4Remote Sensing of the Ocean

ust by looking at images of the Earth from space, it’s clear that the ocean is a significant piece of the Earth’s story. In fact, the global oceans represent more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and are the primary driver of weather and climate. When you open the daily newspa-per or a weekly news magazine, you can frequently witness the harmful impact of the physical forces of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, and their profound eco-nomic and societal implications. The more societies become dependent on resources and products from widely sep-arated regions, the more an event that produces local devastation, such as Hurricane Katrina, most recently, also leads to disruptions across the globe. There is never enough predictive ability and sufficient advance notice, or govern-mental capabilities, to protect all indi-viduals and property from harm. The catastrophic hurricane season of 2005 demonstrates the value of spaceborne sensors that observe atmospheric and oceanic processes to predict natural dis-asters. This demonstration indicates the urgency to both extend these capabili-ties and to improve management of our land-based facilities. Although scientific consensus indicates that these current events are part of a climatic cycle, this unusual hurricane season accentuates concerns regarding the impending effects of human activities that are caus-ing environmental changes at an acceler-ating rate