Arthur always had just this very nice way of listenting
to what your points were. He really knew how to
connect with people in a really gracious kind of way.
Arthur should be remembered as
passionate about the mission. He was very passionate about everything
we were going to do. He could view things from the broadest
scale, all the way down to the fine details of the mission.
His attitude was just infectious of the people around him. Everybody just wanted to
solve the problem, wanted to work with him.
I actually knew Arthur's work before I
knew Arthur the person. I actually
was quite familiar with his seminal theoretical work on
how the Hadley circulation responds to latent heating
in the equatorial regions. And that paper actually
formed the basis of many of the world in
current IPCC modeling world in interpreting how latent
heating can change the atmospheric circulation, and it actually
formed the basis a lot of the theoretical work for
work on GPM and TRMM, including my own.
And we were actually looking for a person to
replace and to step up and be the GPM project scientist.
And at that time, my boss, Franco, and I were really looking for someone.
For me, there's no question, the person I have in mind
is Arthur Hou because I knew him as a scientist,
his technical competence,
his interpersonal skill, all are the hallmarks of
a great future project scientist. In many ways
think he really saved GPM. Not to
say anything negative about what was going on prior to that
when he took over the program was
in a bit of trouble. And he really came in and with
experience that was really geared toward the modeling side of things,
and he really learned everything about GPM
that needed to be learned and really built an effective team,
great collaborations, not only throughout the U.S. but
internationally. Arthur's most important contribution
I think were building all the partnerships for the constellation
so that we can have the truly global dataset of precipitation
data. He was also very passionate about getting all
of the GMI channels so that we can measure all of the different
types of precipitation, from drizzles to downpours, from
rain to snow, and be able to calibrate the data from the
GPM Core with all of the partner datasets. I like to say Arthur had
a way with words, and he always, always
was just so precise with his words. And I think that that made
a big difference with the GPM materials for how
we advocated for the mission. And it was really important to say
things just the right way because otherwise they could be misconstrued
or they just made us look less credible. So
I really appreciated the fact that he took the time
to make the things that he was saying and the things that went in the written materials
were as precise and as careful as they could be. I think overall
in GPM it's still going to be
the focus he brought to the entire enterprise
again, the science and the applications,
the global coverage both data-wise but also
involving people from around the globe
and organizations around the globe. I think those are going to be his major
accomplishments. One thing I really remember is his
hearty laughter at anything, or even something
that was probably questionable in his mind, his reaction would be
just this hearty laughter. And then he come up with
a very positive response to anything. One of my favorite stories
is from when Arthur and I traveled to Brazil for a science team meeting
He fit everything into a carry-on duffel bag.
And he had a collection of khaki pants and blue
Oxford shirts, and he would accessorize. So for
the meetings he would wear a blue blazer with those, but
then one night after the meeting we went out on a cruise, and he
accessorized with a white towel around his neck with his blue Oxford
shirt and khaki pants.
So Arthur and I would end up on foreign travel together
or at the same time--obviously often times with lots of other people--and
one of the things I found is that going around with Arthur
you attended, number one, eat in the very good restaurants
because he would know where to go. I remember going opal
shopping for our wives together in Melbourne, Australia. That was a lot
of fun. I really hope
that Arthur is remembered every time a piece of data
from GPM helps to further our understanding of precipitation
helps to predict the direction of the next hurricane,
flood prediction, landslide, every time we save a life
I hope that some scientist out there remembers Arthur
and that his legacy for this mission lives on.
We've suffered a great loss here in losing Arthur at a young
age, but I hope the mission
is successful and certainly I hope the community
a few years from now still remembers his contribution.
On the day that Arthur died, the very same day that he died,
the GPM spacecraft with all of its instruments that he'd worked
so hard to put together and improve the science for,
on that very day he died was the day that the spacecraft
left NASA Goddard on its way to Japan
for a launch in early 2014.
So he took the spacecraft as far as he could
and maybe he let go at that point and said "It's not in my hands anymore.
It will get launched. It will take great data."