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The new joint partnership will help NASA learn more about the changing climate

NASA and Cisco today announced a joint partnership in which Cisco will provide networking hardware technology and NASA will use its spacecraft to better study climate change over the next five years.

The U.S. space agency will work with Cisco to create a new "Planetary Skin" of satellites, land sensors and the internet -- aiming to help analyze environmental data.  NASA already uses satellites, ground, and ocean sensors to help study climate change while providing the information to universities and international organizations.

"In the past 50 years, NASA's expertise has been applied to solving humanity's challenges, including playing a part in discovering global climate change," NASA Ames Research Center director Pete Worden said in a statement.  "The NASA-Cisco partnership brings together two world-class organizations that are well equipped with the technologies and skills to develop and prototype the Planetary Skin infrastructure."

If everything goes well, both partners said it could be one day possible to give towns -- and even households -- the ability to improve their carbon emissions.

The first project will be "Rainforest Skin," with both parties using a comprehensive sensor network located in rainforests spread across the world.  Aside from the rainforests, NASA and Cisco will look into varying changes on coast lines, inland areas and the oceans.  

Cisco will spend at least $50 million over the next three to five years for the project.  Both partners will work with the United Nations, banks, businesses, universities, think tanks, and others who have shown interest or conducted research into the environment.

All information gathered by the NASA-Cisco partnership will be available to the public, Cisco CEO John Chambers said during a climate change forum for Congress.  The data will be posted on the official Planetary Skin web site.

There has been a growing interest in carbon footprint, along with possible greenhouse gases and other possible human-caused changes to the Earth.  For example, the Center for Global Development created the Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) web site that tracks emissions from a large number of power plants and factories.

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Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/4/2009 4:38:06 PM , Rating: 2
You have Nasa and Cisco....since they're going to ask us to bend over and grab ankles with carbon tax I think they should involve Crisco too.




RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By FITCamaro on 3/4/2009 5:01:20 PM , Rating: 1
I'm just wondering how long it'll be before we start being taxed for breathing. Politicians will be exempt though since a) they're better than us and b) we (unfortunately) pay them to talk.

Isn't it amazing that people are stupid enough to believe that a compound that is necessary for the survival of all life on the planet can some how be a pollutant?


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By corduroygt on 3/4/2009 5:06:36 PM , Rating: 3
I do my best to produce as much CO2 as possible.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By HeavyB on 3/4/2009 5:57:23 PM , Rating: 5
I'm personally focusing on methane, myself.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By deeznuts on 3/5/2009 12:01:25 AM , Rating: 3
Had myself a carne asada burrito from albertos (san diego) earlier for lunch. we're kindred spirits on the methane front.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:04:51 AM , Rating: 2
Butt Burritos!


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By AnnihilatorX on 3/4/2009 5:06:56 PM , Rating: 2
You are just as dumb as them.
No where in the article above has the term "Carbon dioxide" been mentioned. Cisco and NASA are doing climate change research.

Everyone except people living under caves will know climate is changing. Most scientists and environmentalists believe that CO2 is the cause, while the anti-environmentalists are saying that the changing solar activity is the cause.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By AnnihilatorX on 3/4/2009 5:09:25 PM , Rating: 2
I admitted when scrolling I missed the last paragraph. Still my argument stands correct, Monitoring climate change doesn't mean just measuring carbon dioxide level, even though which is a very valid scientific study.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:12:49 AM , Rating: 2
"very valid scientific study" .... yes it is if your topic is the structure of a human created SCAM.

To the commenter before you: I am not anti environmental. I am too busy putting puppies in blenders to spend time being anti environmental.

I would suggest you to that you are pro environMENTAL. White germanic european people are the ONLY people on the globe worrying about this nonexistant "chicken little" childs story of a scam.

Solar activity accounts for all fluctuations ...or is there a global refrigerator that has been cooling the globe for the past 10 years ??

The left professes its atheism and with one stroke kills god and revivifies him in the form of Gaia worship. This may explain why the left thinks the nuclear fusion reactor in the sky (a.k.a. "the sun") is dead constant. It is amazing that the sun is as constant as it is! but it is not constant. The past 10 years demonstrate it cools as well as warms relative to its mean value.

But then why should I expect you to understand this? You are either an english major or a 3rd rate technical talent. Anyone who has EVERY done a finite element analysis knows the integral error buffalos any calculations in the area of MMGW.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Reycrazy on 3/4/2009 5:29:14 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Most scientists and environmentalists believe that CO2 is the cause, while the anti-environmentalists are saying that the changing solar activity is the cause.


You might want to broaden you statement a bit more as there are a great number of scientist that think solar activity has a larger impact than CO2 could possibly have. And further still there are probably a larger number than either camp that have not made up their minds. We do have definitve evidence that solar activity is on the decline and that the average global temperatures have been declining with that. As far as the environmentalist camp, I have not seen anything concrete. It is usually just data with a political spin on it. It is too bad they have someone like Al Gore championing their cause. Who else would be dumb enough to make a scare tactic movie and then come back and say he overexagerated the facts?


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By FITCamaro on 3/4/09, Rating: 0
RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Gzus666 on 3/4/2009 5:48:34 PM , Rating: 2
It is starting to seem like you flip out against anything related to climate change. They are wanting to research it, that is at least admirable. I may not think we are having much to do with climate change, as you do, but does that mean we absolutely don't? Of course not, none of us are doing studies or have legitimate scientific answers.

Sometimes this site's posters blow me away with the pigheaded jumps to conclusions no matter what comes forth. I don't think the majority of scientists agree on anything when it comes to climate right now cause very little information exists one way or another. So, rather than jump to one conclusion or another, let's let the researchers do their job and the scrutiny will be had in the scientific community.

Now, if you want to hammer on people for posting sure answers one way or another when clearly there are no sure answers at this point, be my guest. But please don't act like the answers are sure and set in stone just cause some people might say one way or another, arguments of authority never hold their weight. It doesn't matter if every scientist in the world agrees climate change is real for fake, it doesn't change facts and striving to get these facts is the only place of science.

Hell, for all you know they might find concrete evidence against human causes and then you will be praising the research.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By shin0bi272 on 3/5/2009 4:45:39 AM , Rating: 2
Ahh but see thats how it starts man. They start by researching it, then they hand the data off to a think tank or a group of scientists and those people come up with a conclusion and depending on who funded the study the outcome is positive or negative. We can see it on a micro scale with obama as our president (assuming you live in the us). Everyone who voted for him wanted change and hope or didnt want mcccain... he gets elected and everyone says we have to give him a chance... 30 days into his term and hes already put us twice as far into debt as we were when he took office. Now hes proposing more spending to try to stop something that he seems to think he can stop. Every time anyone in his administration speaks the dow plunges at least 100 points. Same thing is going to happen with this study. They will find data that says every morning when you drive to work the co2 emissions skyrocket and so we all need to walk to work 1 day a week (or something equally as stupid). Someone brought up in another part of this thread that they are wondering when we will be taxes for breathing... well let them pass this cap and trade bill and you can almost count the days before they start saying we all have to pay to breathe.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Gzus666 on 3/5/2009 10:00:31 AM , Rating: 2
Conspiracy nut much? Science will prevail and BS will fail as it always does. While there are some scientists that are dishonest and only say things for more funding, there are plenty who are true to science. Also, do you not think that they will be clamoring to be the one who disproves man made climate change if that is the case? Remember that science is all about big discoveries and if you can prove that climate change is a natural phenomenon, then clearly you would be quite famous and the same goes for proving the opposite. Conjecture is all fine and good, but let's wait for some hard evidence.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By shin0bi272 on 3/5/2009 3:48:17 PM , Rating: 2
no look at what the environmentalist movement has done since it started. started out by railing against nuclear waste and chemical dumping into the oceans and rivers, which was great. Then when they got that under control and regulated they started going on and on about cfc's through the 80's and into the 90's. When they got everyone to stop using those they went after something that we cant stop producing as their evil to combat... co2. How come when the epa sponsors a study it finds that were all about to die but when a scientist doesnt agree with that they are labeled "global warming deniers"? As if they were holocaust deniers like the president of iran. Its become so ubiquitous that everyone is just supposed to believe it because some scientists say its going on. If they do prove its natural you will never hear about it again. Because theres too much money in making you buy $4 lightbulbs and tiny little cars that cost $40,000+ to admit that they are wrong. As you've heard before... follow the money. Id love to find some hard evidence as you say but the problem is all they can say is what theyve seen over the course of history and they cant say what will happen tomorrow. In the case of global warming thats exactly what they are doing 100s of years in the future. As my high school science teacher told me if you extrapolate your data you are telling me you know what will happen in the future and you will get a 0 on your report. Global warming does exactly that and as such should be given a 0 on its paper for trying to force us to stop producing carbon dioxide. If you want to decrease the amount of co2 in the atmosphere plant more trees. trees breathe in co2 and breathe out o2. There you go climate change fixed. disaster averted.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Gzus666 on 3/5/2009 4:34:17 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, but none of that has to do with science. It is merely charlatans saying that it seems like the best answer so it is the answer. I don't see everyone freaking out when some idiots try to say "evolution is only a theory" or creationism should be taught.

The correct response at that point is to correct the misinformation. Currently there are ideas as to the cause of the temperature change, but none are solid cause and effect. Simple as that. Getting mad and telling them equally stupid misinformation about it not being real or caused by something else for sure is just as bad. If you have serious problems with it, write to the boards involved and request more research be done rather than jumping to conclusions.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:15:55 AM , Rating: 2
science aka truth always prevails as it is a reversion to the mean that occurs as a result of the law of large numbers..........

.........how ever will that ultimate discovery of the truth that MMGW is a scam occur before they regulate and tax us all to death? ....that is the critical question.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Grabo on 3/5/2009 12:04:26 PM , Rating: 2
I didn't want to touch this with a long stick, because I clearly live in a separate universe from many of you (where 'socialist' and 'environmentalist' and 'liberal' aren't swearwords, which I think I already stated once but..)

..regardless:

You are correct in that co2 levels have been higher than they are now. Temperatures, too. Hardly while modern civilization was around, though, (more than 400k years ago) so if the earth was 3k C hot fifteen billion years ago that doesn't mean it's no big deal to us, now. It doesn't mean we aren't partially responsible now.

And because theories were wrong in the past, it doesn't mean they aren't more correct now. Our scientific tools and ways do sharpen, after all.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:21:16 AM , Rating: 2
'socialist' and 'environmentalist' and 'liberal' aren't swear words

......however they are another word for 1 of the following

-1- very very naive person. usually too young to have sufficient life experience to spot BS.

-2- criminally manipulate - ex: Al gore

-3- Power hungry - ex: B. Obama

-4- militantly anti human: ex: D. Zobel quote " we need to have an environmental death lottery where you draw straws and we kill 1 out 2 people.

-5- On the scientific dole. You can not get funding for your research proving MMGW is not happening...only that it is.

You should duly note that only white europeans are worried about MMGW. And usually only liberal ones. Conservatives and liberals both believe in gravity. That is science. Conservatives and liberals differ on MMGW. That is because it is not science....it is politics.


By AnnihilatorX on 3/9/2009 2:24:43 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I'm not against the concept of climate change. I'm against the concept that we are influencing it at a global level. Even today CO2 remains at about 4-5 parts per million in the atmosphere. You're telling me that much is what is fueling the changes in our climate?


The heat capacity of CO2 gas is well known and tested. 4-5 parts per million sounds small but scale it to the whole atmosphere you start to get tangible influence on temperature. The difficulty only lies in the estimation of man-made CO2 and the absorption capability of nature.

quote:
And irregardless, its been shown that many times over the course of history CO2 levels have been much higher than they are now. And the world didn't end. If there's one thing that mankind has shown to be good at, its surviving.


No doubt we will survive, but the point is how many will die in the process. The world won't end because of temperature rise. Humanity however would suffer. In 2050 the world population will almost double. This put a strain in the already saturated agriculture food output which heavily depend on crops and in turn heavily dependent on even small temperature variations.
Crops won't die out right, but the yield would drop by huge margin. Lets not focus on the sea level, whether it rises or not is only part of the problem. Ultimately it is food shortage that's going to kill.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By clovell on 3/4/2009 5:43:48 PM , Rating: 1
> If everything goes well, both partners said it could be one day possible to give towns -- and even households -- the ability to improve their carbon emissions.

Unless you're just trying to be a dick today, Carbon Emissions=Carbon Dioxide.

Thanks for playing.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Reclaimer77 on 3/4/2009 6:12:11 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Isn't it amazing that people are stupid enough to believe that a compound that is necessary for the survival of all life on the planet can some how be a pollutant?


It's not just that. They believe it's also the sole driving force of our climate. And that it's not just responsible for ambient temperatures, but storms and other natural disasters as well.

These are the same people who refuse to believe Mother Nature herself is also responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions on the planet.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Grabo on 3/5/2009 12:10:25 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Isn't it amazing that people are stupid enough to believe that a compound that is necessary for the survival of all life on the planet can some how be a pollutant?


quote:
It's not just that. They believe it's also the sole driving force of our climate. And that it's not just responsible for ambient temperatures, but storms and other natural disasters as well. These are the same people who refuse to believe Mother Nature herself is also responsible for 80% of all CO2 emissions on the planet.


Have you ever heard about the carbon cycle? About balance?
About NASA? About the IPCC? (But they are categorically wrong, right?)
Or even about how too much of a good thing can be a bad thing?

There's just not even any logic in your words. Many here can argue against 'human induced global warming and its effects' with logic, but that's just mindless jimbojumbo.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:23:46 AM , Rating: 2
He is spot on. Its you twits that go round believing in MMGW that are terminally square. You get to 4th grade level science and you think you know something. Its laughable.

Balance? The world is balanced. You need not worry. See George Carlin on Youtube regarding "saving the environment" for a good work up on how arrogant and idiotic you are.


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Grabo on 3/6/2009 6:13:08 AM , Rating: 2
First, I don't know what MMGW means.
Second, you agree that carbon can never hurt the earth, something NASA - politically independant, as far as I believe - and every other scientist disagrees with, and you tell me I'm a retard for listening to them?

'I eat fat all the time, fat can't hurt me' 'I like heat, heat can't hurt me' 'The world doesn't explode when I start revving my hummer, my hummer isn't bad for the earth'.

I have a ten year old brother with better arguments.

'The world is balanced'..why do I even bother?
Seriously?


RE: Why is Crisco not involved?
By Gzus666 on 3/6/2009 10:32:51 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
He is spot on. Its you twits that go round believing in MMGW that are terminally square. You get to 4th grade level science and you think you know something. Its laughable.


You basically just called him a name and added nothing to what he said and refuted nothing. If you have all this magic knowledge about it one way or another, then spread it around, I'm sure all would love to see.

Since I highly doubt you are a practicing scientist, I have a feeling you know very little about it considering scientists currently have limited information on it as a collective. Stop making bold faced assertions and treating them as truth, no one knows for sure currently.

While I love George Carlin, he is hardly the authority on scientific matters, so it seems pigheadedly stupid to bring him up as a reference.


By JediJeb on 3/4/2009 5:46:02 PM , Rating: 2
It is good to have more sensors and more data to study global climate. But what happens when you try to mix this new data with the old data? With new types of measurments and a finer grid of data points, you are really talking about starting over with the analysis. I wonder what the new global average temperature will be once so many new data points are thrown in. If it all of a sudden makes the numbers 1C higher on average will they yell "Look it is warming we proved it" when if the same points were taken over the past 50 years would show cooling?

Just as doing astronomy with unaided eyes is different from using a small telescope to using the Hubble Telescope, these results will have to be looked at as something new. I just hope they find some real, honest scienstist to evaluate the data once it come in.




By mmatis on 3/4/2009 7:01:43 PM , Rating: 1
You know damn well it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens. Hansen already has dibs on the data. And the filthy maggot pigs enable this swill.


By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:26:39 AM , Rating: 2
Hansen makes "mistakes" and the mistake always goes in the direction of "proving" global warming. He should be totally discredited but will not until the entire movement is.

One day we will look back on the people crying about mmgw as the terminally square people parroting the party line that they are.


By heulenwolf on 3/4/2009 7:14:19 PM , Rating: 2
I agree that data integration, new with old, could be an issue. One possible approach would be to co-locate some of the new sensors with existing data sources for calibration. Since the veracity of some of these existing data sources has been questioned in the past, the new sensors would provide an independent check, helping to find out-of-cal sensors from both sets (new and old).


By Dreifort on 3/5/2009 10:18:57 AM , Rating: 3
Since global warming has affected previous data, there should be a new formula derived to calculate the ongoing deterioration of data due to the rise in carbon deposits. Then account for the money spent on global research and multiply it by the number of conferences that have been canceled or delayed due to snow or icy weather. You also have to take into consideration how many times Al Gore has changed the time and date the earth will be destroyed.

Maybe a formula like this...

Key: GDN (Gore Destruction Notices), CCC (Climate Change Conference), CWI (Cold Weather Interference), GT (Gore Theories), BS (Budget Spent), PS (Public Skepticism)

(((O3(O2/(CH3)3CH)-CO2)-(((GT+CCC)/CWI)-(PS/GDN)) )/BS

There is one variable that motivates Al Gore and doomsday climate predictors... you can't divide by zero. So they do all they can to keep the BS up.


By shin0bi272 on 3/5/2009 4:58:33 AM , Rating: 5
I'll tell you what happened. Someone paid Algore $150,000 to officially start calling it climate change rather than global warming. I sure hope Algore is nice and warm in his million dollar house burning his money to keep warm while the temperature outside in MARCH is below freezing in Tennessee. Or maybe he took his private jet to Aruba or Fiji...

Lastly Let me leave you, dear reader, with these questions. Who says that the climate we live in right now is the right climate? Does anyone remember that there was the little ice age from about 1000-1850? You know the year without a summer when it snowed in July in Virginia? You remember the painting of washington crossing the delaware river? That ice that they painted wasnt just metaphorical it was factual! Why cant we go on with our lives until there is conclusive evidence of 2 things? 1) that we are affecting the climate on this planet and 2) that we can do something about it and have a plan to do it in our lifetimes.

Right now its all speculation and extrapolation based on 100 or 200 years of records...the earth is like 6 billion years old and they are trying to tell us that we are going to burn up because we are burning coal and oil, which came out of the ground btw so they are natural products, but they offer no solutions to the problem that are anywhere near equivalent to the things they are meant to replace. So as far as I and a lot of people are concerned we really dont want to be taxed or forced by law into doing something that we have no proof will help the environment that might not need any help in the first place. You cant tax or legislate the people into your way of thinking.




Carbon Footprint
By A Stoner on 3/4/2009 5:16:08 PM , Rating: 2
also known as prosperity.

Lets say we really want to reduce our carbon footprint. Stop importing from other countries. Stop producing in this country. Build solar and wind power plants that create solar and wind power plants. Build alot of nuclear power plants to absorb the massively variable energy output of solar and wind power plants. Life outdoors without any home or other shelter. Stop making babies, especially the rich people, cause rich people by far exceed the CO2 output of the poor, so stop making new rich CO2 excrementers!!!! Do not drive a vehicle or travel any distance at all, even walking you produce alot of CO2 in the food you eat and the breath you take. No wood burning stoves, no outdoor barbeques, no White House extravaganza parties. No talks with other countries, the travel to and from is too costly and the power for electronic communications is too valuable. Get rid of all the actors and actresses as well as all musicians and we certainly can get rid of the teachers, cause we can learn everything we need to learn from nature while we wallow in the mud, dust and insects of her.

Or, we could just adapt to any climate change that happens. Compared to the loss in GDP and GWP required to go carbon neutral, it would be a pitance.




RE: Carbon Footprint
By phxfreddy on 3/6/2009 1:29:15 AM , Rating: 2
but I'm socialist. I like wallowing in mud and my own self pity. I am just a frustrated genius held down by the man. never mind that I never learned science and engineering past a 4th grade level.


I wonder
By S3anister on 3/4/2009 6:20:33 PM , Rating: 2
Does the "Rainforest Skin" include the Olympic National Forest?

I would hope it does since it qualifies as a rainforest, along with all the other temperate rainforests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_National_Fore...




By kattanna on 3/5/2009 10:24:33 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Cisco will spend at least $50 million


LOL and im betting its all discontinued inventory, that they will write off on taxes at full retail pricing.




By Schrag4 on 3/5/2009 11:23:38 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
If everything goes well, both partners said it could be one day possible to give towns -- and even households -- the ability to improve their carbon emissions.


This makes no sense on several levels. How does gathering this data help reduce emmissions? Also, did both parties really say something to the same effect that this data will help reduce emissions? Oh, and "improve their carbom emmissions" sounds like they want to crank up emmissions. Perhaps "reduce" should have been chosen over "improve".

Sorry, this single-sentence paragraph really irked. It just seems out of place for so many reasons.




What the ...
By RoberTx on 3/9/2009 12:55:10 AM , Rating: 2
NASA's job is to develope space technology. NOAA's job is weather and climate. Why is NASA doing NOAA's job? Who is doing NASA's job, the Post Office? And waaaaaaaay out there in left field we have a mirror DoD space program that stands...where? As far as the taxpaying citizens go, what are they doing with trillions of taxpayer dollars? What have they accomplished? Will this country ever see a real return on our investment with them?




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