Using Spy Satellites to Gain New Insight into Climate Change in the Arctic and Elsewhere
05.01.2010 - Logistics, Atmosphere & Space, Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow
As recently reported in the New York Times, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has in the past year restarted a program in which the assets the US government uses to gather intelligence, which includes spy satellites and classified sensors, are made available to scientists so they can gain a greater understanding of environmental changes taking place, especially in remote areas of the planet experiencing dramatic climate change such as the Arctic.
The program, initially dubbed MEDEA (Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis), has been using declassified images of Arctic sea ice taken by reconnaissance satellites to make observations scientists would otherwise not have access to. These observations can be made with a regularity that makes it possible to reveal the dynamics of environmental change, according to Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and member of the monitoring team.
For example, declassified data and imagery has been helping scientists differentiate between an ordinary summer melt and overall climate trends in the ice. And according to Dr. Norbert Untersteinen, a University of Washington professor participating in the project, it may even be possible to one day make ice forecasts with the new insights they are gaining. As the Arctic is highly sensitive to climate change, changes there can augur things to come elsewhere on the planet.
The US National Research Council (NRC) highlighted the importance of the monitoring project in our understanding of climate change in a report released in July 2009, which stated that “there are no other data available that show the melting and freezing processes” in the Arctic. The report recommended that satellites be used to follow certain ice floes as they drift through the Arctic basin, an action the US federal government has taken.
Some declassified images have been posted online on the Global Fiducials Library, part of the US Geological Survey (USGS) website, which acts as an archive of images of scientifically important sites taken by the intelligence community. These include images from six sites in the Arctic, including the Fram Strait.
The program has the strong backing of CIA director Leon E. Panetta, who, according to CIA spokeswoman Paula Weiss, “believes it is crucial to examine the potential national security implications of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels and population shifts.” The program costs parctically nothing and puts to use of satellites and other observation equiment that could otherwise sit idle for long periods of time.
MEDEA initially ran between 1992 and 2001 before it was discontinued by the Bush Administration. It was restarted under the Obama Administration.
