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At least 505 records · Page 28
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Earth Sciences Are the Model Sciences of the Anthropocene

After 4.5 billion years as a dynamic and evolving planet, Earth today continues to evolve but with new dynamics. Earth scientists writ large have special opportunities and responsibilities to accelerate our understanding of the changes that are transforming our most remarkable home.

Richter, Daniel↗
NASA NTRS2022

SAR Instruments Support Earth Science by Monitoring Surface Deformation and Change

With the NASA SBIR/STTR Program, Tendeg, LLC, has advanced its parabolic antenna technology. NASA’s Surface Deformation and Change (SDC) study is interested in antenna technology that could be used to capture images of Earth’s surface for science research. In 2021, Tendeg received investor funds from SDC to continue developing SBIR-related work through the Phase II-Extended (II-E) option. Tendeg’s technology has supported NASA and commercial space missions; in total, Tendeg attributes $45 million in revenue as a result of SBIR-related developments.

SBIR↗
NASA NTRS1995

Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar: Current status and future directions. A report to the Committee on Earth Sciences, Space Studies Board, National Research Council

This report provides a context in which questions put forth by NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth (OMPTE) regarding the next steps in spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) science and technology can be addressed. It summarizes the state-of-the-art in theory, experimental design, technology, data analysis, and utilization of SAR data for studies of the Earth, and describes potential new applications. The report is divided into five science chapters and a technology assessment. The chapters summarize the value of existing SAR data and currently planned SAR systems, and identify gaps in observational capabilities needing to be filled to address the scientific questions. Cases where SAR provides complementary data to other (non-SAR) measurement techniques are also described. The chapter on technology assessment outlines SAR technology development which is critical not only to NASA's providing societally relevant geophysical parameters but to maintaining competitiveness in SAR technology, and promoting economic development.

Evans, D. L.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Introduction to NASA's Earth Science Division's Applied Sciences Program

Using the global vantage point of space, ESD builds fundamental, scientific knowledge about Earth and how it is changing. ESD advances understanding of Earth as an integrated system and develops and tests applications that deliver societal benefit. It has five lines of business: (1) Technology, (2) Flight, (3) Research and Analysis, (4) Data and Compute, (5) Applications.

Kenton Wade Ross↗
NASA NTRS2003

Earth Science Imagery Registration

The study of global environmental changes involves the comparison, fusion, and integration of multiple types of remotely-sensed data at various temporal, radiometric, and spatial resolutions. Results of this integration may be utilized for global change analysis, as well as for the validation of new instruments or for new data analysis. Furthermore, future multiple satellite missions will include many different sensors carried on separate platforms, and the amount of remote sensing data to be combined is increasing tremendously. For all of these applications, the first required step is fast and automatic image registration, and as this need for automating registration techniques is being recognized, it becomes necessary to survey all the registration methods which may be applicable to Earth and space science problems and to evaluate their performances on a large variety of existing remote sensing data as well as on simulated data of soon-to-be-flown instruments. In this paper we present one of the first steps toward such an exhaustive quantitative evaluation. First, the different components of image registration algorithms are reviewed, and different choices for each of these components are described. Then, the results of the evaluation of the corresponding algorithms combining these components are presented o n several datasets. The algorithms are based on gray levels or wavelet features and compute rigid transformations (including scale, rotation, and shifts). Test datasets include synthetic data as well as data acquired over several EOS Land Validation Core Sites with the IKONOS and the Landsat-7 sensors.

LeMoigne, Jacqueline↗
NASA NTRS1989

Visualizing large data sets in the earth sciences

The authors describe the capabilities of McIDAS, an interactive visualization system that is vastly increasing the ability of earth scientists to manage and analyze data from remote sensing instruments and numerical simulation models. McIDAS provides animated three-dimensionsal images and highly interactive displays. The software can manage, analyze, and visualize large data sets that span many physical variables (such as temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed), as well as time and three spatial dimensions. The McIDAS system manages data from at least 100 different sources. The data management tools consist of data structures for storing different data types in files, libraries of routines for accessing these data structures, system commands for performing housekeeping functions on the data files, and reformatting programs for converting external data to the system's data structures. The McIDAS tools for three-dimensional visualization of meteorological data run on an IBM mainframe and can load up to 128-frame animation sequences into the workstations. A highly interactive version of the system can provide an interactive window into data sets containing tens of millions of points produced by numerical models and remote sensing instruments. The visualizations are being used for teaching as well as by scientists.

Hibbard, William↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA Earth Science Image Analysis for Climate Change Decisions

This talk will briefly outline the ways in which NASA observes the Earth, then describes the NASA satellite measurements, and then proceeds to show how these measurements are used to understand the changes that are occurring as Earth's climate warms.

Hilderbrand, Peter H.↗
NASA NTRS2007

The NASA Earth Research-2 (ER-2) Aircraft: A Flying Laboratory for Earth Science Studies

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, has two Lockheed Martin Corporation (Bethesda, Maryland) Earth Research-2 (ER2) aircraft that serve as high-altitude and long-range flying laboratories. The ER-2 aircraft has been successfully utilized to conduct scientific studies of stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry, land-use mapping, disaster assessment, preliminary testing and calibration and validation of satellite sensors. The research missions for the ER-2 aircraft are planned, implemented, and managed by the Dryden Flight Research Center Science Mission Directorate. Maintenance and instrument payload integration is conducted by Dryden personnel. The ER-2 aircraft provides experimenters with a wide array of payload accommodations areas with suitable environment control with required electrical and mechanical interfaces. Missions may be flown out of Dryden or from remote bases worldwide, according to research requirements. The NASA ER-2 aircraft is utilized by a variety of customers, including U.S. Government agencies, civilian organizations, universities, and state governments. The combination of the ER-2 aircraft s range, endurance, altitude, payload power, payload volume and payload weight capabilities complemented by a trained maintenance and operations team provides an excellent and unique platform system to the science community and other customers.

Navarro, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2003

TRMM Data from the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) DISC DAAC: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)

Tropical rainfall affects the lives and economies of a majority of the Earth's population. Tropical rain systems, such as hurricanes, typhoons, and monsoons, are crucial to sustaining the livelihoods of those living in the tropics. Excess rainfall can cause floods and great property and crop damage, whereas too little rainfall can cause drought and crop failure. The latent heat release during the process of precipitation is a major source of energy that drives the atmospheric circulation. This latent heat can intensify weather systems, affecting weather thousands of kilometers away, thus making tropical rainfall an important indicator of atmospheric circulation and short-term climate change. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), jointly sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan, provides visible, infrared, and microwave observations of tropical and subtropical rain systems. The satellite observations are complemented by ground radar and rain gauge measurements to validate satellite rain estimation techniques. Goddard Space Flight Center's involvement includes the observatory, four instruments, integration and testing of the observatory, data processing and distribution, and satellite operations. TRMM has a design lifetime of three years. It is currently in its fifth year of operation. Data generated from TRMM and archived at the GES DAAC are useful not only for hydrologists, atmospheric scientists, and climatologists, but also for the health community studying infectious diseases, the ocean research community, and the agricultural community.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2018

Improving NASA Earth Science Data and Information Access Through Natural Language Processing Based Data Analysis and Visualization

NASA: The Research Access initiative is part of the agency's framework for increasing public access to scientific publications and digital scientific data. The initiative follows the release of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's (OSTP) memorandum "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research," to ensure federally funded research is available to the public within one year of publication. NASA answered the mandate by creating an agency plan entitled "NASA Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research" and associated policy, NPD 2230.1, Research Data and Publication Access. Principles in NASA SMD Strategic Plan for Scientific Data and Computing: Continued free and open access to scientific data for any use. Improved ease of use and discoverability. Enhanced science applications and new use cases. Incorporates best practices and "state of the art" through partnerships. Earth Data and Systems are Evolving: Increasing archive and file sizes. More complicated data structures. More user-friendly and data services. What is the future direction?

Liu, Zhong↗
NASA NTRS2007

Advanced NASA Earth Science Mission Concept for Vegetation 3D Structure, Biomass and Disturbance

Carbon in forest canopies represents about 85% of the total carbon in the Earth's aboveground biomass (Olson et al., 1983). A major source of uncertainty in global carbon budgets derives from large errors in the current estimates of these carbon stocks (IPCC, 2001). The magnitudes and distributions of terrestrial carbon storage along with changes in sources and sinks for atmospheric C02 due to land use change remain the most significant uncertainties in Earth's carbon budget. These uncertainties severely limit accurate terrestrial carbon accounting; our ability to evaluate terrestrial carbon management schemes; and the veracity of atmospheric C02 projections in response to further fossil fuel combustion and other human activities. Measurements of vegetation three-dimensional (3D) structural characteristics over the Earth's land surface are needed to estimate biomass and carbon stocks and to quantify biomass recovery following disturbance. These measurements include vegetation height, the vertical profile of canopy elements (i.e., leaves, stems, branches), andlor the volume scattering of canopy elements. They are critical for reducing uncertainties in the global carbon budget. Disturbance by natural phenomena, such as fire or wind, as well as by human activities, such as forest harvest, and subsequent recovery, complicate the quantification of carbon storage and release. The resulting spatial and temporal heterogeneity of terrestrial biomass and carbon in vegetation make it very difficult to estimate terrestrial carbon stocks and quantify their dynamics. Vegetation height profiles and disturbance recovery patterns are also required to assess ecosystem health and characterize habitat. The three-dimensional structure of vegetation provides habitats for many species and is a control on biodiversity. Canopy height and structure influence habitat use and specialization, two fundamental processes that modify species richness and abundance across ecosystems. Accurate and consistent 3D measurements of forest structure at the landscape scale are needed for assessing impacts to animal habitats and biodiversity following disturbance.

Ranson, K. Jon↗
NASA NTRS2007

ER-2: Flying Laboratory for Earth Science Studies

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), (Edwards, California, USA) has two Lockheed Martin Corporation (Bethesda, Maryland) Earth Research-2 (ER-2) aircraft that serve as high-altitude and long-range flying laboratories. The ER-2 has been utilized to conduct scientific studies of stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry, land-use mapping, disaster assessment, preliminary testing and calibration and validation of satellite sensors. The ER-2 aircraft provides experimenters with a wide array of payload accommodation areas with suitable environment control with required electrical and mechanical interfaces. Missions may be flown out of DFRC or from remote bases worldwide. The NASA ER-2 is utilized by a variety of customers, including U.S. Government agencies, civilian organizations, universities, and state governments. The combination of the ER-2 s range, endurance, altitude, payload power, payload volume and payload weight capabilities complemented by a trained maintenance and operations team provides an excellent and unique platform system to the science community.

Navarro, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2005

Advanced Instruments and Their Impact on Earth Science Missions (I)

A past paper (IAA-B4-1004) analyzed the costs associated with developing, launching and operating a constellation of small satellites for earth observations. That study provided examples of measurements that could be made with such a system, per-unit cost goals and an overview of technologies that might be applied to spacecraft (s/c) subsystems to minimize power, mass and volume. However, that paper largely ignored instruments and the impacts of instrument size, mass, and power reductions on future mission feasibility. This paper reviews instruments that have been or are being funded by NASA to reduce power consumption, mass, volume; to lower downlink demands; and/or lower unit costs. The instruments in question could be used in single spacecraft missions or implemented in spacecraft constellations to increase temporal or spatial coverage. The instrument descriptions describe measurements enabled and/or enhanced, concluding with descriptions of the instruments. Instruments chosen consist primarily of those with low s/c system resource demands, e.g., power or communications bandwidth.

Hartley, Jonathan↗
NASA NTRS1999

Check-Up of Planet Earth at the Turn of the Millennium Anticipated New Phase in Earth Sciences

Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. In 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite named recently "Terra" (by Ms. Sasha Jones, a 17 year old student in St. Louis, MO) will repeat Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering calibrated spectral observations from space. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-AM, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, will fill a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution of few kilometers on the physical, chemical and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-AM can revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment. In this talk I shall a give a historical perspective for the need for this expensive mission, give examples of the science that we anticipate to achieve using Terra measurements and describe this exciting mission.

Kaufman, Yoram↗