Global Warming Felt By Space Junk, Satellites

Global Warming Felt By Space Junk, Satellites

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Rising carbon dioxide levels at the edge of space are apparently reducing the pull that Earth’s atmosphere has on satellites and space junk, researchers say. The findings suggest that manmade increases in carbon dioxide might be having effects on the Earth that are larger than expected, scientists added. In the layers of atmosphere closest to Earth, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the sun. Rising levels of carbon dioxide due to human activity are leading to global warming of Earth’s surface.

“We now have direct evidence that a major driver of upper atmospheric climate is changing,” study lead author John Emmert, an upper atmospheric physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com. This increase is 10 parts per million per decade faster than predicted by models of the upper atmosphere. The scientists detailed their findings online in the journal Nature Geoscience.