Collaborating for climate science
A new collaboration aimed at improving climate and weather prediction was launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) together with the US Naval Research Laboratory (USNRL), the Manila Observatory (MO), the Department of Science and Technology and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services (PAGASA).
The combined force examined how natural and man-made aerosols or airborne-particles can affect rain production as a means to make climate and weather prediction more accurate.
The airborne investigation Clouds, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes- Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) has 2 NASA aircraft flying over the Philippines- a P3 and a SPEC Learjet 35 with Filipino and American scientists onboard observing clouds and rain patterns.
On October 3, these scientists came to The Loft in Areté to discuss the importance of the investigation. The talk was organized by MO, Ateneo de Manila University and the US Embassy in the Philippines.
Dr. Hal Maring, CAMP2Ex Program Scientist and a Radiation Sciences Program Manager at NASA, said that the project—conceived 10 years ago—began as a discussion among NASA, USNRL and scientists from the Asia Pacific region. After years of sharing resources, it became clear to the group the need to come to the country to make measurements.
Dr. Jeffrey Reid, CAMP2Ex Mission Scientist and NRL research meteorologist added, “The Philippines is a wonderful boundary land because it’s a boundary between the polluted air masses of the Maritime continent [composed of Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sulawesi, the Philippines and other islands] and the Western Pacific; it’s where’s tropical cyclones form and enter into the region. From a science point of view, that’s where you want to be. You want to work with boundaries.”
The group reached out to MO, the first weather observatory in Asia set up by the Jesuits more than 100 years ago.
In one of their discussions, Dr. Gemma Narisma, MO’s Executive Director, noticed the inconsistency of running the climate models: “When we run climate models, the models are not capturing this rainfall patterns and magnitude well. We have to see whether we can improve these models because if these models are wrong in terms of looking at the past, how can we say that what they’re saying about the future is correct?”
The discussion had opened important lines of communications among experts in the sciences.
“I’m glad that we’re here to foster a culture of shared science because science is collective, a shared endeavor,” University President Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin, SJ said during the event. The project, after all, is a collaboration among 2 countries.
Speaking on behalf of the United States government, Philip Roskamp, US Embassy’s Public Affairs Counselor also stressed the importance of international collaboration.
“It demonstrates what our two countries can achieve together when we boost science and technology cooperation…This really was a partnership in every level. We need people with diverse set of experiences, driven by a shared goal to contribute to a global community.”
Once the field phase ends, the scientists will start to prepare the data, which Maring said will be uploaded on the NASA data archive for anyone to access. Data from the campaign can be used for comparison for at least 20-30 years, he noted.
“That has very practical applications as well. Anything from agriculture to architecture.If you’re building buildings you don’t think about 2 years, you think about 50 years because that’s a building’s lifetime.”
Watch the talk at Manila Observatory Facebook.
