Considerations for Developing an Integrated Earth Science/Climate Portfolio

As the climate change debate heats up, there is a recognized need for a global Earth Science mission portfolio to cover all facets of climate modeling. This paper will address the financial impacts of climate change on the U.S. and World economy while looking at how NASA and other space agencies are addressing climate change given data collected by their portfolio of missions. Considerations of the priority of Earth Science funding within NASA and NASA's strategic vision will be discussed while international participation and cost savings measures will be addressed to maximize NASA's return on investment. The result will be suggestions for a healthy NASA Earth Science portfolio that maximizes the number of missions to increase the capability for acquiring cutting edge global Earth Science data.