Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
climate research: radiation budget modeling, general circulation model-
ing, the study of weather and climate control, and the CO
2
question. Each
avenue of inquiry benefited from the peculiar human and technological
resources of the new institution, and concern over atmospheric CO
2
and
climate change at NCAR grew with the institution itself.
Work on climate at NCAR began with modeling. Scientists continued
to search for a more complete model of the atmosphere, and that model
began with energy— or, more precisely, with energy budget models (mathe-
matical descriptions of the flow of energy from the sun, typically including
the distribution and flux of particle energy, short- and long-wave radia-
tion, and heat exchanges between the atmosphere and the earth's surface
through an otherwise static atmosphere). As atmospheric scientists knew,
these radiation models severely complicated existing models of atmo-
spheric circulation.
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To effectively incorporate radiation equations into
general circulation models, atmospheric scientists needed more informa-
tion on worldwide sources and sinks of solar energy. Fortunately, as the
Blue Book pointed out, “the imminent advent of meteorological satellites
will place in the hands of the atmospheric scientist a new and remarkably
powerful tool for viewing the heat balance problem in its global entirety.”
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Another new Cold War institution, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA, created in 1958), was already hard at work on these
satellites.
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NCAR's scientists sought to reap the benefits of the new data.
This was not purely science for its own sake. To atmospheric scientists
and their government sponsors, fundamental knowledge of the earth's
energy budget was the keystone of efforts to control atmospheric processes;
and as Lyndon Johnson's support for weather-modification research under-
scored, controlling atmospheric processes appealed to a broad domestic
constituency. The Blue Book stated the case plainly: “The physical linkage
between the heat budget and the general circulation of the atmosphere is
such a close one that any hope of effective climate control is likely to lie in
alteration of some aspect of the heat budget.”
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An increase in CO
2
was one thing that scientists thought might alter
the heat budget. If the Blue Book expressed atmospheric scientists' opti-
mism about the possibilities of eventually controlling the climate, it also
revealed the seeds of concern about unintentional climate modification,
and CO
2
stood out as a potential cause for concern. Atmospheric scientists
identified atmospheric CO
2
as one of several poorly understood physical
