Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

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Chapter 6. Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES)
1985-2002

Alexander F. H. Goetz

Origins

The need for a center to consolidate environmental research making use of remote sensing techniques grew out of the Space Sciences and Technology Initiative created during University President Arnold Weber's tenure. In 1984, Donald Hearth, the previous director of the NASA Langley Research Center came to CU to lead the initiative. The University Task Force on Space Sciences and Policy, Subcommittee on Remote Sensing of the Environment and Global Habitability was formed to develop the strategies and rationale. Members included, among others, Roger Barry (chair), Susan Avery, Robert Sievers, and John Wahr. The Committee recommended that CIRES "... implement the outlines of this program by recruiting a few associate/full professors to spearhead key aspects of it, notably for establishing a remote sensing facility...."

With the support and encouragement of Bruce Ekstrand, vice chancellor for research, in early 1985 recruitment began for the director of the Center for Earth Observation and Remote Sensing (CEORS) leading to the hiring of Alexander F. H. Goetz as director and professor in geological sciences. Goetz had previously spent 15 years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he had been involved in many aspects of Earth remote sensing including sensor development and image analysis as well as management.

Goetz was able to raise $1 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation to support the acquisition of equipment and hire the initial staff for the Center that was housed in rl-1 next to the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). Beginning in 1986, the first research associate hired was Fred Kruse, who had completed his Ph.D. in geology using some of the early JPL imaging spectrometer images to map surface mineralogy north of Death Valley. Using Keck funds, an image processing facility was assembled, and in 1987 Goetz taught the first course in remote sensing image data analysis. Carol Wessman came aboard as the second research associate in 1987 to work on the use of spectral remote sensing in landscape ecology. In the same year, Brian Curtiss, a geochemist who received his Ph.D. from University of Washington and a postdoctoral appointment at Caltech, joined CSES. He was featured on the cover of National Geographic for his work on identifying jade artifacts using reflectance spectroscopy. In 1988, the name of the center was changed to the Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES) to more accurately reflect the breadth of the science goals.

The graduate school had allotted five faculty positions, including the director, to the center. In 1989, William Bowman, an ecologist, filled the second position, in cooperation with Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology (EPOB). Bowman's interests changed over time, and in 1991 he moved to INSTAAR and became the director of the Mountain Research Station. Carol Wessman moved into the CSES/EPOB faculty position, where she continues today.

In 1989, Vijay Gupta, a hydrologist, joined the Department of Geological Sciences as a professor and CSES from the University of Mississippi. Gupta's interests have focused on theoretical and empirical aspects of coupled hydrologic processes as "multiscale nonlinear phenomena" in space and time. Since joining CU, he pioneered new ideas to couple streamflows (floods and low flows) with complex terrain and drainage networks, and contributed to new developments in statistical scaling theories of space-time precipitation. Since 1997, he has been exploring nonlinear coupling between climate and vegetation via water and energy balances at global and river basin scales. Most of this research has been carried out as interdisciplinary collaborations. Gupta transferred from the Department of Geological Sciences to the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) in 1998.

In 1991, Konrad Steffen joined the Department of Geography and CSES/CIRES from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Steffen conducts research on Arctic climatology with emphasis on Greenland ice sheet climatology and surface energy balance modeling using in situ and satellite measurements. He is in charge of a research facility on the Greenland ice sheet which he and his students visit and maintain each spring.

Thomas Chase, a climate modeler, who joined CSES and the Department of Geography in 1999 from Colorado State University, holds the fifth CSES faculty position. Chase works with mesoscale models and studies the effects of landcover change on regional and global climate.

By 1990, CSES had grown to 30 faculty, staff and students with the potential to double over the next five years. The space in rl-1 was inadequate and an opportunity to move to central campus opened up with the departure of the School of Pharmacy to the Health Sciences facility in Denver. The W. M. Keck Foundation contributed $1.4 million in new funding that was matched by CIRES to renovate the west and south wing of the second floor of the Ekeley Sciences building. In 1993 and 1994, over 8,500 square feet of space was remade under the able direction of Pam Topping from rat cages and chemistry labs into office space, data analysis facilities, conference rooms and a classroom with computing lab facilities. To the present, CSES continues to receive compliments on the quality of the renovated space.

CSES researchers have received a number of awards during their tenure in the center. Most notable were two Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2000 presented to Greg Asner and Waleed Abdalati at the White House. Both did their Ph.D. work in CSES.