Sixty four years ago, on this day, April 1st, 1960, a weather satellite started being like the wheels on the bus (i.e. going round and round).
On 1 April 1960, the USA launched its first meteorological satellite, TIROS 1. It was a remarkable experience for people to be able to view the earth and its atmosphere from the outside. The bluish colour of our planet fascinated observers and a number of well-known features of the circulation of the atmosphere became visible through the cloud formations that they create.
(Bolin, 2007) Page 19
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 316.9ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that we’d been talking about putting satellites into space for 100 years. And that had finally happened in September 1957 with Sputnik. The Americans had some failures but were now on the path
Tiros 1 was a weather satellite. And how sad that Johnny von Neumann wasn’t alive to see it. A shame.
What we learn from this is being able to really see and measure the world from above had an enormous impact on not just weather forecasting, but also just thinking about how the systems worked. (See Paul Edwards’ A Vast Machine).
What happened next? A lot more satellites, a lot bigger computers, a lot better picture and precisely zero meaningful action. On the problem we identified.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Edwards, P. 2010 A Vast Machine. MIT PRess
Also on this day:
April 1, 1979 – JASONs have their two cents on the greenhouse effect
April 1, 2001 – John Howard sucks up to George Bush on climate wrecking