Oops! NASA spots climate cooling trend

The new NASA findings are similar to research conducted by UC-San Diego and Northumbria University in Great Britain last year, both of which predict a Grand Solar Minimum in coming decades due to low sunspot activity.

Both studies predict sun activity similar to the Maunder Minimum of the mid-17th to early 18th centuries – known as the Little Ice Age – during which temperatures were much lower than those typically registered today.

“We see a cooling trend,” said Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center, working as the associate principal investigator for SABER. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”

The new data has been released from NASA’s Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry or SABER instrument, which is onboard the space agency’s Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite.

SABER monitors infrared radiation from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a vital role in the energy output of Earth’s thermosphere.

“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,” said Mlynczak.

The Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI) measures how much nitric oxicide is released from the thermosphere into outer space. During Solar Maximum the TCI number is very high, but during Solar Minimum, TCI is low.

“Right now, (TCI) is very low indeed,” said Mlynczak. “SABER is currently measuring 33 billion Watts of infrared power from NO. That’s ten times smaller than we see during more active phases of the solar cycle.”

Another outcome of a cooling the thermosphere is that it shrinks, therefore reducing aerodynamic drag on satellites in low Earth orbit. In effect it means that the shrinking thermosphere increases a satellite’s lifetime.

The other bit of “bad news”, according to Dr Tony Phillips, editor of spaceweather.com, is: “It also delays the natural decay of space junk, resulting in a more cluttered environment around Earth.”

SABER has been in orbit for only 17 years, but NASA’s TCI measurements have been recreated using other indicators. “SABER taught us how to do this by revealing how TCI depends on other variables such as geomagnetic activity and the sun’s UV output — things that have been measured for decades,” Mlynczak explained.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Mlynczak said, “but it could happen in a matter of months.”

NASA may be contradicting itself, because last week it reported that Arctic sea ice was at its sixth lowest level since measuring began in a sure sign of global warming.