Earth Observations from Space: The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements

Dear Colleagues:

I would like to draw your attention to the following NRC report that has just been published.

"Earth Observations from Space: The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements"

This is a companion study to the famed Decadal study. The latter focuses on the next 10-30 years, the current one tries to convey the message that the first 50 years were marked by significant scientific accomplishments, many of which have transformed Earth Science but also transformed the way we live. Because the study was done in the short time span of less that 6 months (a year if one includes the writing, reviews and editing) and because of the size limitations on the report, the committee had to make many drastic choices about examples and topics to cover. You will see nothing about the ionosphere and magnetosphere, the geodynamo, plate tectonics, nor about many, many important subjects that might have been addressed quite legitimately in this study. You will also see relatively little discussion of societal impacts... although some such discussion was of course unavoidable -- based on reactions from Congressional staffers, this might be a very good focus for a future study.

Committee members and NRC staffers wrote almost all the material, based on presentations given to the committee during the Winter and Spring of 2007. he deserve all the credit for choosing topics and providing the terse discussion. This was a very rewarding study... fun, yet very difficult, because of the need for ruthless selections.

Please share this report with your colleagues by sending them to the following URL: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11991.html They can download the entire pdf for free once they provide their e-mail address.

I have also attached a 4-page summary, which you can use to tell your friends and colleagues about this report. If you would like to use any of this material in classes, I can provide you with some ppt files as well as animations that will be included in the DVD version of the report, which will incorporate a "navigable" version of the report, as an experimental format (for the NRC at least!)

Some of the this material might be used in classes at all levels. The Committee would be extremely pleased if that were to be the case!

Your comments will be certainly appreciated.

Regards to all,
Bernard

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Jean-Bernard Minster e-mail: jbminster@ucsd.edu
Professor of Geophysics Phone: (858)534-5650
Scripps Institution of Oceanography FAX: (858) 534-2902
University of California, San Diego WWW: http://igpp-sw.ucsd.edu/
IGPP (0225)
La Jolla, CA 92093