With all due respect, you need to do better than worry about orbit precision. Do you know how long it takes our knowledge of an orbit to decay to the point we require new measurements to refine the multi-dimensional statistical models in the Kahlman filter?

Less than a week. That’s right, we need to recheck each satellite’s position using ground based RF antennas or ground based radars to re-align any on-board measurements (unless the bird is flying GPS receivers like Topex and Jason).

Every time you get data from the satellite you measure it’s orbit.

BTW, the Air Force tracks every object everyday, and NASA has access to the data as well.

If Spencer got bit he did not know what he was doing. A good scientists gets his payload data AND the s/c orbital data as a complete set.

What bit Spencer – if I recall correctly, is no one had once verified that the adjustments made to adjust for orbital precession (which moves the measurement time a bit each day) and when they put up Aqua they realized those were wrong.

The ERBE data is not downward looking but measuring the outbound radiation. And if you look at the direction of the line, a small change in orbit knowledge is not going to spin that sucker 180 degrees around and point it flat or down.

You can wait, I don’t need to. It’s a rocket scientist thing.

Fraction = a percent of the whole. Man-made CO2 is still represents the same fraction of the whole CO2 – according to the article.

There are serious questions about about how Lindzen and Choi used the satellite measurements.

See Chip Knappenberger’s discussion at http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/update-climate-sensitivity-estimates-heading-down-way-down/#more-5585

And more importantly see Roy Spencer at http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/11/some-comments-on-the-lindzen-and-choi-2009-feedback-study/

I await Roy’s verdict. He’s an expert on satellite measurements having been bitten by orbital decay early in his career.

He is questioning the use of the data, not the conclusion that CO2 is causing a lot less heating than the modellers assume which is what his research is finding.

George

The article says that the balance between ocean-absorbed and atmospheric increase has continued.

In other words, as the concentration of CO2 in the air has increased the concentration of CO2 in the oceans has increased in tandem. The concern had been that the oceans would slow down CO2 absorption.

Quoting from a quote embedded in your link:

“Note: It is not that the total atmospheric burden of CO2 has not been increasing over time, but that of the total CO2 released into the atmosphere each year by human activities, about 45% remains in the atmosphere while the other 55% is taken up by various natural processes—and these percentages have not changed during the past 150 years).”

(Don’t read so quickly!)