once been warm enough to be wet, but be frozen solid now? These questions revolve around climate and the intersection of climate, atmospheric chemistry and, on Earth, life.

Back to Earth
Just as planetary scientists began confronting these Venus related greenhouse questions, Congress lost interest in planetary exploration. NASA’s planetary exploration budget sank dramatically starting in 1977, and the Reagan administration threatened to terminate planetary exploration entirely. This was partly due to high inflation in the U.S., and partly due to the agency’s focus on the space shuttle at low Earth orbit. The focus on the shuttle (and the falling NASA budget changed NASA’s priority from exploring space to studying the Earth from low orbit because these changes coincided with the beginning of the climate change movement that required detailed surface data, a job for which the Agency was was well qualified. The same decade had witnessed a revolution in an interest in the study of Earth’s climate. Earth’s climate had changed rapidly in the past—in some cases, within mere decades. Recognition that climate could change on human timescales created a great interest in the study of climate processes and a new climate data collection role for NASA by virtue of its expertise in low orbit satellites. It had been proposed since Callendar 1938, Revelle 1957, and Keeling 1960s that humans were increasing the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse CO2 in the atmosphere and that these changes could warm the climate. Scientists also knew that human emissions of aerosols could cool the Earth. Which effect would dominate? A 1975 study was inconclusive because of the 1970s cooling attributed to aerosols but A 1979 study found that climate change will result and that the changes may be significant.

At the same time, funding for planetary exploration was declining Declining planetary funding and growing scientific interest in climate change caused planetary scientists to start studying climate change. So NASA started to plan for an Earth observing system in which low orbit satellites to collect earth data needed by climate science including things. NASA quickly established an Earth Science Program that could go into the climate change data collection business. In 1984, NASA was able to get Congressional approval to broaden NASA’s Earth science authority from the stratosphere to the expansion of human knowledge of the Earth. It was a giant leap for NASA from a near death experience in Space exploration.

In the early 1980s, NASA began working on an expansive Earth science program plan called Global Habitability, and that eventually became the Mission to Planet Earth. At the same time, a multi-agency effort called the Global Change Research Program was also taking form. NASA’s role in that larger U.S. program was the provision of global data from space. Approved in the fiscal year 1991 budget, the resulting Earth Observing System would be the agency’s primary contribution to American climate science.

The Earth Observing System era
Grace, one of NASA’s more recent Earth-observing missions, has revealed unexpectedly rapid changes in the Earth’s great ice sheets.
By 2007 NASA had 17 space missions collecting climate data. Today, it runs programs to obtain and convert data from Defense Department and NOAA satellites as well as from certain European, Japanese and Russian satellites. NASA also sponsors field experiments to provide “ground truth” data to check space instrument performance and to develop new measurement techniques.

Instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites have provided the first global measurements of aerosols in our atmosphere, which come from natural sources such as volcanoes, dust storms and man-made sources such as the burning of fossil fuels. Other instruments onboard the Aura satellite study the processes that regulate the abundance of ozone in the atmosphere. Data from the GRACE and ICESat missions and from spaceborne radar show unexpectedly rapid changes in the Earth’s great ice sheets, while the Jason-3, OSTM/Jason-2 and Jason-1 missions have recorded a sea level rise of an average of 3 inches since 1992. NASA’s Earth Observing System’s weather instruments have demonstrated significant improvements in global forecast skill.

These capabilities — nearly 30 years of satellite-based solar and atmospheric temperature data — helped the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change come to the conclusion in 2007 that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” But there’s still a lot to learn about what the consequences will be. How much warmer will it get? How will sea level rise progress? NASA scientists and engineers will help answer these and other critical questions in the future.

EXCERPT FROM THE HANSEN 1988 CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/05/09/hansen88/

1. CLAIM: Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements that goes back 100 years. RESPONSE-1: Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a theory about long term trends in global mean temperature. A one-year temperature event has no interpretation in this context. RESPONSE-2: In your paper Hansen 1988 and also in the official position of your NASA GISS organization you state that that AGW started in 1950 because from then the relationship between CO2 and temperature we see in the climate models closely matches the observational data. If AGW started in 1950, then what is the relevance of the 100-year instrumental record reference period for the temperature record in 1988?
2. CLAIM: Causal association requires first that the warming be larger than natural climate variability and, second that the magnitude and nature of the warming be consistent with the greenhouse mechanism. RESPONSE: Neither that the warming is larger than natural climate variability nor that the magnitude of the warming is consistent with the greenhouse mechanism proves causation. For that it must be shown that a statistically significant detrended correlation exists between the logarithm of atmospheric CO2 concentration and mean global surface temperature over a sufficiently long time span. The choice of 30 years as the time span for this evaluation is not supported by the literature where we find that longer time spans are required, preferably longer than 60 years.
3. CLAIM: The warming is more than 0.4 degrees Centigrade for the period 1958-1988. The probability of a chance warming of that magnitude is about 1 percent. So with 99 percent confidence we can state that the warming during this time period is a real warming trend. RESPONSE: The probability is more likely to be 100% that it is a REAL warming trend but none of this serves as evidence that the warming was caused by the greenhouse effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration attributed to fossil fuel emissions.
4. CLAIM: The data suggest somewhat more warming over land and sea ice regions than over open ocean, more warming at high latitudes than at low latitudes, and more warming in the winter than in the summer. In all of these cases, the signal is at best just beginning to emerge, and we need more data. RESPONSE: If the signal is just beginning to emerge and you need more data to figure it out then you don’t really know and your claim to 99% confidence has no basis.
5. CLAIM: Some of these details, such as the northern hemisphere high latitude temperature trends, do not look exactly like the greenhouse effect, but that is expected. There are certainly other climate factors involved in addition to the greenhouse effect. RESPONSE: Lip service to internal climate variability { LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/ } is paid but the issue is completely ignored in the invocation and assessment of the greenhouse effect of CO2 and its alleged dangerous consequences such as extreme weather that places an enormous cost burden on all of humanity to overhaul their energy infrastructure.
6. CLAIM: Altogether the evidence that the earth is warming by an amount which is too large to be a chance fluctuation and the similarity of the warming to that expected from the greenhouse effect represents a very strong case. In my opinion, that the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now. RESPONSE: “too large to be chance fluctuation” and “similarity of the warming to that expected from the greenhouse effect” do not constitute ” strong case”. Such suspicions may be sufficient to construct a hypothesis to be tested with data in a hypothesis test in which what is suspected is the alternate hypothesis and its absence is the null hypothesis. No such empirical evidence is presented possibly because none exists.
7. CLAIM: we have used the temperature changes computed in our global climate model to estimate the impact of the greenhouse effect on the frequency of hot summers in Washington, D.C. and Omaha, Nebraska. A hot summer is defined as the hottest one-third of the summers in the 1950 to 1980 period, which is the period the Weather Bureau uses for defining climatology. So, in that period the probability of having a hot summer was 33 percent, but by the 1990s, you can see that the greenhouse effect has increased the probability of a hot summer to somewhere between 55 percent and 70 percent in Washington according to our climate model simulations. RESPONSE#1: The weather bureau does not define the period 1950 to 1980 to define climatology. It simply specifies that the distinction between weather and climate is that weather is short term but climate can only be assessed over periods longer than 30 years. The period 1950 to 1980 has been arbitrarily selected by NASA and by Hansen because, in their own words, “Hansen: because in the 30-year period 1950-1980 there is a strong measurable warming rate with 99% probability for human cause” , “NASA: We start in 1950 because from then the relationship between CO2 and temperature we see in the climate models closely matches the observational data“. This kind of bias in the selection of the time span when the theory being tested is the warming “since pre-industrial” caused by the industrial economy is a form of circular reasoning and confirmation bias. It is not science. RESPONSE#2: AGW is a theory about long term trends in global mean temperature. It is not possible to relate that warming trend to the extreme form of geographical localization implied in the claim about heat waves in specific cities of the USA as in “frequency of hot summers in Washington, D.C. and Omaha, Nebraska“. Internal climate variability dominates in geographical localization of this kind. Internal Climate Variability is described in a related post. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/ where we find that “Internal variability in the climate system confounds assessment of human-induced climate change and imposes irreducible limits on the accuracy of climate change projections, especially at regional and decadal scales“. It is noted that these internal climate variability studies find that 30-years is too short a time span for the study of AGW climate change and state that the time span must be longer than 30 years preferably 60 years.
8. CLAIM: A study of the temperature in July, for several different years between 1986 and 2029 is computed with our global climate model for the intermediate trace gas scenario B. The results show that there are areas that are warmer than what the greenhouse model predicts and areas that are colder than what the greenhouse model predicts. This is because in the 1980s the greenhouse warming is smaller than the natural variability of the local temperature. This appears to be anomalous with the greenhouse effect but the data for a few decades later in the 19902 show show warmer temperatures across the board. RESPONSE: The NASA and the Hansen position on AGW to this day (September 2020) holds that “Hansen: AGW started in 1950 because in the 30-year period 1950-1980 there is a strong measurable warming rate with 99% probability for human cause”, NASA: “AGW started in 1950 because from then the relationship between CO2 and temperature we see in the climate models closely matches the observational data”. But the analysis presented by Hansen appears to be AGW went missing in the 1980s only to return in the 1990s. However this analysis by Hansen is flawed because AGW is not a theory that about temperature at any given time or place or any given decade or place. It is a theory only about long term trends in global mean temperature at time scales longer than 30 years preferably 60 years or more.
9. CLAIM: in the late 1980s and in the 1990s our model yields greater than average warming in the Southeast United States and the Midwest. This anomalous result can be explained if the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the United States warms more slowly than the land. This leads to high pressure along the east coast and circulation of warm air north into the Midwest or southeast but there is evidence that the greenhouse effect increases the likelihood of heat wave drought situations in the Southeast and Midwest United States even though we cannot blame a specific drought on the greenhouse effect. Therefore, I believe that it is not a good idea to use the period 1950 to 1980 for the study of AGW climatology. We should see better evidence of the greenhouse effect in the next 10 to 15 years than they were in the period 1950 to 1980. RESPONSE: “That he believes that it is not a good idea to use the period 1950-1980 to study climatology is inconsistent with NASA position and that AGW started in 1950 because from then the relationship between CO2 and temperature we see in the climate models closely matches the observational data.
10. CLAIM: There is a need for improving these global climate models, and there is a need for global observations if we’re going to obtain a full understanding of these phenomena. RESPONSE: This statement is an admission that the assessment of the AGW presented above as an impact of fossil fuel emissions that has dangerous consequences and that therefore we must stop using fossil fuels to fight climate change was made without the information or the scientific data and arguments needed to make that assessment.

RELATED POST: CRITICAL REVIEW OF NASA’S ROLE IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE MOVEMENT LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/20/nasa-climate/

EXCERPT: CLAIM#1: NASA has unique capabilities because we have the point of view from space. With NASA’s carbon monitoring system you can see the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere decreasing in the spring and the summer. Plants and the oceans and the land surface are greening up and pulling the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And then in the fall and in the wintertime you’ll see the CO2 in the atmosphere increasing because plants and animals are releasing the carbon dioxide that was captured during the growing season. RESPONSE TO CLAIM#1: The seasonal cycle in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is well known and has been well known for some time simply from Mauna Loa data. The red and yellow video displays created by a space exploration agency with a $20 billion annual budget are surely more colorful and more entertaining but raw data themselves in their native form is a clearer expression of the essential data for the seasonal cycle in atmospheric CO2, particularly so in terms of the magnitudes and numerical values in these cyclical changes.

CONCLUSION: NASA WAS A CREATION OF THE SPACE RACE BETWEEN THE USA AND THE SOVIET UNION AND IT BECAME IRRELEVANT WHEN THAT CONFRONTATION WAS OVER. AN ALTERNATIVE MISSION WAS NEEDED FOR NASA TO SURVIVE AS A US GOVT AGENCY AND TO REGAIN ITS LOST BUDGET. THIS CRISIS IN NASA COINCIDED WITH THE ADVENT OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING CONCERNS BY CALLENDAR, REVELLE, KEELING, SCHNEIDER, AND OTHERS. CLIMATE CHANGE OFFERED NASA AN OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE GEARS AWAY FROM SPACE EXPLORATION TO CLIMATE SCIENCE AS A SURVIVAL STRATEGY.