Honorable Mention, 2008 ASLI Choice Awards. Atmospheric Science
Librarians International
This book offers an informed and revealing account of NASA's involvement
in the scientific understanding of the Earth's atmosphere.
Since the nineteenth century, scientists have attempted to understand
the complex processes of the Earth's atmosphere and the weather created
within it. This effort has evolved with the development of new
technologies--from the first instrument-equipped weather balloons to
multibillion-dollar meteorological satellite and planetary science
programs.
Erik M. Conway chronicles the history of atmospheric science at NASA,
tracing the story from its beginnings in 1958, the International
Geophysical Year, through to the present, focusing on NASA's programs
and research in meteorology, stratospheric ozone depletion, and
planetary climates and global warming. But the story is not only a
scientific one. NASA's researchers operated within an often politically
contentious environment. Although environmental issues garnered strong
public and political support in the 1970s, the following decades saw
increased opposition to environmentalism as a threat to free market
capitalism.
Atmospheric Science at NASA critically examines this politically
controversial science, dissecting the often convoluted roles, motives,
and relationships of the various institutional actors involved--among
them NASA, congressional appropriation committees, government weather
and climate bureaus, and the military.