Keeping a Weather Eye on Earth's Climate Instabilities
Part Five: An experimental atmospheric measuring instrument that NASA launched in 2002 continues to make important contributions to both weather and climate research.
science.nasa.govThe Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases encasing the planet, extending from the surface to beyond 10,000 km, with major divisions troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere. It is mainly nitrogen and oxygen, with argon, carbon dioxide, and trace gases, and it protects life from harmful radiation while enabling weather and climate processes; the stratospheric ozone absorbs UV radiation to protect living beings. Recent climate reports show CO2 rising, the record levels in hundreds of millennia, and continued warming and heat uptake in oceans, alongside shrinking Arctic and Antarctic ice extents.