five years of sporting events but today
one of the Goodyear airships is also
hidden science the perspective they need
to study an important final related
problem aboard the blank column
long beach california after Denise
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory works
with a sophisticated instrument
the device measures ocean surface
temperatures present a weather
satellites equipped with similar sensors
are used to measure heat radiated by the
sea but satellites don't detect these
temperature signals until they have
traveled through the Earth's atmosphere
dr. pagan believes that water vapor in
the air close to the ocean surface
distorts these satellite readings a
better understanding of this problem
will improve the prediction of climate
change and blow away the radiometer
being used in the study shown here at
the NASA lab being prepared for a blimp
flight is essentially a three foot tall
infrared telescope the device can detect
a temperature change as small as two
thousandth of a degree dr. Hagan
explained if you took a block of ice and
threw it into your standard backyard
size swimming pool and distributed the
ice uniformly it would cause a change in
temperature to thousands of a degree and
that's the precision of our instrument a
blink is the ideal way to fly
because it moves slowly and fly close to
the surface
vibration free during a measurement
fight a gold-plated mirror suspended
outside the airship
readings are taken at a range of
altitude 200 to 3,000 feet while dr.
Hagan works aboard the airship other
members of her team the ocean
temperature readings from approp below
highly instrumented boy is the partner
area where the blimp in the center these
measures
later compared with those gathered by
the airborne way
transmitted back to earth by the weather
satellites this is done at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in la jolla
california
although she's just in the early stages
of her investigation dr. Higgins
expectations are high if we can improve
our understanding of the mechanism that
controls the behavior of water vapor and
how it absorbs radiation at the surface
then I think we will have made our
finest contribution nasa's infrared
radiometer steps
our climate