Page 266 - Microbial methane cycling in a warming world From biosphere to atmosphere Michiel H in t Zandt

Chapter 11. Integration and outlook
Part B: Societal integration and Outlook
It all starts with awareness of, and critical reflection on, things that need to be changed. On December 17th 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 took a picture of planet Earth that became known as the Blue Marble (Fig. 3). From a distance of 30 thousand kilometers, our planet looked like a fragile glass marble in the dark, barren space. During the 1970s, the Blue Marble was often used to illustrate both the vulnerability and isolation of the Earth amidst the vast expanse of space. It was also one, if not the first, of the pictures that made me realize how precious, unique, and vulnerable our planet is. It was a strong motivation for me to pursue a career in climate research.
A few decades later, a picture that even better stressed the vulnerability of our planet was taken. When the Voyager 1 was leaving our solar system on February 14th 1990, it turned around and took one final picture (Fig. 3). On this picture you can see a pale blue dot, spanning approximately 0.12 pixels in size, which represents our Earth, our home. At a distance of nearly 6.4 billion kilometers, it made us even more aware of our modest role in the vast universe. “There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known” (Sagan 1994). With the ending of the Cold War, and the release of the IPCC’s first assessment report in 1990, climate research really took off. Since then, climate research intensified, and it was soon realized that many disciplines, including atmospheric sciences, natural sciences, modeling, geology, economics, and behavioral sciences, needed to be linked to grasp the complexity of our climate. One of the highlights of this much needed integration is the funding of research consortia by the European and Dutch government, such as the NESSC Gravitation Grant on which I have had the privilege to participate in the last six years.
To zoom out again, space technology has brought about a major change in climate research. We may not be fully aware of how much satellites, spaceships, and space missions have helped us to better understand our planet and its climate. Currently, observatory data from satellites and research programs including TROPOMI, gathering air column CH4 data, EUMETSAT, monitoring the global climate with e.g. the Copernicus satellite mission, and NASA’s LANDSAT program (Irons, Taylor and Rocchio 2013; TROPOMI 2019; Copernicus 2020;
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