Science for society: delivering Earth system science knowledge for decision support in the year 2025

The Earth Science Enterprise Applications Program mission is as follows: expend and accelerate the realization of societal and economic benefits from Earth science, information, and technology. The application program serves its mission, the Earth science enterprise and the nation by benchmarking practical uses of NASA sponsored observation from remote sensing systems and predictions from scientific research for decision makers. This mission in 2003 will still need to be accomplished in 2025 as the understanding of Earth system science increases and as new and/or continuing challenges face the citizens of the home planet. The ESE applications strategy builds on the strategies and results of the ESE research program and of the ESE technology program. Therefore, as these programs develop a vision for the future, it is important for the applications program to consider the vision of NASA for 2025 and have its own vision for how the decision makers of 2025 may use the visionary observation and prediction products to serve society. This paper will propose an architecture for an Earth resources management infrastructure to serve decision makers in the year 2025.