The problem seems simple enough: Take the total amount of energy coming to Earth from the sun, subtract what gets reflected back or re-radiated from particles in the atmosphere and see what you have left. If more energy is coming in than going out, it's getting hotter.
The next bit is more complicated: Figure out what fraction of these atmospheric particles stems from natural phenomena, such as wind-blown dust and volcanic eruptions, and what is coming from things we can control -- our industrial processes, business pursuits and recreational past-times.
NASA hopes to tackle the problem in one fell swoop with a spacecraft named Glory. Part-solar monitor, part-atmospheric probe, Glory is to join the quartet of Earth-orbiting satellites known as the Afternoon Constellation -- nicknamed the A-train -- which fly over the equator at roughly 1:30 p.m. local time every day so scientists can collect data from a variety of instruments tracking the same bit of real estate virtually simultaneously. That information is fed into computer models used to monitor and forecast climate change.
"As we're starting to set climate policy based on the inputs that are driving climate change, we need to be able to distinguish how much of climate change is stuff that we can control and how much is purely natural," said solar physicist Greg Kopp, with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
read more at link http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-spacecraft-climate-debate-gridlock.html
