How Can Satellites Improve Earth’s Environment?

Image Source: infowars.com

Satellite technology is arguably the most important technology to contribute to the modern world. We already know satellites give us well known things like GPS, cell phones, and satellite television, but there is actually a lot more they do for our planet. Improving satellite technology may be the best step to take to combat things like climate change and deforestation. An article from NASA gives a few reasons how satellites can help do this.

1. Satellites, such as as the two GOES satellites that orbit near both costs of the United States, study weather patterns. Except they study much more extreme patterns such as hurricanes and tropical storms. They are responsible for tracking these disasters and deliver warnings so that we can evacuate the areas before the disasters happen.

2. Similar satellites like the  TOPEX satellites focus on the oceans. The oceans contain a lot of energy because of all the heat they absorb from the sun, so they have a large impact on weather. This specific satellite has tracked El Nino and it’s strange weather effects. Hopefully we will be able to understand this phenomena using this technology.

3. There are parts of the planet that are mostly unobservable without the use of satellite technology. Places such as the Rain Forests are able to be measured and recorded by satellites that are able to detect the amount of healthy vegetation left in the areas.

4. Similarly we are able to observe how agriculture is growing, or not growing, in certain farmland areas across the country, or world. This could be a very important factor in the upcoming drought that is planned to hit California this year.

5. Another area we can’t see is the polar ice caps. WIth all the issues going on with the melting it is important that we be able to regularly see what is going on in those areas. More advanced satellites give us that kind of insight to see that.

6. Besides just seeing visible light through pictures of our planet, we are also able to gain insight on climate change using satellites. Satellites are able to pick up changes in the ozone layer by detecting levels of ultraviolet and infrared light in certain areas of the world. Large amounts of these kinds of light show holes in the ozone layer.

Satellites can do a lot more for our planet than just provide its inhabitants with convenient forms of entertainment, communication, and location. They have a big impact on gathering data from our planet through eyes that we can’t normally see through. This is one of the many examples of how space technology is a very important thing to research and develop. Instead of using space to find an escape from our planet, we may be able to use it to save our planet.

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