A discussion ‘about saving our planet’

NASA turns technology back toward Earth to focus on climate change

LOS ANGELES—After decades of gazing into space, NASA is turning its technology back toward Earth to study the effects of drought, fire and climate change on the Blue Planet.

At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge last week, scientists and state officials gathered to discuss how satellite data, 3D imaging and new radar and laser technologies can provide invaluable insights into Earth’s rapidly changing systems.

Some said the meeting marked a sea change for previously siloed agencies, and underscored the need to work together to solve the climate crisis.

“I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but in truth, this discussion is about saving our planet,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson told the group of attendees, which included Earth and space scientists from NASA and JPL, local congressional representatives and California environmental secretaries Wade Crowfoot and Jared Blumenfeld.

Upcoming Earth-centric missions will provide a more precise look at “everything that’s happening” with the oceans, the land and the atmosphere than ever before, Nelson said. Among the big-ticket items were new tools to measure snowpack and groundwater, satellites to monitor methane emissions and remote sensing assets to assess the impact of hazards such as wildfires, earthquakes and mudslides.

“We’re facing an existential crisis on this planet,” said Crowfoot, the state’s natural resources secretary. “These challenges are intense . ... But there’s no better place than California to do this work, because we understand the gravity of the threat.”

The meeting between California and federal officials was a far cry from 2018, when — frustrated by the Trump administration’s efforts to scuttle climate research — then-Gov. Jerry Brown insisted that California would launch “our own damn satellite, to figure out where the pollution is and how are we going to end it.”

Now, three years later, Californians need only look out their windows to get a sense of what scientists can observe from above. Wildfires are burning record acreage across the West, while worsening drought is draining the region’s water supplies to unseen levels. The state also recorded its hottest summer ever in 2021.

Many at the meeting hoped NASA and JPL’s findings would help combat global warming by informing decision-makers as they determine the best paths forward.

“It’s really a game changer to be able to have this data,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said, noting that the U.S. can also lead the rest of the world in utilizing the same tools.

“Because we’ll never solve climate until everybody is a participant.”

One new web-based platform, OpenET, will provide satellitebased information on evapotranspiration, the process through which water leaves plants, soils and other surfaces, which could help state officials understand water usage in agricultural areas and assist farmers with precision irrigation.

“As states, we do our best to manage this resource of water, but we’re never going to do it with the sophistication we need to without partners like NASA,” Crowfoot said, adding that the agency could be the “tip of the spear” when it comes to combating climate change.

Other water-related items include surface water and ocean topography tools known as SWOT that will contribute to NASA’s first global survey of the Earth’s surface water. Every 21 days, SWOT will survey almost 600,000 miles of global rivers at least twice, aiding drought forecasters and hazardous-flood preparations, officials said. It is set to launch in 2022.

JPL interim Director Larry James said the next generation of water-measuring spacecraft will also allow scientists to measure freshwater body heights and flows for the first time, while laser-imaging spectrometers will help study snowmelt and snow volume.

But scientists aren’t just studying water.

Methane was also a focus of discussion, with a new satellite due to launch in 2023 that will help monitor concentrations of the harmful emission, the second-largest contributor to greenhouse warming after carbon dioxide.

Blumenfeld, California’s secretary for environmental protection, said the three largest producers of methane in the state are the oil and gas industry, landfills and agriculture (particularly, large animal operations and dairies).

The new tool will enable anyone to see whether an oil refinery, for example, is leaking methane.

But space missions have also come under scrutiny for their own environmental impact, as propellants required to launch rockets into space can expel carbon dioxide, liquid hydrogen, kerosene or other chemicals into the atmosphere.

The launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s privately owned space transportation company, burned about 400 metric tons of kerosene and emitted more carbon dioxide in a few minutes than an average car would in more than two centuries, reports found — and the number of commercial space flights is expected to increase tenfold in the coming years.

But NASA administrators say that the scale of their projects is getting “smaller and smarter,” with one official noting that the methane satellite is “the size of a shoebox.”

“It’s an absolutely minuscule part, but it is a real concern,” Melroy said of rocket emissions, noting that the agency is working on developing more sustainable fuels.

NASA and JPL also haven’t lost sight of the final frontier, and officials offered a tour of the control room for the Mars Perseverance rover. The rover, which landed on Mars in February, is collecting rock samples that will be returned to Earth for closer study.

Yet while the challenges of space exploration may seem a world away from those here on Earth, Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley said much can be learned from the red planet.

There is no liquid water on the Martian surface today, he said, and there is essentially no atmosphere.

“It is an example of massive climate change — from a planet that we believe would have been inhabitable to a planet that, at least on the surface, is not,” Farley said.

“It is a clear example that climate changes, and it can change enormously.”

Nelson, the NASA administrator, echoed those sentiments when he addressed the rover’s control team.

“That’s one of the profound things that I think happens to every person that’s had the privilege of looking out the window of a spacecraft when you orbit the Earth,” he said. “You see how beautiful it is, but how fragile.”

“We’re facing an existential crisis on this planet. These challenges are intense . ... But there’s no better place than California to do this work, because we understand the gravity of the threat.”

WADE CROWFOOT CALIFORNIA’S NATURAL RESOURCES SECRETARY