Dec 23 2004
From The Space Library
The Russian Space Agency launched Progress-M 51/ISS-16P, an automatic cargo vehicle, on a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:19 p.m. (GMT). Progress-M 51, bound for the ISS, carried 2.75 tons (2,500 kilograms or 2.5 tonnes) of equipment, fuel, food, and water.720" "720Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 614, 1 January 2005, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx614.html (accessed 5 June 2009).
A NASA study revealed that clouds that form from small haze particles do not reduce Earth's temperatures as much as previous research had suggested. Scientists had thought that low-lying clouds cool Earth by reflecting sunlight away from the planet's surface, and that the reflectivity of clouds increases as their volume of water increases. However, NASA scientist Andrew S. Ackerman led a group of researchers who found that polluted, low-lying clouds neither hold more water nor reflect more solar energy than do cleaner clouds. Using measurements from polar-orbiting satellites and from NASA aircraft flying through clouds, the scientists discovered that water tends to decrease in polluted clouds, rather than to increase. Because most predictions of climate change had incorrectly assumed that polluted clouds counteract greenhouse warming, this finding could significantly influence how scientists predict changes in climate. (Andrew S. Ackerman et al., “The Impact of Humidity Above Stratiform Clouds on Indirect Aerosol Climate Forcing,” Nature 432, no. 7020 (23-30 December 2004): 1014-1017; NASA, “NASA Finds Polluted Clouds Hold Less Moisture and Cool Earth Less,” news release 04-404, 23 December 2004.
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