Space Research: Proceedings of the Open Meetings of the Working Groups on Physical Sciences of the Twenty-Second Plenary Meeting of COSPAR Bangalore, India 29 May – 9 June 1979

271 Pages·1980·17.829 MB·English

by  M.J. Rycroft (Eds.)

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THE COMMITTEE ON SPACE RESEARCH — COSPAR
and
THE INDIAN COMMITTEE FOR SPACE RESEARCH — INCOSPAR
THE INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION — ISRO
THE INDIAN NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMY — INSA
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the Working Groups on Physical Sciences
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COSPAR
SPACE RESEARCH
VOLUME XX
Proceedings of the Open Meetings of the Working Groups
on Physical Sciences
of the Twenty-second Plenary Meeting of COSPAR
Bangalore, India
29 May - 9 June 1979
Editor
M. J. RYCROFT
PERGAMON PRESS
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First edition 1980
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Space research.
Vol. 20: Proceedings of the open meetings of
the working groups on physical sciences of the
Twenty-second Plenary Meeting of COSPAR,
Bangalore, May-June 1979
1. Space sciences - Congresses
I. Rycroft, M J II. COSPAR. Plenary Meeting,
22nd, Bangalore, 1979
500.5 QB500 79-41359
ISBN 0-08-024437-8
In order to make this volume available as economically
and as rapidly as possible the authors' typescripts have
been reproduced in their original forms. This method
unfortunately has its typographical limitations but it is
hoped that they in no way distract the reader.
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co., Ltd., Exeter
PREFACE
Aryabhata, Bhaskara, C ?
Given above are the names of the first two Indian satellites. A , a scientific
satellite, was put into orbit by a Soviet rocket launcher on 19 April 1975-
B was similarly launched on 7 June 1979 > during the Twenty-second Plenary
Meeting of COSPAR which was held in Bangalore, India. Being a remote sensing
satellite, its aims were to study both meteorology and natural resources, these
ranging from soil and land use to melting snow. C could well be an
experimental communications satellite, planned for launching by the European Space
Agency in 1980.
The attractive city of Bangalore, where the Indian Space Research Organization has
its headquarters, was host to nearly five hundred participants in the 1979 COSPAR
Meeting. This volume of Space Research contains the welcoming address and some of
the papers that were presented at the Scientific Sessions of the Working Groups
concerned with the Physical Sciences. The papers are grouped into four main
sections, as follows:-
The Earth's Neutral Atmosphere
The Earthfs Plasma Envelope
Planetary Science
Astronomy
Papers on Life Sciences are published in a companion volume. Papers given at the
five Symposia held on the same occasion are published in the Advances in Space
Exploration series. The topics of these Symposia are:-
Space and Development
Non-Solar Gamma-Rays
Low Latitude Aeronomical Processes
Contribution of Space Observations to Water Resources Studies and the
Management of these Resources
Remote Sensing and Mineral Exploration
Jfy task in editing this volume, the tenth with which I have been associated in this
capacity - first partially and then totally, has been aided by virtue of the
advice that I have received from the Session Chairmen and Reporters. I am most
grateful to Mrs Maria Mutafchieva and her army of beautiful, sari-robed assistants
xi
xii Preface
for their smooth running of the Editorial Office. Also I thank Mr Roy Strange,
Miss Joyce Denby and many others at Pergamon Press for their help, particularly
producing this volume rapidly. Finally, my thanks go to Mr Z. Niemirowicz,
Executive Secretary of COSPAR, to members of the COSPAR Secretariat and to all
colleagues in Space Science, for the many ways in which they assist me.
Michael J. Rycroft
Scientific Editor
ADDRESS OF WELCOME
Yash Pal
Director, Space Applications Centre,
ISRO, Ahmedabad, India
I welcome you to this Twenty-Second Plenary meeting of COSPAR, on behalf of the
Indian National Committee for Space Research and its Chairman, Professor Satish
Dhawan, and on behalf of the space scientists of India. It is the first time
that COSPAR has met in this country; we are grateful to the COSPAR community for
accepting our invitation.
Space Science is a "set" which has come to encompass a great many disciplines
and many breeds of men. By providing an umbrella for many of them COSPAR is
encouraging a synthesis which is very essential to intellectual enquiry and
human development. To most people, space means rockets, man on the moon,
journeys to the planets and rendezvous of satellites. It also means
inter-continental missiles, multiple war-heads, anti-satellite weapons and
surveillance vehicles. This latter sub-set is not represented in COSPAR meetings.
For many of us here, space provides an enhanced capability to tackle many
questions about how the Universe is put together, about what makes it tick, what
are the messages that come to us from various violent and non-violent happenings
in stars or galaxies, and from both the space and the matter between them. We
witness events now which are similar to those which must have occurred when the
Sun and the Earth began, and others which tell us how our personal sun might die
or fade away billions of years from now. Living on this speck of moist dust that
we call Earth we search with great inquisitiveness, and perhaps with some
humility, for meaning and method in the great tapestry of the Universe. In doing
all this, we use, with great success, the natural laws and rules of the game
discovered here on Earth through centuries of experimentation and theory making.
Though scales and circumstances may be different, most of our physics seems to
work; however, there are tantalizing possibilities that completely unfamiliar
scales and circumstances might reveal some basic traits of nature which remain
hidden in our run-of-the-mill environment.
I suggest that this part of space activity has great relevance for developing a
new ethos and ethics for all humanity. This is an activity which joins us to our
very origins - possibly illuminating the processes through which life began. It
could lead to a new awareness of our place in the scheme of things, including the
triviality of our differences as seen against this large scale panorama.
Perhaps it even leads to a new type of religiosity based, not on revelation, but
on some sort of an Einsteinian god, where a close kinship between all men and
between man and his environment becomes a self-evident truth.
xiii
xiv Yash Pal
Taboos and rules of public behaviour then become more like traffic regulations to
avoid collisions on the highway, rather than arbitrary constraints, without
reason or justification. Of course, one does not have to become a crass
rationalist, disowning one's cultural heritage, because the past is also a part
of the whole, being imprinted on our memory discs or encoded in our genes.
There is yet another breed of space scientists here. They are the ones who are
engaged in developing systems and techniques for addressing some of the important
practical problems of today and tomorrow. Space platforms provide us with a
unique capability of seeing, and interacting with, large parts of earth
s imul taneously.
Through space communication, we develop a new concept of neighbourhoods, which is
independent of distance or physical location. To a country like India, it
provides a means of reaching, and being reached by, people who have been
neglected during the normal process of industrialisation. The possibilities of
using this enhanced capability are enormous - decentralised industrial growth,
programmes in formal and non-formal education, support to activities in
agriculture and family welfare, and programmes of national integration. Indeed we
have already conducted a massive experiment in this area with great success.
When we view large parts of the Earth with space-borne sensors, we see not only
things and features but also their inter-relationships. Many of the discussions
at this meeting, and its specialised symposia, are connected with applications of
remote sensing to hydrology, meteorology and mineral resources. Three of the
major* symposia are related to these very practical problems.
The major thrust of the Indian Space Programme is in the area of practical
applications for development - indeed we believe that space technology was
specially invented for us. But as we work in this area we also find that recipes
are not enough, that we have to get intimately involved not only in scientific
and technical innovations but also in human and managerial aspects, and that the
ultimate configuration of our programme is substantially dependent on these
human considerations. This special mix, consisting of a deep curiosity about how
the Universe is put together, the technological development to address our own
special problems, and a concern for the quality and character of applications, has
come to us in large measure from the founder of our programme, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai.
PRELIMINARY SATELLITE RADIATION
CLIMATOLOGY FOR THE MONEX REGION
P. Krishna Rao
National Environmental Satellite Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, Washington, D.C. 20233, U.S.A.
ABSTRACT
Earth-atmosphere radiation budget data derived from the scanning radiometers on
board the NOAA polar orbiting operational satellites were produced for the period
June 1974 - March 1978. Monthly averages of satellite derived albedo and outgoing
radiation for the monsoon periods (June - September) for 1974 through 1977 are
examined. These data clearly indicate that the monsoon was very active during
1975, compared with the other three years. For the first time, preliminary clima-
tological maps of various radiation budget parameters for this region have been
developed.
INTRODUCTION
Earth orbiting satellites have the unique capability of providing measurements of
the absorbed solar radiation and emitted terrestrial radiation. In this study,
measurements from the two-channel scanning radiometer on board NOAA operational
satellites were used for the period June 1974 - September 1977, to determine com-
ponents of the earth-atmosphere radiation budget over the MONEX region (20°S -
40°N and 20°E - 110°E). These components are the emitted longwave radiation and
the reflected solar radiation observed daily, these in turn are summed into
monthly averages.
The NOAA satellites cross the equator at 0900 and 2100 L.T.; thus the albedo and
absorbed solar radiation values correspond to only morning observations. However,
the emitted longwave radiation is an average of the day and night observations.
The emitted longwave radiation is derived by utilizing the narrow spectral infra-
red channel measurements and by applying an atmospheric attenuation correction.
The albedo was derived by assuming diffuse reflection for the visible channel.
These derived radiation values are archived daily on a polar stereographic pro-
jection for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres]-2
INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA
Outgoing Longwave Radiation
The main features of the satellite observed monsoon climatology are shown in
Figures 1-4. Since there is a major impact of the monsoon circulation on
cloudiness, it is distinctly shown in the outgoing longwave radiation field (as
3
4 P. Krishna Rao
low values) and also in the reflected solar radiation field (albedo). Low values
of outgoing longwave radiation over the oceanic areas and over the tropical land
masses generally represent middle, high and/or thick clouds. Similarly high
values of reflected solar radiation (over oceans) correspond to thick clouds. The
shaded regions in Figs. 1 and 2, where the outgoing radiation is less than 250Wm~2,
can be considered to show the major cloudiness areas in tropical regions. Fig. 1,
for the month of June for the four years, shows that the monsoon circulation was
active in the southern part of India during 1974, 1975 and 1977 and relatively
weak in 1976. In July and August the monsoon was active over most of India for
all the four years. Major differences in the cloudiness can be noticed during
September (Fig. 2) between 1974, 1975 (active) and 1976, 1977 (less active).
Also, the relatively low values in 1975 indicate thick and higher clouds repre-
senting more intense activity. The high values of the outgoing longwave radiation
represent relatively cloud-free regions (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Northern part of
Arabian Sea).
Reflected Shortwave Radiation
The reflected solar radiation (albedo) fields are shown in Figs. 3 and 4. The
shaded areas represent albedo values greater than 30 percent, and generally cor-
respond to cloudy regions over the tropical oceans. The high values over Saudi
Arabia and North Africa represent highly reflecting desert areas. Fig. 3 shows
that there was extensive monsoon cloudiness over much of Southern India and South-
east Asia during 1974, 1975 and 1977. However, in 1976 the albedo distribution
over Southern India indicates that the monsoon circulation was weak; this cor-
responds well with outgoing longwave radiation values for June 1976 shown in
Fig. 1. In July and August the albedo fields also show that the monsoon was
active in each of the four years. Fig. 4 shows some differences between the
September months, and it is possible to infer that in 1974 and 1975 the monsoon
was active relative to 1976 and 1977, which again agrees with the outgoing long-
wave radiation fields shown in Fig. 2.
CONCLUSIONS
The radiation budget components shown in the figures undergo significant changes
from month to month and vary with latitude during the course of an annual cycle.
The net heating surpluses over major parts of the monsoon region and the deficits
in adjacent regions should be carefully examined to understand the transport of
heat.
The same satellite data were utilized by Winston and Krueger'-4-^ to show the evol-
ution of the monsoon over India and some year-to-year differences. The satellite
derived radiation maps shown in Figs. 1-4 provide a unique view of large scale
monsoon circulation and its changes. From these data it is possible to conclude
that the monsoon was very active during 1975 compared to the years 1974, 1976 and
1977. It is also possible to infer that the monsoon circulation was weak in June
1976 compared to the other three years, and that in September 1976 and 1977 the
monsoon was relatively weak compared to 1974 and 1975. The conventional meteor-
ological records examined substantiate these conclusions.
The differences in the radiation fields are attributed to the cloudiness distri-
bution associated with the monsoon circulation and in turn to the strength of the
monsoon activity. These radiation budget parameters should be combined with
other circulation features to have a full understanding of the summer monsoon
circulation.
Preliminary Satellite Radiation 5
REFERENCES
1. Gruber, A., 1978: "Determination of the Earth-Atmosphere Radiation Budget
from the NOAA Satellite Data," NOAA Technical Report NESS 76, National Environ-
mental Satellite Service, NOAA, Department of Commerce, p. 28.
2. Gruber, A., and Winston, J. S., 1978: "Earth-Atmosphere Radiative Heating
Based on NOAA Scanning Radiometer Measurements," Bulletin of the Amer. Met.
Soc., Vol. 59, No. 12, 1570 - 1573.
3. Winston, J. S., 1978, "Earth-Atmosphere Radiative Heating Based on NOAA
Scanning Radiometer Measurements: Review of a Four Year Record," Proceedings
of the Third Conference on Atmospheric Radiation, Davis, Calif., June 28-30,
1978, 158 - 161.
4. Winston, J. S., and Krueger, A. F., 1977, "Diagnosis of the Satellite-Observed
Radiative Heating in Relation to the Summer Monsoon," Pure and Applied Geo-
physics, Vol. 115, 1131 - 1144.