BOULDER - The National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) issued a report today on the scientific and societal value of NASA’s Earth science missions. The report emphasizes the challenges still ahead in understanding life on Earth and highlights urgent investment needs, including resumption of cancelled or delayed space missions as well as long-term investment in research and the technology to support it.

“What we don’t know about our own planet far exceeds what we do,” says Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Anthes co-chairs the NRC committee that produced Earth Science and Applications from Space: Urgent Needs and Applications to Serve the Nation. Berrien Moore III (University of New Hampshire) is the other chair.

In published comments on the release of the report, Anthes wrote:

Our ability to influence the Earth system means that we are active participants in the changing Earth rather than passive observers. The human influences may be relatively minor and benign for some time, or they might suddenly trigger great perturbations to our natural support systems, with devastating impacts on our lives and civilization. We can speculate about the likelihood of these two extremes and an infinite number of scenarios in between, but the fact is we just don’t know enough to say how Earth will evolve and how we must adjust to the inevitable changes.

Original press release: The Future of U.S. Earth Science Space Missions (NCAR)