Outstanding Science Writing about Gravity and Climate from Germany — This Is the Way Science Communications Ought to Be Done in the United States

© 2012 Peter Free

 

17 March 2012

 

 

Good science writing requires a combination of clear thinking and the determination to clearly express its results

 

I am often irritated with the incoherent and scientifically uninformative (dumbed down) character of much of American media’s science communications.

 

Yesterday, I stumbled across a sample of how lay science communication should be done.  It comes from the GFZ German Research Centre for the Geosciences at the Hemholtz Centre in Potsdam.

 

The article thoroughly explains how the two satellites that comprise the joint German-American GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) gather their data and how we use it.

 

The lead paragraph first hooks readers’ interest:

 

For the first time, the melting of glaciers in Greenland could now be measured with high accuracy from space.

 

Just in time for the tenth anniversary of the twin satellites GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) a sharp image has surface, which also renders the spatial distribution of the glacial melt more precisely.

 

The Greenland ice shield had to cope with up to 240 gigatons of mass loss between 2002 and 2011. This corresponds to a sea level rise of about 0.7 mm per year.

 

These statements were made possible by the high-precision measurements of the GRACE mission, whose data records result in a hitherto unequaled accurate picture of the earth's gravity.

 

© 2012 GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Gravity is climate: Ten years of climate research satellites GRACE , Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (17 March 2012) (paragraph split)

 

 

Then the article goes on to become the most concisely complete overview of GRACE exploration that I have read

 

Most official American sources casually scatter information about GRACE across multiple pages at each website.  It is as if no one could be bothered to take the time to present a coherent synopsis of the mission to the American public.

 

In contrast — after first hooking our interest and explaining exactly “who” cooperated to create and run GRACE — the German blurb goes on to explain the science underlying the program:

 

The primary scientific goal of the GRACE satellite mission is to measure the gravitational field of the earth and its changes over time on a global scale with unprecedented accuracy.

 

If the earth were a homogeneous sphere, the two satellites would orbit at exact elliptical orbits around the Earth. But the uneven distribution of mass causes perturbations in the trajectory.

 

"Their analysis allows us to derive the irregular structure of the Earth's gravity," explains Dr. Frank Flechtner.

 

“This, however, requires the satellites' orbits to be measured with high precision. Each of the two GRACE satellites is therefore equipped with a GPS receiver for positioning, an accelerometer to correct for disturbing forces due to the residual atmosphere and solar radiation, and two star trackers to determine the satellites' position in space.”

 

But the core is the ultra-precise distance measurement system developed by NASA / JPL, which allows the separation of the two satellites to be continuously measured with a precision of one tenth of a hair's breadth.

 

From the varying distance between the two satellites, GFZ scientists can determine the gravitational field of the earth.

 

Approximately every 30 days, the satellite pair has collected enough data for a complete global map.

 

This monthly survey of gravity is at least 100 times more accurate than any previous model, and thus invaluable for the research at the GFZ and the international user community.

 

"Many processes in the climate of our planet are accompanied by large-scale water mass redistributions, which are made visible in the gravitational field," adds Flechtner.

 

This enabled, as the name of the mission suggests, the first observation and analysis of homogeneous and globally numerous climate-related processes from the monthly gravity field models over the last 10 years.

 

Particularly worth mentioning are:

 

The mass balance study of the continental water content, which is ultimately a sum of precipitation, evaporation, runoff and storage. GRACE monitors the season-dependent changes in the major river basins, but also the huge groundwater extraction due to irrigation in northern India and California.

 

Quantification of the increase or decrease of the ice and snow masses in the polar or large glacier areas. GFZ scientists were able to demonstrate a strong correlation between the climatic phenomenon ENSO / La Nina, the rainfall patterns in West Antarctica and the reduction of ice mass there.

 

The observation of surface and deep currents, which - in combination with the sea surface topography derived from satellite altimetry – brought about a much better understanding of the global ocean circulation and thus the heat transport from the equator toward the poles.

 

The first-time possibility of separation of mass (ice melt) or temperature (global warming) induced sea level changes.

 

The changes in the solid earth after large earthquakes, such as Sumatra-Andaman (2004), Chile (2010) and Fukushima (2011).

 

© 2012 GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Gravity is climate: Ten years of climate research satellites GRACE , Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (17 March 2012) (paragraphs split and reformatted)

 

Contrast this bit of writing excellence with the uninformative introductory pap that the University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research put up regarding its contribution to GRACE, here.

 

 

The moral? — If you assume your readers are both ignorant and dumb, you will make (or keep) them that way

 

Good science writing should light up the curiosity centers of the kids who still live inside us.

 

The GFZ German Research Centre’s explanation of GRACE is a good example of how to do this.