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I, Taskmaster

By cmooney on January 17, 2006.

I feel kinda bad: Rasmus at RealClimate has gone and done a massive post in response to an idle question I asked on my old blog about whether an Amazonian drought could be definitively linked to climate change. (Answer: Not at this point, if ever...) The post, though, really shows the virtue of RealClimate as the web's leading source of climate science discussion and explanation, so I encourage you to check it out.

Tags
global warming

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Well, I noticed the X-prize people asking for public comments on their next competition.

LLComment@xprize.org

So I emailed them a tangential suggestion -- they ought to offer a prize to put the Triana satellite at L1.

Below more of the info on Triana, confirming it was built and is now sitting in the warehouse. As noted at Prometheus, it's the only instrument that could -- if it were in place at L1 -- answer the question whether the Earth's albedo (brightness, reflection of sunlight) is changing. That wasn't thought to be very important five years ago. Now it's the key to understanding what's happening with aerosols and clouds -- and the danged satellite is sitting on the ground.

Source of that info is down in this thread, I'll quote a bit of it:

QUOTE
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=253
Re: #35

I work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (not Goddard Institute for Space Studies) where Triana was built, but was not directly involved in the mission. In my opinion (and I'm speaking here as a private individual, not as a representative of NASA), the mission cancellation is neither surprising, or that much of a loss. Triana evolved out of Al Gore's idea to replicate the famous Apollo 17 Blue Marble photograph, more for outreach than for science. The scientific community at Goddard (and likely NASA as a whole) was then asked to come up with instruments that would benefit for the satellite's position at L1.
Since it was Al Gore's idea, it's been understood since November of 2000 that the mission was dead, even though the satellite was complete and sitting in storage.....
Comment by Robert Simmon â 14 Feb 2006 @ 2:16 pm
END QUOTE

I think the X-Prize people should take this on. I think a lot of people would subscribe, to get a Whole Earth video live feed. It might just be the right thing to do.