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NASA NTRS1983

Conclusions and recommendations

From the analyses performed thus far, it is clear that the ship data must be treated with great care in any satellite comparisons because of their high noise level. At the very least, the ship data should be screened to eliminate observations deviating unreasonably from climatology. In fact, a two pass screening is better, with the second pass screening out data deviating unreasonably from the first pass mapping attempt. Even with screening, the noise level is comparable with that of the satellite data and, particularly in spot comparisons, should not be used to evaluate the accuracy of the satellite data. Consideration also should be given to more sophisticated mapping procedures than simple binning averaging. Procedures that attempt local least squares fitting to individual observations would give better results because they would then be less sensitive to the spatial distribution of the data.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1984

Final Comparison of TM and MSS Data for Surface Mine Assessment in Logan County, West Virginia

A variety of classifications during both raw and transformed MSS and TM data sets from 4 September 1982 were performed for the Logan County, West Virginia study area. The object was to compare the utility of TM and MSS data for delineating small, irregular ground features, particularly surface mines, and also to test data reduction/transformation techniques (band selection, canonical analysis, and principal components) in relation to a traditional means of unsupervised classification. Statistical results demonstrate that, on the average, the TM classifications yielded an overall .53 factor of improvement relative to the MSS classifications. When the accuracies for only three minor (in terms of areal extent) land use categories are examined, the factor of improvement for TM over MSS increases to 1.48; i.e., the TM is nearly one and one-half times better than the MSS for delineating small and irregular ground features such as contour strip mines.

Witt, R. G.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Variations of global mesoscale eddy energy observed from Geosat

Data on oceanic-current variability were extracted from Geosat altimeter observations for 44 17-day repeat cycles, using the Sandwell and Zhang (1989) technique to process the altimeter data and to produce a sea-surface-slope profile having an estimated accuracy of 0.2 microrad. These were used to generate a series of global eddy kinetic energy maps, each averaged over 3 months, together with their mean. It was found that the maximum mean eddy kinetic energy per unit mass exceeds 2000 sq cm/sq sec for most of the western boundary currents; for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, however, this value reaches only 500 sq cm/sq sec.

Shum, C. K.↗

NASA NTRS1993

An ensemble pulsar time

Millisecond pulsars are galactic objects that exhibit a very stable spinning period. Several tens of these celestial clocks have now been discovered, which opens the possibility that an average time scale may be deduced through a long-term stability algorithm. Such an ensemble average makes it possible to reduce the level of the instabilities originating from the pulsars or from other sources of noise, which are unknown but independent. The basis for such an algorithm is presented and applied to real pulsar data. It is shown that pulsar time could shortly become more stable than the present atomic time, for averaging times of a few years. Pulsar time can also be used as a flywheel to maintain the accuracy of atomic time in case of temporary failure of the primary standards, or to transfer the improved accuracy of future standards back to the present.

Petit, Gerard↗

NASA NTRS1994

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a cooperative effort between National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan and NASA of the USA. TRMM is designed to measure rain rates from space using a combination of high resolution radar, passive microwave radiometer and visible-infrared radiometer measurements from a spacecraft in a rapid precession, 350 km orbit inclined at 35 deg. These measurements, averaged over a 500 km grid for a month, are expected to provide monthly mean rainfall to an accuracy of 10 to 15 percent. TRMM will also make it possible to analyze the diurnal component of the rainfall and to derive the vertical distribution of latent heating. An accurate measure of the oceanic rainfall distribution will provide unprecedented insight into the halocline distribution and the stability of the oceanic surface layers. A status of the program is presented.

Theon, John S.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Assessment of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Models for Shock Boundary-Layer Interaction

A workshop on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) prediction of shock boundary-layer interactions (SBLIs) was held at the 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting. As part of the workshop numerous CFD analysts submitted solutions to four experimentally measured SBLIs. This paper describes the assessment of the CFD predictions. The assessment includes an uncertainty analysis of the experimental data, the definition of an error metric and the application of that metric to the CFD solutions. The CFD solutions provided very similar levels of error and in general it was difficult to discern clear trends in the data. For the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes methods the choice of turbulence model appeared to be the largest factor in solution accuracy. Large-eddy simulation methods produced error levels similar to RANS methods but provided superior predictions of normal stresses.

DeBonis, James R.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Global-scale Evaluation of SMAP, SMOS and ASCAT Soil Moisture Products Using Triple Collocation

Global-scale surface soil moisture products are currently available from multiple remote sensing platforms. Footprint-scale assessments of these products are generally restricted to limited number of densely-instrumented validation sites. However, by taking active and passive soil moisture products together with a third independent soil moisture estimates via land surface modeling, triple collocation (TC) can be applied to estimate the correlation metric of satellite soil moisture products (versus an unknown ground truth) over a quasi-global domain. Here, an assessment of Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) surface soil moisture retrievals via TC is presented. Considering the potential violation of TC error assumptions, the impact of active-passive and satellite-model error cross correlations on the TC-derived inter-comparison results is examined at in situ sites using quadruple collocation analysis. In addition, confidence intervals for the TC-estimated correlation metric are constructed from moving-block bootstrap sampling designed to preserve the temporal persistence of the original (unevenly-sampled) soil moisture time-series. This study is the first to apply TC to obtain a robust global-scale cross-assessment of SMAP, SMOS and ASCAT soil moisture retrieval accuracy in terms of anomaly temporal correlation. Our results confirm the overall advantage of SMAP (with a global average anomaly correlation of 0.76) over SMOS (0.66) and ASCAT (0.63) that has been established in several recent regional, ground-based studies. SMAP is also the best-performing product over the majority of applicable land pixels (52%), although SMOS and ASCAT each shows advantage in distinct geographic regions.

global-scale↗

NASA NTRS2017

Advanced Characterisation of Aerosol Size Properties from Measurements of Spectral Optical Depth Using the GRASP Algorithm

This study evaluates the potential of using aerosol optical depth (τ (sub a)) measurements to characterise the microphysical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols. With this aim, we used the recently developed GRASP (Generalized Retrieval of Aerosol and Surface Properties) code for numerical testing of six different aerosol models with different aerosol loads. The direct numerical simulations (self-consistency tests) indicate that the GRASP-AOD retrieval provides modal aerosol optical depths (fine and coarse) to within 0.01 of the input values. The retrieval of the fine-mode radius, width and volume concentration are stable and precise if the real part of the refractive index is known. The coarse-mode properties are less accurate, but they are significantly improved when additional a priori information is available. The tests with random simulated errors show that the uncertainty in the bimodal log-normal size distribution parameters increases as the aerosol load decreases. Similarly, the reduction in the spectral range diminishes the stability of the retrieved parameters. In addition to these numerical studies, we used optical depth observations at eight AERONET locations to validate our results with the standard AERONET inversion products. We found that bimodal log-normal size distributions serve as useful input assumptions, especially when the measurements have inadequate spectral coverage and/or limited accuracy, such as moon photometry. Comparisons of the mode median radii between GRASP-AOD and AERONET indicate average differences of 0.013µm for the fine mode and typical values of 0.2–0.3µm for the coarse mode. The dominant mode (i.e. fine or coarse) indicates a 10 % difference in mode radii between the GRASP-AOD and AERONET inversions, and the average of the difference in volume concentration is around 17 % for both modes. The retrieved values of the fine-mode τ(sub a)(500) using GRASP-AOD are generally between those values obtained by the standard AERONET inversion and the values obtained by the AERONET spectral deconvolution algorithm (SDA), with differences typically lower than 0.02 between GRASP-AOD and both algorithms. Finally, we present some examples of application of GRASP-AOD inversion using moon photometry and the airborne PLASMA sun photometer during the ChArMEx summer 2013 campaign in the western Mediterranean.

Torres, Benjamin↗

NASA NTRS1992

A nanoradian differential VLBI tracking demonstration

The shift due to Jovian gravitational deflection in the apparent angular position of the radio source P 0201+113 was measured with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) to demonstrate a differential angular tracking technique with nanoradian accuracy. The raypath of the radio source P 0201+113 passed within 1 mrad of Jupiter (approximately 10 Jovian radii) on 21 Mar. 1988. Its angular position was measured 10 times over 4 hours on that date, with a similar measurement set on 2 Apr. 1988, to track the differential angular gravitational deflection of the raypath. According to general relativity, the expected gravitational bend of the raypath averaged over the duration of the March experiment was approximately 1.45 nrad projected onto the two California-Australia baselines over which it was measured. Measurement accuracies on the order of 0.78 nrad were obtained for each of the ten differential measurements. The chi(exp 2) per degree of freedom of the data for the hypothesis of general relativity was 0.6, which suggests that the modeled dominant errors due to system noise and tropospheric fluctuations fully accounted for the scatter in the measured angular deflections. The chi(exp 2) per degree of freedom for the hypothesis of no gravitational deflection by Jupiter was 4.1, which rejects the no-deflection hypothesis with greater than 99.999 percent confidence. The system noise contributed about 0.34 nrad per combined-baseline differential measurement and tropospheric fluctuations contributed about 0.70 nrad. Unmodeled errors were assessed, which could potentially increase the 0.78 nrad error by about 8 percent. The above chi(exp 2) values, which result from the full accounting of errors, suggest that the nanoradian gravitational deflection signature was successfully tracked.

Treuhaft, R. N.↗

NASA NTRS1971

Aerial measurement error with a dot planimeter: Some experimental estimates

A shape analysis is presented which utilizes a computer to simulate a multiplicity of dot grids mathematically. Results indicate that the number of dots placed over an area to be measured provides the entire correlation with accuracy of measurement, the indices of shape being of little significance. Equations and graphs are provided from which the average expected error, and the maximum range of error, for various numbers of dot points can be read.

Yuill, R. S.↗

NASA NTRS1977

Determination of diurnal average photodissociation rates

The calculation of diurnal average photolysis rates in models of planetary atmospheres can be done efficiently and easily by utilizing the results of empirical numerical fitting procedures. Analytic expressions are given for the ratio of the diurnal average differential photolysis rate to that at noon, as a function of optical depth, latitude and solar declination. The accuracy is better than + or - 6% for all altitudes, all seasons of the year and latitudes up to 60 deg.

Rundel, R. D.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Estimating noise levels of remotely sensed measurements from satellites using spatial structure analysis

A technique is presented whereby the noise level of satellite measurements of the atmosphere and earth can be estimated. The technique analyzes a spatial array of data measured by a satellite instrument. A minimum of about 200 satellite measurements is required, preferably in a regular pattern. Statistical structure analysis is used to describe a combination of the mean gradient and noise in the data. The noise level is then estimated by separating out the gradient information and leaving only the noise. Results are presented for four satellite sounding instruments, and effective blackbody or brightness temperature noise levels were compared to prelaunch specifications or inflight calibrations for each instrument. Comparisons showed that in the absence of cloud-contaminated measurements (in the case of infrared data) and away from the highly variable ground surface, the noise level of various satellite instruments can be obtained without the need for calibration data. The noise levels imply how much spatial averaging is possible, without smearing the detected geophysical gradient, and how much is necessary, to meet the absolute signal accuracy requirements for the intended use of the satellite measurements.

Hillger, Donald W.↗

NASA NTRS1990

A multisensor approach to sea ice classification for the validation of DMSP-SSM/I passive microwave derived sea ice products

The validation of sea ice products derived from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) on board a DMSP platform is examined using data from the Landsat MSS and NOAA-AVHRR sensors. Image processing techniques for retrieving ice concentrations from each type of imagery are developed and results are intercompared to determine the ice parameter retrieval accuracy of the SSM/I NASA-Team algorithm. For case studies in the Beaufort Sea and East Greenland Sea, average retrieval errors of the SSM/I algorithm are between 1.7 percent for spring conditions and 4.3 percent during freeze up in comparison with Landsat derived ice concentrations. For a case study in the East Greenland Sea, SSM/I derived ice concentration in comparison with AVHRR imagery display a mean error of 9.6 percent.

Steffen, K.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Effects of spatial sampling of satellite data on derived surface solar irradiance

The effect of different spatial sampling of satellite observations on retrieved surface solar irradiance was studied. The results indicate that sampled (8-km resolution) and areally averaged (50-km resolution) visible brightness is highly correlated; the correlation has a regional, seasonal, and diurnal dependence. Using the two different resolutions of satellite observations, retrieved surface solar irradiance was computed for a whole annual cycle. On the average, the results differed by about 8-9 percent. Therefore, to validate satellite methods against ground truth to an accuracy which exceeds 8-9 percent of the mean, attention should be given to the type of satellite data and ground truth used in the validation process.

Pinker, R. T.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Assessment of the CALIPSO Lidar 532 nm Attenuated Backscatter Calibration Using the NASA LaRC Airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument on the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) spacecraft has provided global, high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds since it became operational on 13 June 2006. On 14 June 2006, the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) was deployed aboard the NASA Langley B-200 aircraft for the first of a series of 86 underflights of the CALIPSO satellite to provide validation measurements for the CALIOP data products. To better assess the range of conditions under which CALIOP data products are produced, these validation flights were conducted under both daytime and nighttime lighting conditions, in multiple seasons, and over a large range of latitudes and aerosol and cloud conditions. This paper presents a quantitative assessment of the CALIOP 532 nm calibration (through the 532 nm total attenuated backscatter) using an internally calibrated airborne HSRL underflight data and is the most extensive study of CALIOP 532 nm calibration. Results show that average HSRL and CALIOP 532 nm total attenuated backscatter agree on average within 2.7% +/- 2.1% (CALIOP lower) at night and within 2.9 % +/- 3.9% (CALIOP lower) during the day., demonstrating the accuracy of the CALIOP 532 nm calibration algorithms. Additionally, comparisons with HSRL show consistency of the CALIOP calibration before and after the laser switch in 2009 as well as improvements in the daytime version 3 calibration scheme compared with the version 2 calibration scheme. Potential systematic uncertainties in the methodology relevant to validating satellite lidar measurements with an airborne lidar system are discussed and found to be less than 3.7% for this validation effort with HSRL. Results from this study are also compared to those from prior assessments of CALIOP calibration and attenuated backscatter.

Rogers, Raymond R.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Evaluation of transit-time and electromagnetic flow measurement in a chronically instrumented nonhuman primate model

The Physiology Research Branch at Brooks AFB conducts both human and nonhuman primate experiments to determine the effects of microgravity and hypergravity on the cardiovascular system and to identify the particular mechanisms that invoke these responses. Primary investigative efforts in our nonhuman primate model require the determination of total peripheral resistance, systemic arterial compliance, and pressure-volume loop characteristics. These calculations require beat-to-beat measurement of aortic flow. This study evaluated accuracy, linearity, biocompatability, and anatomical features of commercially available electromagnetic (EMF) and transit-time flow measurement techniques. Five rhesus monkeys were instrumented with either EMF (3 subjects) or transit-time (2 subjects) flow sensors encircling the proximal ascending aorta. Cardiac outputs computed from these transducers taken over ranges of 0.5 to 2.0 L/min were compared to values obtained using thermodilution. In vivo experiments demonstrated that the EMF probe produced an average error of 15% (r = .896) and 8.6% average linearity per reading, and the transit-time flow probe produced an average error of 6% (r = .955) and 5.3% average linearity per reading. Postoperative performance and biocompatability of the probes were maintained throughout the study. The transit-time sensors provided the advantages of greater accuracy, smaller size, and lighter weight than the EMF probes. In conclusion, the characteristic features and performance of the transit-time sensors were superior to those of the EMF sensors in this study.

Non-NASA Center↗

NASA NTRS1992

Mitigation of multipath in DGPS ground reference stations

Multipath represents one of the most serious threats to accuracy in Differential GPS (DGPS). The theoretical foundations of multipath are presented and several multipath mitigation techniques are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on signal diffraction methods. Reflections enter peaks and nulls in the distorted antenna pattern in a random manner. This, coupled with the oscillations in relative phase (with respect to the direct signal), results in a multipath error signature which is noise-like. Since it is noise-like, it may be significantly reduced by averaging the code phase measurements against the more stable carrier-phase measurements. Exploitation of this effect to reduce multipath error represents a significant increase in accuracy for real time DGPS. Experiments have been performed which verify these conclusions.

Braasch, Michael S.↗

NASA NTRS1972

A curve fitting method for solving the flutter equation

A curve fitting approach was developed to solve the flutter equation for the critical flutter velocity. The psi versus nu curves are approximated by cubic and quadratic equations. The curve fitting technique utilized the first and second derivatives of psi with respect to nu. The method was tested for two structures, one structure being six times the total mass of the other structure. The algorithm never showed any tendency to diverge from the solution. The average time for the computation of a flutter velocity was 3.91 seconds on an IBM Model 50 computer for an accuracy of five per cent. For values of nu close to the critical root of the flutter equation the algorithm converged on the first attempt. The maximum number of iterations for convergence to the critical flutter velocity was five with an assumed value of nu relatively distant from the actual crossover.

Cooper, J. L.↗