CO2 Mission to Improve Computer Climate Models

A specially-modified Grumman Gulfstream V executive jet has taken off on a mission designed to, ultimately, improve the computer climate models used to forecast future environmental trends.

The mission is one component of a larger exercise titled ‘Hippo’, or ‘Hiaper Pole-to-Pole Observations’, which is set to go on for three years. The acronym Hiaper, incidentally, refers to a ‘High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research’.

At the forefront of Hippo is Harvard University, while the National Center for Atmospheric Research is also involved. Initially, the Gulfstream will orbit over the Arctic, where it will assess the levels of CO2, methane and other gases present, discovering the areas where the levels of emission and absorption are particularly high.

The data it accumulates will be expanded on in subsequent reports with more detail than has been present in any other published research issued so far, according to the scientists involved.

“When we finish up, we’ll have a completely new picture about how greenhouse gases are entering the atmosphere and being removed from the atmosphere both by natural processes and by humans,” Harvard’s Steven Wofsy asserted in comments broadcast online by the National Science Foundation.

Where gases come from

Two years ago, the United Nations attributed the global increase in temperatures to man-made Carbon Dioxide in the main. Those that work in scientific fields are attempting to get more of a grasp, then, on exactly where the gases come from and to what degree forest areas and oceans are capable of absorbing them.

The present generation of computer models used to forecast climate change have come under scrutiny from those who wonder about their ability to process scenarios that little is known about, like the transference of heat by low-lying oceanic clouds.

“It’s the first time we’ve been able to look at the whole globe all at once...nobody has ever done that”, said Mr Wofsy.

He added: “Satellites see the whole globe but they don’t see it in great detail.”

As a business aircraft, the Gulfstream V has been in service for over a decade and, among its breed, has one of the longest unfuelled ranges – circa 6,000 miles – of them all. The aircraft being used in this research, however, has been adapted so as to carry sensing equipment weighing around 5,600 pounds.

Following the present mission, the Gulfstream is set to travel to Antarctica, taking in New Zealand along the way.

A number of additional flights are also planned, all of them lasting 21 days, the National Center for Atmospheric Research said and the flights, will, in all, cover over 20,000 miles.