Verner E. Suomi
Verner Edward Suomi (born December 6, 1915 in Eveleth , † July 30, 1995 in Madison (Wisconsin) ), was an American meteorologist, known as the pioneer of satellite meteorology.
Suomi, the son of immigrants from Finland, received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1953 (for the dissertation he measured the heat-radiation balance of a cornfield). From 1948 he was in the Meteorology Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison , where he founded the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) with Robert Parent in 1965 . In 1986 he retired. In 1964 he was Chief Scientist at the US Weather Bureau.
His radiometer on Explorer 7 , developed with Robert Parent, provided the first images of the Earth's radiation budget and showed the influence of cloud cover on it. He developed a spin scan radiometer that was installed on the first geostationary weather satellite ATS-1 (by Hughes Aircraft ) in 1966 . ATS-3 followed in 1967 with a spin scan camera developed by Suomi and colleagues that provided the first color images of the entire earth. It enabled weather observations from space, the images of which were also used for television weather forecasts and contributed to the understanding of the global circulation in the atmosphere. The camera was used for several decades. In order to be able to access the large amounts of data on satellites, he and his institute developed the McIDAS (Man computer Interactive Data Access System) in the 1970s.
In 1970 he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . In 1976 he received the National Medal of Science and in 1984 the Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) . In 1980 he received the Charles Franklin Brooks Award from the American Meteorological Society and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Meteorological Organization . In 1968 he received the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal . He was a member of the American Philosophical Society (since 1976), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1977), and the National Academy of Engineering .
The Suomi NPP satellite is named in his honor.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Member entry by Verner E. Suomi at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 22, 2016.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Suomi, Verner E. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Suomi, Verner Edward |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American meteorologist and geophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 6, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Eveleth |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 30, 1995 |
| Place of death | Madison (Wisconsin) |