Planet Earth : The View from Space / D. James Baker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baker, D. James, author.

Series:

Frontiers of Space

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Astronautics in astronomy.

Earth (Planet).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (209 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color)

Edition:

Reprint 2014

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Intense heat and drought in the summer of 1988...greenhouse warming...acid rain...the ozone hole...rain forest destruction...Hurricane Hugo: "The Endangered Earth" is making headlines around the world, and we are aware as never before of the fragility of the global environment and our own vulnerability to climate change. Yet, despite the technological advances of the last three decades, our knowledge of how the Earth's systems work and interact remains incomplete at best. To determine environmental policies for the future, we need more information and better global climate models. In Planet Earth D. James Baker provides a concise, up-to-date overview of the ongoing international research efforts that will improve our ability to predict global climate change. In straightforward terms, Baker describes remote sensing from space. He reviews extant spacebased satellites and their instruments and describes the areas in which operational and research missions are gathering ever-increasing data--on Earth-sun interaction, land vegetation patterns, ocean color, temperature, the atmosphere, the ice sheets of the polar regions, the shape and motion of the Earth's crust, the Earth's gravity field--which fill in gaps in our knowledge even as they raise new questions about critical global processes. In view of these questions and the subsequent need for more accurate global models, the satellite networks being planned for the 1990s will require state-of-the-art instrumentation, a new generation of supercomputers, and a high level of international cooperation if they are to succeed. Baker focuses on the United States initiative, Mission to Planet Earth, a long range attempt to study the planet as a whole using polar-orbiting, geostationary, and special orbit satellites coupled with a network of ground stations. In the concluding chapter, the author looks to the next century and examines the difficult long-term problems-of national security, technology transfer, data dissemination, cost, international coordination--that could undermine the achievement of the global operational system he proposes. Planet Earth is a timely, well-illustrated introduction to Earth-observing satellite technology for the nonspecialist and specialist alike. It distills complex information that is otherwise available only in the technical literature. For those who follow space research, it will prove an indispensable guide.

Contents:

Frontmatter

FOREWORD BY HERBERT FRIEDMAN

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 PLANET EARTH AND GLOBAL CHANGE

2 HOW REMOTE SENSING WORKS

3 THE PRESENT CONSTELLATION OF SPACE-BASED SYSTEMS

4 FILLING THE GAPS IN THE 1990s

5 MISSION TO PLANET EARTH

6 PREPARING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

REFERENCES

GLOSSARY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-674-18804-7

OCLC:

1013936534