"Early Results from EOS Terra"
Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from Mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. After the launch in Dec. 18, 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite (EOS-Terra) repeats Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering a wide array of calibrated spectral observations from space of the Earth System. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-Terra, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, fills a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution smaller than 1 km on the physical, chemical, and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-Terra is expected to revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment. In the talk I shall review the historical perspective of the Terra mission and the key new elements of the mission. I shall present first images that demonstrate the most innovative capability from EOS Terra - water vapor and haze over the Indian Sub-continent, Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, cloud studies, global spectral land cover including North America views, chlorophyll fluorescence, multi-angle views of clouds and vegetation, global CO maps, stereo multispectral vision with 15-90 m resolution of Mount Fuji and San Francisco.