tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6718772691289114123.post6713422828096791901..comments2024-03-26T15:37:57.556-07:00Comments on Idiot Tracker: Idiotic idea of the week: mothballing DSCOVRTheTrackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10011829472333355911noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6718772691289114123.post-38736189383144701272010-03-23T21:40:04.643-07:002010-03-23T21:40:04.643-07:00Good points all. You don't want to build up an...Good points all. You don't want to build up any one instrument or experiment as the thing that will clear the cobwebs away and will give us all the answer -- that's not how science works.TheTrackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10011829472333355911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6718772691289114123.post-40560223515151641612010-03-21T21:39:33.548-07:002010-03-21T21:39:33.548-07:00I'm a longtime fan of Triana myself -- I like ...I'm a longtime fan of Triana myself -- I like to watch the planet, and the ISS pictures are fragmentary. I'm itching to see the Hubble movie just out, which will show us a bit from a higher point. But still, Triana's position is ideal for imaging the whole daytime planet. <br /><br />Those of us waiting for it are in good company (Robert Park has been talking about this for a long time, most recently March 12th, see<br />http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/). <br /><br />It's not the full answer, and we should be careful not to oversell it because even if it gets into place and is used, it doesn't provide all the information needed.<br /><br />Bob Park has a comment about one objection I'd never heard before: "The opposition to DSCOVR is based on the fact that the L1 is a retro-reflection (hotspot) point. And so it is, but DSCOVR will not be exactly at the L1 point. It will orbit the L1. In any case it is possible to analyze hotspot reflections."<br /><br />Triana isn't all we've needed; it wasn't designed with infrared band instruments, as was pointed out to me when I asked about it a while back:<br /><br />"Triana would have given you full-disk albedo, but would have done nothing for the infrared side of the budget. --Ray Pierrehumbert at RealClimate<br />http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=686#comment-131064<br /><br />I think it was Gavin at RC who also noted that for a complete infrared balance you need both an instrument on the sunlit side _and_ one on the night side.<br /><br />So it'd be a start. A start we could have made almost a decade ago. And yes, it would have answered a lot of the questions people did, or didn't, want answered by now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com