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EO Library: On the Shoulders of Giants
  Svante Arrhenius
was the first person to investigate the effect that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would have on global climate, the effect known as "global warming."

Vilhelm Bjerknes
is considered by many to be one of the founders of modern meteorology and weather forecasting.

Benjamin Franklin
established that lightning was an electric spark, made early weather and climate predictions based on meteorological observations, and first mapped the Gulf Stream.

Robert Goddard
Considered by many to be the father of modern rocketry, Goddard was a physicist of great insight who had a genius for invention.

Samuel Langley
made contributions both to research about the sun's effect on weather—and indeed life on Earth—and to the development of manned flight.

Milutin Milankovitch
dedicated his career to developing a mathematical theory of climate based on the seasonal and latitudinal variations of solar radiation received by the Earth as a result of the Earth's orbital motions.

Roger Revelle
was once described as "one of the world's most articulate spokesmen for science" and "an early predictor of global warming."

John Tyndall
was a man of science whose research on the radiative properties of gases contributed greatly to the understanding of how these gases affect the heating and cooling of the Earth's atmosphere.

Wernher von Braun
is, without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history. His crowning achievement, as head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was to direct the mission to land the first men on the Moon in July 1969.

Alfred Wegener
proposed a grand vision of drifting continents and widening seas to explain the evolution of Earth's geography.

  These geoscientists revolutionized our understanding of the atmosphere, oceans, climate, and environment. Their work formed the foundation on which current research depends.

   
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