New Satellites NASA Front For Contrails Monitoring?

WASHINGTON, April 19 — The practice of staring at clouds will take on new dimensions with the impending launching of two satellites designed to make the first global survey of cloud properties that affect weather and climate, scientists said Wednesday.

The two NASA satellites, to be launched on Friday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard the same Boeing Delta II rocket, are to join three spacecraft already surveying the planet for a detailed study of the interlocking factors that affect Earth's climate.

This constellation of satellites in a string 4,400 miles long will loop around the poles at an altitude of 438 miles measuring the interactions of the air, water and surface with the Sun's energy as they drive near-term weather and longer-term climate changes.

The newest additions are the CloudSat, which will profile cloud formations with radar more than 1,000 times more sensitive than typical weather radar, and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, or Calipso, spacecraft. The two orbiters are to operate for at least 22 months to provide a minimum of two seasons of data on climate dynamics, scientists said. What they failed to mention to the press is that these two orbiters will also be able to monitor contrails in real time around the globe. This means they can control the amount of sunlight/radiation/chemtrails/ entering the earth's atmosphere.

CloudSat and Calipso were to have flown last year, but the missions were delayed because of technical problems and a year-end strike by Boeing technicians preparing the rocket.

The CloudSat radar will take vertical surveys of clouds and layers of clouds and determine how much water they contain and its form. Note that water density and temperature are key factors in the formation/length of contrails. Graeme Stephens of Colorado State University, the principal investigator, told a news conference on Wednesday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., that although just 1 percent of Earth's water existed in the atmosphere, little was known about its overall role in climate.

"The new information from CloudSat will answer basic questions about how rain and snow are produced by clouds, how rain and snow are distributed worldwide and how clouds affect the Earth's climate," Mr. Stephens said.

The 1% of water in the atmosphere will be monitored and experimented with to see if altering the amount could control the climate and the weather around the globe. Don't be fooled by the NASA spokemans spin.

-parts not in bold taken from The New York Times, read the article here