Wild solar weather is causing satellites to plummet from orbit. It's only going to get worse.:
In late 2021, operators of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm constellation noticed something worrying: The satellites, which measure the magnetic field around Earth, started sinking toward the atmosphere at an unusually fast rate — up to 10 times faster than before. The change coincided with the onset of the new solar cycle, and experts think it might be the beginning of some difficult years for spacecraft orbiting our planet.
"In the last five, six years, the satellites were sinking about two and a half kilometers [1.5 miles] a year," Anja Stromme, ESA's Swarm mission manager, told Space.com. "But since December last year, they have been virtually diving. The sink rate between December and April has been 20 kilometers [12 miles] per year."
Satellites orbiting close to Earth always face the drag of the residual atmosphere, which gradually slows the spacecraft and eventually makes them fall back to the planet. (They usually don't survive this so-called re-entry and burn up in the atmosphere.) This atmospheric drag forces the International Space Station's controllers to perform regular "reboost" maneuvers to maintain the station's orbit of 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
This drag also helps clean up the near-Earth environment from space junk. Scientists know that the intensity of this drag depends on solar activity — the amount of solar wind spewed by the sun, which varies depending on the 11-year solar cycle. The last cycle, which officially ended in December 2019, was rather sleepy, with a below-average number of monthly sunspots and a prolonged minimum of barely any activity. But since last fall, the star has been waking up, spewing more and more solar wind and generating sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections at a growing rate. And the Earth's upper atmosphere has felt the effects.
"There is a lot of complex physics that we still don't fully understand going on in the upper layers of the atmosphere where it interacts with the solar wind," Stromme said. "We know that this interaction causes an upwelling of the atmosphere. That means that the denser air shifts upwards to higher altitudes."
Denser air means higher drag for the satellites. Even though this density is still incredibly low 250 miles above Earth, the increase caused by the upwelling atmosphere is enough to virtually send some of the low-orbiting satellites plummeting.
"It's almost like running with the wind against you," Stromme said. "It's harder, it's drag — so it slows the satellites down, and when they slow down, they sink."
[...] "Generally speaking, increasing solar activity — and its effect on the upper atmosphere — is good news from a space debris perspective, as it reduces orbital lifetimes of the debris and provides a useful 'cleaning service,'" Lewis said.
According to Jonathan McDowell, a space debris expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the positive effect can already be observed, as fragments produced by the November 2021 Russian anti-satellite missile test are now coming down much faster than before.
However, there is a downside to this cleansing process.
"The increased rate of decay of debris objects can be perceived almost like rain," Lewis said. "When solar activity is high, the 'rain' rate is higher, and missions at lower altitudes will potentially experience a greater flux of debris." A greater flux of debris means the need for even more frequent fuel-burning avoidance maneuvers and a temporarily increased risk of collisions, which could potentially generate more dangerous fragments.
Related Stories
Space companies want to remove their junk from orbit - but that's easier said than done:
Every once in a while, a piece of space junk hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes into Earth. Just last month, a 23-ton chunk of space debris fell – safely, thankfully – into the south-central Pacific Ocean. The debris came from the October 31 launch of China's Long March 5B rocket, which has been notorious for its uncontrolled returns to Earth.
[...] "Even though all of outer space might be infinite, where we put satellites are very specific regions," astrodynamicist Moriba Jah tells ZDNET. "They're becoming more congested."
Jah is the chief scientist for Privateer, a recently launched company backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Privateer's mission is to bring more visibility to our space superhighways, where satellites zoom past one another at 17,000 miles per hour. The company wants to bring that visibility with proprietary knowledge graph technology, which allows it to create visualizations of all the satellites and debris in space. With its data engine, Privateer has created Wayfinder, an open-access tool that lets others in the space economy create the visualizations they need to occupy low-Earth orbit safely.
[...] By letting space get crowded with junk, Jah says, we risk losing the ability to use space for humanity's benefit.
Previously:
- The FCC Finally Starts Taking Space Junk Seriously
- Space Junk Found on Sheep Farm
- Wild Solar Weather is Causing Satellites to Plummet From Orbit. It's Only Going to Get Worse.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @12:58AM (15 children)
If we would just abandon fossil fuels, this wouldn't be happening!!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by DannyB on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:24AM (13 children)
Don't worry there will be an end to fossil fuels. There is only so much. It is already getting harder and harder to find. It becomes more and more difficult to extract -- and more expensive. More technology will be needed to extract it over time.
Which will happen first?
[_] fossil fuels run out
[x] human race extinct
[_] Republicans consider the good of human kind above profits
[_] Other (please specify in comments)
Which would you rather have?
[x] full frontal lobotomy
[_] full bottle in front of me
[_] Other (please specify in comments)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:20AM (7 children)
This is why we need to go into space. We need to import more hydrocarbons to burn!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:28AM (2 children)
We could try mining asteroids for "rare earth" metals.
Somehow all of our rare earth metals ended up under China's land. And all our oil ended up under the sands in the Middle East.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Snotnose on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:15PM
Not true. Rare earth metals are all over the place. But mining them is an environmental disaster, something China doesn't care about.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by drussell on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:20PM
"Rare earth metals" actually aren't that rare, and they most certainly aren't all "under China."
China's dominance in the supply of these elements didn't really start until the late '80s and in through the '90s when they undercut the prices of the existing worldwide supplies, making it "uneconomical" for the mines elsewhere to continue operating when China would do it "cheaper" with their poorly paid miners in dangerous, messy mines. They have, of course, much less in the way of safety and environmental protection requirements than most of the rest of the world requires, so can sell the stuff on the cheap.
People elsewhere are waking up to the fact that China having a near-monopoly on much of the "rare earth" supply is probably not such a good thing, especially since they are likely to wield supply "availability to others" like a big stick. Other countries, especially ones which already have shuttered former rare earth mines, are beginning to start or restart operations and exploration for other future reasonably-easily-exploitable deposits has begun in many places.
The Mountain Pass Mine in California for example, which is the US's only rare-earth mine, has started winding production back up in recent years, supplying 16% of the world's supply in 2020, which is a considerable portion of the non-China production since China is currently responsible for about 81% of the yearly global supply. There is also supposedly a project underway to start a mine in Alaska.
South Africa's Steenkampskraal mine, which has the world's highest quality ore of any existing exploited deposit, has supposedly currently got >80% of the infrastructure in place to restart production, but I don't know what the planned restart date is for actual production.
Canada has a few small rare-earth mining operations and I know work is underway on expanding the operations up north of Uranium City at the Hoidas Lake facility. Australia is ramping up production at the Mount Weld mine (deposit discovered in 1988, first bits of production started in 2011,) and I believe the permitting is complete for the Nolans project in Central Australia, but I don't know an expected time-frame for the start of production. Various other countries are also ramping up planning and production at other known deposits.
China's monopoly on the rare-earth supplies is coming to an end, but it is going to be a long, slow process.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Some call me Tim on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:40AM (3 children)
The US has more than we need to supply us and the rest of the world. Two years ago we were energy independent for the first time in our history. Then along came Biden. All he had to do was nothing and we would have been fine. He undid everything Trump and now we have $6.00 a gallon gas. FJB!
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:24PM (1 child)
So it is Biden's fault that the rest of the world has sky-high energy prices too? Riiiight....
You're being obtuse.
Gas prices would still be insane if Trump were currently still president, but half of the planet would probably be on fire too. ;)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @06:07PM
The important difference is that if Trump were president, the high gas prices would clearly be Putin's fault. Since this is not the case clearly it is Biden's fault for getting elected.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bloodnok on Sunday June 26 2022, @04:16PM
Actually, no. Testing science is how you do science.
Questioning, particularly in the tone that is commonly used these days, is often simply an attack on something that you disagree with. Asking the same question that the scientists started with: "is the climate being affected by human-caused carbon emissions?", does nothing to advance science; it simply attempts to reset the discussion to before the question was considered, analysed, modelled, tested and answered. It attempts to undermine the science by subtly implying that the question has not been properly considered.
Good questioning, if you are prepared to listen and try to understand the answer, may help educate the questioner but does nothing to further our collective understanding.
This has been a public service announcement.
__
The major
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:31AM (1 child)
"There is a lot of complex physics that we still don't fully understand going on in the upper layers of the atmosphere where it interacts with the solar wind,"
Your reaction to the admission that the touted models of doom on which current anti-western environmental policies are justified are flawed tells me you're either quite dumb or have an agenda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @08:28AM
It is "both", not "either".
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:56AM (2 children)
Is this a poll?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 26 2022, @11:54AM
Maybe it should be. Perhaps two polls.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 29 2022, @02:24PM
A poll without a poll dancer.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @08:57PM
Or at least raise the tax on fuel and energy!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Sunday June 26 2022, @01:31AM (12 children)
More satellites should be put up to study this further.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Some call me Tim on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:32AM (11 children)
But that's unpossible! The models have told us for 50+ Years that we would be dead by now. Maybe the models are just that, like model airplanes or cars. they look nice but they have no relationship to actual reality.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DannyB on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:39AM (10 children)
The models tell us the CO2 is increasing unlike anything resembling normal.
A model might predict (incorrectly) what temperatures might be in the future. Assumptions can be made about how hot it can become before humans can not adapt and survive.
If you know of a model that tells us when we should be dead that would be interesting to see.
On the other hand, maybe we should just not believe anything science tells us.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Some call me Tim on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:53AM (1 child)
Dude, I'm all for science. It's the lunatics screaming we're doomed every ten years that has me pissed. They're all scammers looking for the next windfall of money for their pet "doom of the week" scam. Everything Al Gore predicted has been debunked. Polar bears are thriving and the Arctic is doing just fine. Wild life likes to hang around the pipelines because it's warmer there. Take a look at Germany. They are firing up their coal plants for electricity because Putin has cut off their natural gas. I guess their wind and solar can't handle the deficit left by them shutting down their nuclear plants. Dang, what a shame.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 26 2022, @11:55AM
Stupid to have shut down those nuclear power plants.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:53AM (3 children)
Oh, stop being silly. Al Gore told us that we'd all be dead by 2010. None of us are real, we're all just electrons bouncing around in the Matrix computer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @07:33PM (1 child)
Congratulations, you're a colossal idiot.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @08:46PM
Runaway does display idiocy quite often, but so many of his problems stem from his identity politics that has him parroting the GOP talking points. Hmm, on second thought you have to be an idiot to blindly parrot political narratives, your point stands!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 29 2022, @02:20PM
I thought he said 2020.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @08:44AM (1 child)
The ice cores tell us CO2 is increasing every interglacial, with a general rising trend over last 800,000 years.
https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg [lbl.gov]
Aaand, it just so happens that "CO2 levels are now comparable to the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when they were close to, or above 400 ppm."
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/carbon-dioxide-now-more-than-50-higher-than-pre-industrial-levels [noaa.gov]
No evidence of 4 million years old alien coal mines or oil wells. Therefore, something NATURAL had caused THAT increase.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2022, @08:17PM
Jesus fucking christ you deniers are so dumb. The unnatural part is the RATE of rising CO2 concentrations. It NATURALLY happens over thousands of years, compressing that shift into 100 years is going to massively destabilize the climate. We are seeing the very beginning of the real effects now that the heat sinks are disappearing and the tundra methane is releasing en masse. Bad enough this is happening, but to deal with idiots preventing the necessary changes to society is maddening.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:26PM (1 child)
It's not so much the actual temperature increase, the planet has been both colder and warmer before, it is the rate of temperature increase that is going to be problematic.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @07:32PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer [wikipedia.org]
See, plain old volcanic dust has been observed to create sizable temperature decreases, in that and many other cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter [wikipedia.org]
We humans have built a lot of nukes; what is the problem to stuff one or ten or a hundred into a convenient volcano to recreate the effect on demand?
If we don't end up creating this other effect soon, that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:04AM
Sink rate. Pull up. Sink rate. Pull up. Terrain. Terrain. NO CARRIER.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dalek on Sunday June 26 2022, @04:34AM (16 children)
I'm perplexed by the comments here that discuss fossil fuels and global warming.
The air pressure is the weight of the air pressing down from above. If there's less air above, the pressure is lower. That's why pressure decreases monotonically with altitude. High pressure in the lower atmosphere and low pressure in the upper atmosphere creates an upward pressure gradient force. This acceleration is balanced out by the force of gravity, which is why the atmosphere doesn't go flying off into space. This condition is called hydrostatic balance, and the atmosphere is very nearly in hydrostatic balance almost all of the time. Because the air pressure is higher at lower altitude, the same mass of air is compressed into smaller volumes at lower altitudes than at higher altitudes. Therefore, pressure decreases more rapidly with altitude at lower altitudes. This also gives rise to the thermal structure of the atmosphere, where in the absence of other processes that generally take place in the stratosphere and thermosphere, temperature decreases with altitude.
The standard sea level pressure is 1013.25 hPa. We use pressure as a vertical coordinate in meteorology because it makes the math simpler. At most latitudes, 250 hPa is a bit below the tropopause. Roughly 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is below 250 hPa, with only about 25% above it. In the tropics, 250 hPa is usually just below an altitude of 11 km. In the Antarctic, 250 hPa is a bit above an altitude of 9 km. This is because gases expand when heated, and it's warmer in the tropics. Even the difference in temperatures between the tropics and poles only causes the lowest 75% of the atmosphere to expand upward a bit under 2 km in the tropics.
As I said before, pressure drops off much faster with altitude in the lower atmosphere. At the altitudes where satellites orbit, the air pressure difference going up or down 2 km is quite small. Unlike the troposphere and mesosphere, the stratosphere warms with increasing altitude because of ozone absorbing ultraviolet radiation. In the thermosphere, molecular oxygen absorbs solar radiation at some wavelengths such as x-rays and some ultraviolet wavelengths, causing this layer to warm with increasing altitude. During periods of intense solar flare activity, increased x-ray and ultraviolet radiation output from the sun is getting absorbed in the thermosphere, heating it significantly. Heating this layer causes it to expand upward, meaning that at a given altitude, the air pressure will increase. This will have a much larger effect on the drag experienced by satellites than anything happening in the troposphere. To put a number on this, the altitude of the thermopause, which is the top of the thermosphere, varies from 500 km to 1000 km, and is heavily dependent on solar activity.
Warming the troposphere has very little impact on the drag experienced by satellites orbiting in the thermosphere. That said, increased CO2 is actually cooling the upper atmosphere [nytimes.com] and reducing the drag. The drag experienced by satellites orbiting in the thermosphere is dominated by processes in the thermosphere, not the warming of the troposphere. The issues with satellites experienced increased drag cannot be blamed on climate change.
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(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2022, @06:22AM
stupid robot doesn't know when it's being trolled lolol
assassinate eradicate exterminate
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 26 2022, @12:02PM (13 children)
ny times won't show me that article.
How does CO2 cool the upper atmosphere?
(Score: 5, Informative) by dalek on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:52PM
The New York Times explanation doesn't really do a great job of explaining the relevant physical processes. I linked to it because it addresses the issue of atmospheric drag and linked to the full text [wiley.com] of the relevant study. If you're looking for a good explanation of the mechanism that causes increased CO2 to cool the upper atmosphere, I recommend this article [cosmosmagazine.com].
Unlike most of the gases in the atmosphere, CO2 absorbs some radiation in infrared wavelengths. CO2 efficiently absorbs these wavelengths, but also efficiently radiates heat. It means that when a CO2 molecule absorbs heat, the molecule will quickly radiate that heat again. The lower atmosphere is dense enough that CO2 molecules frequently collide with molecules of other cases (e.g., molecular nitrogen or molecular oxygen) that don't radiate heat as efficiently as CO2 does. Much of the kinetic energy gets transferred to other gas molecules before the CO2 radiates the energy as heat.
The upper atmosphere is sufficiently thin that even with the very high temperatures (600-3000 K) in the thermosphere, CO2 molecules are much less likely to collide with other gas molecules prior to radiating the heat. CO2 radiates heat more efficiently than other gases in the upper atmosphere, meaning that heat absorbed by CO2 is quickly lost either back into the lower atmosphere or out to space.
It's not that CO2 molecules somehow behave differently in the lower atmosphere versus the upper atmosphere. The difference is that CO2 molecules in the lower atmosphere are much more likely to collide with other gas molecules and transfer kinetic energy than they are in the upper atmosphere.
I'm by far most familiar with processes that take place mostly in the troposphere. The description of the process in the New York Times article wasn't particularly satisfying to me. However, the mechanism described in the second article, which I've paraphrased in my comment, does make sense to me.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 26 2022, @02:58PM (9 children)
Less heating from lower atmosphere for starters.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dalek on Sunday June 26 2022, @03:31PM (7 children)
What mechanism are you proposing? Are you suggesting that the upper atmosphere cools because the heat is trapped in the lower atmosphere? If so, I don't think that mechanism works.
The Earth's heat budget is very nearly in balance. At any given time, the Earth radiates about as much heat to space as it receives from the sun. Even small imbalances in the heat budget for any significant length of time would rapidly heat or cool the Earth. This equilibrium is maintained regardless of the strength of the greenhouse effect.
Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations means that a greater proportion of the heat that gets radiated is absorbed in the atmosphere, resulting in warming. The Stefan-Boltzmann law [wikipedia.org] applies to blackbodies and states that hotter objects radiate more heat. Although the Earth isn't a blackbody, the Stefan-Boltzmann law is still a very good approximation for the Earth. The greenhouse effect traps heat in the atmosphere, warming it. The Stefan-Boltzmann law indicates that as the Earth warms, it also radiates more heat. The warming and increased radiation compensates for the higher proportion of radiated heat that gets trapped in the atmosphere. This restores the equilibrium between incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation.
As long as the amount of heat received from the sun doesn't change, the amount of heat radiated through the upper atmosphere out to space should remain the same regardless of the greenhouse effect in the lower atmosphere.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 27 2022, @12:15AM (6 children)
You're changing how much heat is received by that layer of atmosphere from the lower atmosphere.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dalek on Monday June 27 2022, @12:52AM (5 children)
Not really. The Earth is still receiving the same amount of heat from the sun. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will trap more heat that would otherwise escape to space as infrared radiation. The Earth warms up and radiates more heat upward until the same amount of heat is escaping upward through the atmosphere and into space. The upper atmosphere is so thin that it can't trap much heat, so any effect on the overall energy budget is pretty small compared to what's happening in the lower atmosphere. The lower atmosphere will warm enough such that it's radiating as much heat upward as it was with lower greenhouse gas concentrations.
Here is a more detailed discussion of the Earth's energy budget: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance [nasa.gov]. As the link correctly notes, the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation isn't restored instantaneously when more heat is trapped. There is a slight imbalance as the Earth warms, which is why the numbers shown for the incoming and outgoing radiation on energy budget diagrams [ucar.edu] isn't quite in balance. However, the imbalance on the diagram is only 0.6 W/m^2, which is roughly 0.18% of the total energy entering the system. It's not nearly enough to account for the cooling in the upper atmosphere. Over time, the Earth will warm enough to restore the balance, anyway.
Unless you're proposing some other mechanism that I'm not thinking of, I don't think what you're describing is correct.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 27 2022, @02:42AM (4 children)
Or would heat up the upper atmosphere on its way to space.
Except it wouldn't have warmed up in the first place, if it were radiating as much heat upward as it were before.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dalek on Monday June 27 2022, @05:04AM (3 children)
The upper atmosphere is so thin that it just isn't going to absorb a lot of infrared radiation that would otherwise escape to space. The upper atmosphere doesn't heat up much because it can't absorb a lot of the heat.
That's incorrect. I'll try to explain the relevant processes again.
The Earth is always very nearly in radiative balance, meaning it emits as much radiation to space as it receives from the sun. In the absence of any greenhouse effect and the current solar constant, the global average temperature would be around 255K or -18°C. In this scenario, 100% of the radiation from the surface of the Earth would escape to space. We know how much radiation the Earth should emit if it's in radiative balance and solve for the temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Instead, the global average temperature is around 288K, or 15°C. Because this is roughly 33°C warmer, it means the Earth will emit more radiation. However, some of that radiation gets trapped in the atmosphere because of the greenhouse effect. The portion of that radiation that is able to escape from the atmosphere into space will be equal to the amount of radiation that the Earth receives from the sun.
If you increase the greenhouse effect further, more heat will be trapped and a smaller portion of the heat will escape to space, warming the Earth even more. As the Earth warms, it emits more radiation, and some of that extra radiation will also escape to space. Eventually the Earth will heat up enough to restore the radiative balance.
If radiative balance was never restored, where would the extra energy go? The first law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. If it's not escaping from the Earth, it has to go somewhere. The scenario you describe would cause temperatures on Earth to continue increasing in perpetuity because radiative balance would never be restored. We know that doesn't happen. The warming stops once radiative balance has been restored.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 27 2022, @01:37PM (2 children)
The upper atmosphere is so thin it just doesn't need to.
In other words, the Earth indeed is radiating less heat to the upper atmosphere than it was before.
You already acknowledged the imbalance. It doesn't need to be a permanent effect in order to happen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dalek on Monday June 27 2022, @06:39PM (1 child)
The dominant mechanism for heating the thermosphere is the absorption of x-rays and ultraviolet light by molecular oxygen. This energy can be transferred to other gas molecules (e.g., molecular nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc...) when the molecules collide. Unlike the molecular oxygen and nitrogen, when carbon dioxide absorbs some of the energy in a collision, it radiates this energy much more rapidly. Because the atmosphere is so thin at this altitude, it's very unlikely that the energy that has been radiated will be absorbed by other greenhouse gases.
Any heat absorbed in the thermosphere due to the greenhouse effect is a drop in the bucket. It's a tiny contribution, just as the thermal expansion of the troposphere would make a very small contribution to increasing pressures in the thermosphere.
Temperatures in the thermosphere range from roughly 600K to 3,000K. The vast majority of that heat isn't from absorbing radiation that's been emitted by the surface or gas molecules in the lower atmosphere. It's from absorption of x-rays and ultraviolet light. When that energy gets transferred to carbon dioxide molecules, they radiate it faster than the molecular oxygen and molecular nitrogen. That's by far the dominant mechanism for cooling the thermosphere. If you had an equation for the heat budget of the thermosphere, the process you're describing is a small change (an imbalance in the neighborhood of 0.2%) of a term of the equation that's very small to begin with.
Now, a persistent imbalance of 0.2% in the energy budget can have large impacts on climate. An energy deficit of that magnitude is more than sufficient to cause something like the Little Ice Age. An energy surplus of that magnitude can melt ice sheets over a period of centuries. It's larger than the radiative imbalance needed to melt the Laurentide Ice Sheet and bring the Earth out of the last glacial maximum over a period of 10,000 years. But the effects of this imbalance are very small in the thermosphere compared to the dominant processes that affect that layer of the atmosphere.
And before anyone asks, here's a source for the radiative imbalance at the end of the last glacial maximum: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1905447116 [pnas.org].
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 28 2022, @11:30AM
(Score: 2) by drussell on Sunday June 26 2022, @05:23PM
I was surprised at the way the temperature went up and down at various altitudes when I watched the recent 2½h Tom Scott video of sending the garlic bread up to the edge of space via balloon.
I had naively always assumed that the air just got progressively colder as you went upwards, not that different layers were actually cooler and warmer as you ascend.
Surprisingly fascinating actually, in reality...
https://youtu.be/YKAblynZYhI [youtu.be] 2½ Hours of Unedited Garlic Bread Flight Footage
https://youtu.be/c8W-auqg024 [youtu.be] We Sent Garlic Bread to the Edge of Space, Then Ate It [5:24]
I laughed so hard when the styrofoam cooler thingy snapped shut on the way down, I wasn't expecting that at all! :)
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday June 26 2022, @06:26PM (1 child)
"ny times won't show me that article."
Try blocking javsscript at nytimes.com, also clean out cookies occasionally.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday June 26 2022, @06:31PM
....javascript...
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @06:24PM
As far as i can tell the argument goes thusly:
1) some scientist says we don't know everything about how an atmospheric process works.
2) This therefore means we don't know anything at all about the atmosphere, obviously.
3) If we don't know anything about how the atmosphere works AGW must be bunk.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by drussell on Sunday June 26 2022, @05:31PM
Since most posts seem to be off-topic regarding the satellite issue, I might as well chime in. I'd like to point out that while this solar cycle may be causing havoc with satellites, looks like it should be great for amateur radio. Should be able to get some good skip bouncing around, etc.
I think it's high time that I finally break down and get myself some sort of amateur radio transceiver rig, get my radio license and experiment around a bit...
Ham it up? :)
(Score: 2) by Deeo Kain on Monday June 27 2022, @11:52PM (1 child)
If solar winds slows down artificial satellites which then plummet into Earth, aren't planets too been slowed down with their orbits taking them ever closer to the Sun?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2022, @12:21AM
Since the slowing and decreasing orbit is due to increased atmospheric drag, the planets are safe - they don't orbit within the suns atmosphere. The moon should be safe for that matter as well - its well outside of our atmosphere. I don't know if we put any artificial satellites up high enough that they can avoid atmospheric drag though.