Nimbus program

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The Nimbus

Over a 20-year period from the launch of the first satellite, the Nimbus series of missions was the United States' primary research and development platform for satellite remote sensing of the Earth. The seven Nimbus satellites, launched over a fourteen-year period, shared their space-based observations of the planet for thirty years. NASA transferred the technology tested and refined by the Nimbus missions to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for its operational satellite instruments. The technology and lessons learned from the Nimbus missions are the heritage of most of the Earth-observing satellites NASA and NOAA have launched over the past three decades.^[1]

Contributions

Weather forecasting

At the time of its launch, the idea that intangible properties such as

Even before the Nimbus satellites began collecting their observations of Earth's ozone layer, scientists had some understanding of the processes that maintained or destroyed it. They were pretty sure^{[citation needed]} they understood how the layer formed, and they knew from laboratory experiments that halogens could destroy ozone. Finally, weather balloons had revealed that the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere changed over time, and scientists suspected weather phenomena or seasonal change were responsible. But how all of these pieces of information worked together on a global scale was still unclear.^{[citation needed]}

Scientists conducted experiments from NASA experimental aircraft and proved that atmospheric chemicals such as the

Nimbus satellites collected orbital data on the extent of the polar caps in the mid-1960s, recorded in the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum. These first global snapshots of Earth's icecaps provide invaluable reference points for climate change studies. During a narrowing window of opportunity for data archaeology, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NDISC) and NASA were able to recover data that allowed the reconstruction of high-resolution Nimbus 2 images from 1966 showing the entire Arctic and Antarctic ice caps.^[6]

When the Nimbus 5 spacecraft launched in 1972, scientists planned for its

Among the most serendipitous discoveries that the Nimbus missions made possible was that of a gaping hole in the sea ice around Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere winters of 1974–76. In a phenomenon that has not been observed since, an enormous, ice-free patch of water, called a polynya, developed three years in a row in the seasonal ice that encases Antarctica each winter. Located in the Weddell Sea, each year the polynya vanished with the summer melt, but returned the following year. The open patch of water may have influenced ocean temperatures as far down as 2,500 meters and influenced ocean circulation over a wide area. The Weddell Sea Polynya has not been observed since the event witnessed by the Nimbus satellites in the mid-70s.

Global positioning system

Nimbus satellites (beginning with Nimbus 3 in 1969) blazed the trail into the modern

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to NIMBUS program.

• http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/nimbus.html Nimbus Program
• http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/nimbus_sensor.html Experimental Instrumentation on-board Nimbus satellites