Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 46
OCR for page 47
M O U S TAFA T. C H A H I N E
1935–2011
Elected in 2009
“For leadership in determining the structure and composition of
the Earth’s atmosphere from space observations.”
BY CLAIRE L. PARKINSON
M OUSTAFA T. CHAHINE, a senior research scientist at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) at the California Institute
of Technology (Caltech) and an international leader in
atmospheric remote sensing from satellite observations, died
on March 23, 2011, at the age of 76.
Affectionately known as Mous to hundreds of friends
and colleagues, Moustafa was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on
January 1, 1935. After growing up in Lebanon, he moved
to the United States in December 1954 and proceeded to
power through his academic studies at the University of
Washington, Seattle. He received a bachelor of science degree
in aeronautical engineering in 1956 and a master of science
degree in aeronautical engineering in 1957. He then entered
the University of California at Berkeley as a doctoral candidate
and received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering in
1960. His studies centered largely on fluid physics.
It was while in graduate school in 1957 that Mous saw a
photograph of JPL Director William Pickering with Wernher
von Braun and James Van Allen, holding aloft a model of the
just-launched Explorer 1 satellite, the story of which stirred his
interest sufficiently that he resolved that he too would work
in the space program. Three years later, after graduation,
47
OCR for page 48
48 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Mous began his 51-year career at JPL, initially examining the
shock waves anticipated as a space capsule reentered Earth’s
atmosphere. Soon, he was examining other aspects of the
atmosphere and working on methods to derive atmospheric
information from the radiation received by satellite-based
instrumentation.
Among Mous’s heralded scientific and engineering
accomplishments were his development in the late 1960s of
an exact mathematical method for the inverse solution of
the radiative transfer equation and his applications of that
method to deriving atmospheric temperature and water vapor
profiles. This “Relaxation Method” was subsequently widely
used for obtaining satellite-based profiles of atmospheric
temperature and composition not just for Earth’s atmosphere
but also for the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
Later, in the 1970s, Mous formulated a multispectral approach
to remote sensing in the presence of clouds, incorporating
both infrared and microwave data. In 1980, Mous and others
used his equations to generate the first satellite-based global
distribution of Earth’s surface temperature, using data from
the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder and the
Microwave Sounding Unit. Many additional uses followed.
By this time Mous had proposed what was to become the
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), a remarkable satellite
instrument that was to dominate much of the next 30 years
of his scientific and engineering career. He received his initial
funding for AIRS in 1978, and he continued to develop and
advocate the concept over the succeeding years. As NASA
formulated plans for its multidecadal Earth Observing
System (EOS), Mous was intimately involved as a member
of NASA’s Earth System Sciences Committee. The proposed
AIRS instrument received broad-based support because of
its potential applications for both weather forecasting and
climate change research. Consequently, it was selected in
1988 to be one of the primary Earth-observing instruments on
the Aqua satellite (originally known as EOS PM). Mous was
selected as the first AIRS science team leader and remained in
that position until his death over 20 years later.
OCR for page 49
M O U S TAFA T. C H A H I N E 49
Under Mous’s leadership, the AIRS instrument was built in
the 1990s to exacting standards, with a temperature-controlled
2,378-channel infrared grating spectrometer and a 4-channel
visible/near-infrared photometer. Algorithms were developed
to derive from the radiative data a suite of atmospheric and
Earth surface variables. AIRS was launched on the Aqua satellite
on May 4, 2002, and it quickly became the world’s premier
atmospheric sounder, providing well-calibrated global data
every 1 to 2 days, with a spatial resolution of 13.5 kilometers at
nadir for the infrared channels and 2.3 kilometers at nadir for
the visible/near-infrared channels.
The AIRS data have been widely used by both the research
and the operational communities. As foreseen years earlier by
Mous, incorporation of AIRS data into weather forecast models
measurably increased forecast skill, and Mous delighted in
the many positive comments made by forecast experts and
governmental leaders. The administrator of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Vice Admiral
Conrad Lautenbacher, said the following about the impact of
the AIRS data: “The AIRS instrument has provided the most
significant increase in forecast improvement in this time range
of any other single instrument.” The AIRS data have also been
of practical value to the aviation field, by monitoring volcanic
emissions.
One of the major research advances made with AIRS
data was Mous’s derivation of atmospheric carbon dioxide
(CO2) amounts in the midtroposphere. He did this through
a “Vanishing Partial Derivatives” method that he developed
for determining trace gas concentrations. His initial results
provided the first satellite-derived global map of atmospheric
CO2. Once several years of data were obtained and animated,
Mous’s CO2 results gave a striking display of the global
distribution of both the seasonal cycle and the long-term
upward trend in atmospheric CO2. As such, these results
became popular fixtures in scientific presentations and were
presented to policymakers and popular media outlets and in
peer-reviewed scientific publications. AIRS data also were
used to create the first global maps of upper-tropospheric
OCR for page 50
50 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
water vapor, soon after the 2002 Aqua launch, and a continuing
data set of upper-tropospheric water vapor derived from the
AIRS data has been available ever since.
In addition to being a prominent NASA and Caltech
researcher throughout his 51-year JPL career, Mous served in
important managerial positions. He headed JPL’s Planetary
Atmospheres Section from 1975 to 1978 and then founded
the Division of Earth and Space Sciences, which he headed
from 1978 to 1984, leading its approximately 400 researchers.
Afterward, he served as JPL’s chief scientist from 1984 to 2001.
Mous was also the first chair of the Science Steering Group of
the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Energy and
Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), serving in that role from
1989 to 1999. During that time the steering group defined the
goals and objectives of GEWEX and established connections
with the international earth sciences community, helping bring
together satellite-based data collection and climate modeling.
Throughout his career, Mous’s excellence was rewarded
with notable honors. He received NASA’s Medal for
Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1969, NASA’s Out-
standing Leadership Medal in 1984, the William T. Pecora
Award from NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior
in 1989, the Jule G. Charney Award from the American
Meteorological Society in 1991, the Losey Atmospheric
Sciences Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics in 1993, the William Nordberg Medal from
the Committee on Space Research in 2002, NASA’s Medal for
Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 2007, and the George
W. Goddard Award from the International Society for Optics
and Photonics in 2010. The latter award was given specifically
for Mous’s “exceptional achievement in optical science and
instrumentation for aerospace and atmospheric research.”
Mous was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the
American Meteorological Society, the British Meteorological
Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected
a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2009
and was also a member of both the International Academy of
Astronautics and the Society of Sigma Xi.
OCR for page 51
M O U S TAFA T. C H A H I N E 51
One of the highlights of Mous’s career came in 2005, when
he was among 15 invited international participants speaking
in Vatican City at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,
Working Group on Water and the Environment. The purpose
of the meeting was to address important issues surrounding
hydrology, the environment, and sustainable development.
Moustafa Chahine was a uniquely tolerant, understanding,
and generous person who had numerous lasting impacts
on a personal level as well as through his many research
accomplishments, the latter well documented in his dozens of
peer-reviewed research publications. He radiated enthusiasm
for science and engineering and delighted in mentoring and
encouraging others and in teaching students and the public
about the value of satellite observations. He was also generous
in his advice and ideas about numerous other aspects of life.
He was well rounded in his knowledge of the world, loved
all types of music, and could read, write, and speak three
languages with amazing fluency.
One might read about Mous’s professional accomplishments
and conclude that his work must have come first, but anyone
concluding that would be badly mistaken. Those very close to
him knew that for Mous there was no question that family came
first. He was the compass and anchor for his wife, Marina, in
their 53-year journey together, and as a father he led by quiet
example, always placing his sons, Tony and Steve, as his top
priority.
Mous was a vital part of NASA, JPL, and Caltech for over 50
years and of his family for even longer. His presence is sorely
missed throughout the earth sciences community and by his
family and many friends. His death, from a heart attack several
hours after what had seemed to be successful hernia surgery,
was a devastating loss for all those who knew him well. In the
words of his sons, Mous’s “astonishing balance between work
and family, art and science, reason and passion is what makes
his passing such an indescribable loss for us all.” Moustafa T.
Chahine is survived by his wife Marina, his sons Tony and
Steve, his brother Najib, and his sisters Salma and Haifa.
