400,000 March for Attetion to Global Warming in New York City

Earlier in the Sunday morning, People’s Climate March started with people lining up along 27 blocks on Central Park West, from 59th Street to 86th Street, in New York City. It was part of coordinated efforts, around the world from Hollywood, to London, Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro, that demand the governments and world leaders to take action on climate change.

It coincides with the United Nations Climate Summit that starts on Tuesday September 23, 2014. More than 120 world leaders will congregate in New York City to prepare a binding global climate treaty for the climate talks in Paris in December, 2014. The treaty aims at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing use of renewable energy. A similar effort failed in Copenhagen in 2009. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was among the marchers in New York. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the Climate Summit.

The featured postcard shows an illustration of the Cumulonimbus Hot Tower by Graeme Stephens in 2003. Cumulonimbus clouds are the kings of all clouds, rising from low altitude up to more than 12,000 meters or 40,000 feet. Tehy grow due to rising and falling currents, with their top flattening out into an anvil shape. Cumulonimbus clouds are a sure sign of severe weather, with heavy rain and possible hail. NASA has deployed Cloudsat, a mission using advanced radar technology to study clouds. It is part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program. Along with other programs in NASA's Earth Observing System, it helps further understanding of the climate change issues.

NASA's Earth Observing System in 41 Years

Useful Pursuit of Shadows

Fourty one years ago on July 23, 1972, Landsat 1, the first satellite of the NASA's Earth Observing program, was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Modified from the Nimbus 4 meteorological satellite, the near-polar orbiting satellite had been used as a stabilized, Earth-oriented platform for obtaining ground information for agricultural and forestry resources inventory, geologic survey and cartography, mineral resources exploration, hydrology and water resources studies, and environmental monitoring.

NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) has since grown into a coordinated series of polar-orbiting and low inclination satellites for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. Its current fleet includes Landsat 7, Landsat 8 and CloutSat.

Image by Jenny Mottar, NASA Headquarters

The postcard shows a painting, titled "Useful Pursuit of Shadows" by Graeme Stephens in 2003, that illustrates the CloudSat taking 3D radar images of clouds from Earth orbit. CloudSat was launched in April 2006 to measure how much liquid water and ice are in the clouds, at what altitudes, and how the clouds to reflect and absorb the Sun's energy.

CloudSat is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA 91109. However, a Google search would turn up its address as: La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011. A blog of LA Times explained why.