I often say, rock the boat. But before you rock it, do three things: measure the freeboard on the boat, notice the state of the sea, and the distance to the shore. Only then rock the boat. --Verner E. Suomi, 1988

	President Jimmy Carter presents Professor Suomi the National Science Medal in 1972
Professor Verner E. Suomi (second from the right) and colleagues  reviewing the instrumentation for a 1950s experiment that measured the heat budget of an Iowa corn field.

On the left, Professors Parent and Suomi build a 1960s satellite instrument.

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Professor Suomi (right) reviews satellite data with Prof. Robert Parent in the 1960s.  At that time, the data were received on an analog data recording system.

Professor Suomi and Herman La Gow inspect the spinning, polar-orbiting satellite on which the flat plate radiometer flew.                             The present day home of the Space Science and Engineering Center and the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Professors Suomi and Parent pose with the Explorer VII satellite. The
black ball is part of their heat budget experiment.

Professor Verner Suomi (seated, second from left) views early photos from the ATS (Applications Technology Satellite) with Professor Robert Parent (far left) and three University and NASA colleagues.

Professor Suomi, center, receives the 38th annual IMO prize from WMO Present Zou Jingmeng (left) and WMO Secretary General, G.O.P Obasi

 

Below, SSEC's Pioneer Venus crew surrounds Professor Suomi and a model of the Net Flux Radiometer, which measured heat flux in Venus' atmosphere in 1978.  Left to right: (back row) Gene Buchholtz, Bob Herbsleb, Wanda Lerum, Jerry Sitzman and Hank Revercomb; (front row) Ralph Dedecker, Verner Suomi, Larry Sromovsky and Bob Sutton.  Not shown: Evan Richards, Doyle Ford and Tony Wendricks.
				Above, during a telephone interview at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Professor Suomi views a picture of Neptune sent to Earth by Voyager 2 in August, 1989.  The picture shows the first cloud shadows on any planet besides Earth; it led to an understanding of Neptune's' circulation.

  

This is a 1994 photo of Professor Suomi holding the prototype instrument he invented and patented to measure the ocean - atmosphere heat flux.