Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
method of assessing vegetation cover by taking background soil characteristics into
account.
Such approaches were important in planning the new Earth Observing System
(EOS) satellite launches, in particular the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-
diometer (MODIS) instruments launched by NASA (Justice and Townsend, 1994;
Running et al., 1994). The design of the MODIS (2008) 'products' shows a clear
commitment to delivering data that fi t into the ESS design criteria, as well as having
broader uses. There have been considerable technological inputs into improving the
collection and delivery of relevant datasets (e.g. Vetter et al., 1995; Arnavut and
Narumalani, 1996; Hyman, 1996; Wanner et al., 1997). NASA has an ongoing
commitment to the development of sensors and applications within the scope of
ESS (NASA, 2007; ESSAAC, 2008) at least up to 2025 (King and Birk, 2003).
Certainly, remote sensing is now routinely used in the parameterisation of general
circulation models (e.g. Feingold and Heymsfi eld, 1992; Webb et al., 2001; Suzuki
et al., 2004) that have informed studies of ongoing and potential future anthropic
climate change. The ESS linkage of climate and biogeochemistry is explicitly recog-
nised in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment (IPCC,
2007). While ESS has certainly played a role in facilitating these developments, it
could also be argued that the global scale of climate studies necessitates such a satel-
lite-based approach and so would have occurred (eventually) anyway.
One of the emphases in remote sensing science has been on developing new
'products'. Despite efforts to target a 'market' of ESS and other users, there often
tends to be too little integration across disciplinary barriers. The issue is probably
still largely a lack of communication from the two sides. This communication aspect
is a major issue for the mathematical modelling approach to ESS, which assumes
that all aspects of the Earth system are reducible to mathematical description. Many
'products' are still heavily empirical and highly calibrated, and the potential for
transferability from one context to another is still poorly understood. The market
metaphor is also quite literal in many cases. For example, while many of the MODIS
products are freely available, ASTER data produced from the same satellite platform
must be bought. The US approach to freedom of information has been useful in the
democratisation of data as suggested by the Dublin Agreement on access to envi-
ronmental information (INFOTERRA, 2000) and indeed the 'we, the people of the
World' pronouncement of the ESS Committee (1986). The use of complex models
parameterised from these data is not likely to be a broadly democratic process until
computer power increases signifi cantly, but at least data can be freely found to assess
changing global conditions. The same freedom of information can still not be said
of data funded by UK taxes, however.
Paydirt?
One success of the NASA blueprint for ESS was to bring a considerable level of
resource into the study of related phenomena. In particular, the US Global Change
Research Program (USGCRP) was introduced by President Reagan as a Presidential
Initiative starting from fi nancial year 1989 as a direct response to the NASA report,
although the introductory document for the programme suggests that the interven-
tion of environmental phenomena ('the discovery of the Antarctic “ozone hole” and
the 1988 North American drought') may have helped produce the decision (Com-
mittee on Earth Sciences, 1989, p. 1). The USGCRP was set up with three objectives:
'1. Establish an Integrated, Comprehensive Monitoring Program[me] for Earth
