TORONTO, October 19, 2001 -- One of Canada’s major contributions to international space research, the Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII), and its inventors and operators at York University, are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year as part of NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) project.
Scientists around the world are lobbying NASA to postpone its planned shutdown of UARS this year, to prevent a break in data collection that is crucial to our understanding of the ozone layer and the effect of greenhouse gases. The UARS was launched in 1991, carrying the WINDII and other instruments, and has been the most successful atmospheric research satellite mission to date, lasting far beyond its original 18-month mission. WINDII scientists from Canada, France and the United States will gather at the Radisson Hotel in Niagara Falls Ontario, Oct. 22-24, to discuss the research and assess the future of the project.
The WINDII was conceived by York University Professor Gordon Shepherd, and designed and built by EMS Technologies and GSI Lumonics in Ottawa, under contract to the Canadian Space Agency and the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales. It has been instrumental in reshaping the way scientists study the composition of the atmosphere, and how movement in the atmosphere affects the oxygen layer. It measures the speed and chemical composition of winds at high altitudes, and maps how they circle the globe. Several new satellites doing similar work will be launched between now and 2003, and scientists are urging NASA to keep UARS in space until they have had time to compare the accuracy of the new data with the old.
"The WINDII is one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built in Canada and has taught us to study the atmosphere as a whole, rather than in layers" said Shepherd, a Distinguished Research Professor and director of the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Science, the operation centre for WINDII, in York's Faculty of Pure and Applied Science.
Before the UARS launch, scientists believed there was a uniform layer of atmospheric glow or "airglow" around the Earth, extending upwards from 80 km above the surface. The early WINDII data showed the layer was broken near the equator, with emissions sometimes at altitudes far below normal, and previously deemed impossible. Dr. Charles McLandress, then at York University, plotted the emissions in local time and showed them brightening and descending to low altitudes in the evening hours, an effect of tides in the atmosphere driven by the heat of the sun. "We could see the tides in the wind data, and understood that they were having an enormous influence on the atomic oxygen distribution, which is responsible for airglow," said Shepherd.
In addition to the advanced weather and ozone forecasting made possible by WINDII data, space shuttles re-entering through this region of the atmosphere now have a better picture of the wind and chemical patterns they are passing through. The scientists are hopeful the UARS project will be extended to overlap with the next satellite launch, to prevent an interruption of this vital research.
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For further information, please contact:
| Dr. Gordon Shepherd | Susan Bigelow |
| Director, CRESS | Media Relations |
| York University | York University |
| 416-736-5247 | 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 |
| Radisson Hotel in Niagara Falls: 905-356-1944 |
sbigelow@yorku.ca |
| gordon@windii.yorku.ca |
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