Russ Steele
Voice of America has an interesting article this morning reporting that NASA will launch the first satellite designed exclusively to answer questions about the distribution and source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Scientists say at least 95 percent of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere comes from natural sources, such as animal and plant respiration.
They believe global warming is caused by the remainder of carbon dioxide from manmade sources, such as tailpipe emissions and deforestation, trapped in the atmosphere.
No one is certain exactly where the manmade sources of CO2 are coming from. Scientists are hoping to learn that, and gather other data, beginning later this year with the launch on February 23 of the space agency's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO.
They believe global warming is caused by the remainder of carbon dioxide from manmade sources, such as tailpipe emissions and deforestation, trapped in the atmosphere.
No one is certain exactly where the manmade sources of CO2 are coming from. Scientists are hoping to learn that, and gather other data, beginning later this year with the launch on February 23 of the space agency's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO.
I find it hard to believe that 5% of human generated CO2 would have that much impact on global warming, especially since water vapor makes up 95% of all the greenhouse gases. So what we are talking about is 5% percent of 5%. That is a rather small number. Lets hope that the NASA Satellite provided us the insight necessary to make good science based global warming policy.
