File:MLT Geospace - the Edge.jpg

EOS Reports

Without the Data, we are flying blind (SJS - 2021)

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: Pilots know that their flying safety is possible with the aid of instruments, those panels of data displaying the reality of flight to the persons responsible for passengers onboard.

When we named GreenPolicy360, we added our mission to our statement title -- eOS. We said we are an 'eco operating system' and over the years we often have talked about data, facts, the need to have accurate information, and trend lines that track the changes over time, a 'dynamics' of change.

And in your Siterunner's life experience as I look back to the 1970s, beginning with a mentoring and four-decade long association with Congressman George Brown, who was over that time a leader in 'Big Science' and the first-generation space/earth scientific studies made possible with government support, the tracking the atmosphere and its changes, the first climate plan, and volumes of data, metrics, observations that began the baselines studies future generations need to 'fly safely.'

Earth Science Research from Space

Look at how thin our atmosphere is

I can hear George Brown's voice still, though he passed away in 1999. He guided me -- and NASA and so much more. And then there was my father's voice, an engineer and a pilot, who talked about taking care of 'his crew' and those instruments, and survival during the war.

The message I have carried forward too, speaking and writing over the years for 'planet citizens' is fly safely, fly with careful earth observations... this message is ultimately one of security, national - global - environmental. A responsibility, generational, to protect life and fly safe and smart.

Following is an EOS report on the state of the upper atmosphere, Geospace, 'the edge', the MLT. Pay attention to the data, the observations, the continuity of record keeping and the changes over time.... act to be safe. Be guardians, safekeeping planet earth on which we live and are entrusted, each of us literally planet citizen flying through space ....

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In the past 40 years, many space-based observations have been made of the portion of geospace between 45 and 120 kilometers in altitude—that is, Earth’s mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT)—beginning in 1978 with NASA’s Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) instrument on the Nimbus 7 spacecraft ... The past 2 decades especially have seen a revolution in our understanding of the structure and composition of the MLT, largely as a result of these observations. A key example is the satellite data showing long-term cooling of the MLT because of increasing CO2 levels [Garcia et al., 2019], which confirms a fundamental prediction of climate change theory.

At present, no new satellite missions or instruments are planned or under development to extend the considerable data records collected by past and current missions, which threatens the continuity of space-based observations of the MLT... this situation could affect vital science...

Scientists are just now beginning to grasp the extent of ... increasing atmospheric CO2 driving dramatic changes in Earth’s mesosphere and lower thermosphere.

• https://eos.org/opinions/an-observational-gap-at-the-edge-of-space

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