Amazing New Satellite Putting on "AIRS"

New satellite data has created the most accurate picture ever seen of CO2 and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Sadly, this shiny new data mostly confirms that the Earth is headed for unchecked warming.

However, it also reveals a few new twists and an unprecedented new look at the gases over our heads.

The data comes from a NASA satellite called AIRS, which has been cruising over the globe since 2002. It's one of the first times scientists have been able to combine observations of all the major greenhouse gases - CO2, methane, CO, and water vapor. (Can someone please coin a cool term for these? How about "the fiery four?"). Below is a link to an amazing video of CO2 increasing in the atmosphere.

Six years of CO2 over the earth

Notice a couple really new things, here. First, CO2 is not as evenly distributed as you might have been led to think. Notice how much more there is in the northern hemisphere than the south (nerd note: the span is only about 20 parts per million). That's because the North is a huge source and the South is a sink. The other way to put this is that the Southern Hemisphere is picking up a lot of our slack here in the North.

The other thing that this new data has shown is that water vapor is a much bigger player than anyone had thought. In fact, for every one degree of CO2-related warming, another two will come from water vapor. A common climate myth says that scientists have no idea how water vapor is changing in the atmosphere. This new data shows not only can we track it well, but we have been for years. Sadly, the only way to cut water vapor is still to head off the CO2.

The long and short, according to Andrew Dessler at Texas A&M, is that warming of a three degrees or so is absolutely guaranteed. Read the recent popular media and you would think there is a massive debate raging in scientific circles about the uncertainties in climate. Go to a real scientific conference and watch those "uncertainties" steadily obliterate.

The results were released at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, a gathering of more than 15,000 climate and earth scientists.

Climate denial activists are streaming into Copenhagen because they know they might have a shot at confusing the debate. They are not coming to San Francisco, because they know they would be decimated by real scientists.

For more on AIRS, go to the NASA announcement.