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At least 811 records · Page 45

Visible charge-coupled device (CCD) focal plane design considerations for multispectral applications

The typical Multispectral Linear Array (MLA) Instrument mission would be to gather high-resolution, radiometrically accurate earth resources data in several spectral bands over a prolonged period of time. These bands would include the visible (VIS), near infrared (NIR) and short wavelength infrared. Silicon charge-coupled imaging devices (CCDs) can be assembled into contiguous pixel focal planes which will cover the VIS/NIR region and operate reliably for several years in a space environment. A typical MLA focal plane would have approximately 12,000 pixels, with a pixel-to-pixel registration requirement on the order of + or - 0.1 pixel. The technology to assemble such focal planes has been developed and is described. The problem of polarization sensitivity associated with certain types of focal plane assemblies is addressed. Radiation effects on CCDs are also discussed, and a practical solution to the problem through the use of shielding is described.

Sadowski, H.↗

Water vapor variance measurements using a Raman lidar

Because of the importance of atmospheric water vapor variance, we have analyzed data from the NASA/Goddard Raman lidar to obtain temporal scales of water vapor mixing ratio as a function of altitude over observation periods extending to 12 hours. The ground-based lidar measures water vapor mixing ration from near the earth's surface to an altitude of 9-10 km. Moisture profiles are acquired once every minute with 75 m vertical resolution. Data at each 75 meter altitude level can be displayed as a function of time from the beginning to the end of an observation period. These time sequences have been spectrally analyzed using a fast Fourier transform technique. An example of such a temporal spectrum obtained between 00:22 and 10:29 UT on December 6, 1991 is shown in the figure. The curve shown on the figure represents the spectral average of data from 11 height levels centered on an altitude of 1 km (1 plus or minus .375 km). The spectra shows a decrease in energy density with frequency which generally follows a -5/3 power law over the spectral interval 3x10 (exp -5) to 4x10 (exp -3) Hz. The flattening of the spectrum for frequencies greater than 6x10 (exp -3) Hz is most likely a measure of instrumental noise. Spectra like that shown in the figure are calculated for other altitudes and show changes in spectral features with height. Spectral analysis versus height have been performed for several observation periods which demonstrate changes in water vapor mixing ratio spectral character from one observation period to the next. The combination of these temporal spectra with independent measurements of winds aloft provide an opportunity to infer spatial scales of moisture variance.

Evans, K.↗

Geocenter location and variations in earth orientation using global positioning system measurements

We have studied the use of GPS ground and flight tracking data to measure short-period earth orientation variations and changes in geocenter location. Comparisons between GPS-estimated earth rotation variations and those calculated from ocean tide models suggest that observed subdaily variations in earth rotation are dominated by oceanic tidal effects. Our preliminary GPS estimates for geocenter location agree with an independent satellite laser ranging estimates to 10-15 cm. Covariance analysis predicts that temporal resolution of GPS estimates for earth orientation and geocenter improves significantly when data collected from low earth-orbiting satellites as well as from ground sites are combined. The low-earth GPS tracking data enhance the accuracy and resolution for measuring high-frequency global geodynamical signals over time scales less than 1 day.

Malla, R. P.↗

Towards developing an analytical procedure of defining the equatorial electrojet for correcting satellite magnetic anomaly data

Analysis of the total magnetic intensity MAGSAT data has identified and characterized the variability of ionospheric current effects as reflected in the geomagnetic field as a function of longitude, elevation, and time (daily as well as monthly variations). This analysis verifies previous observations in POGO data and provides important boundary conditions for theoretical studies of ionospheric currents. Furthermore, the observations have led to a procedure to remove these temporal perturbations from lithospheric MAGSAT magnetic anomaly data based on 'along-the-dip-latitude' averages from dawn and dusk data sets grouped according to longitudes, time (months), and elevation. Using this method, high-resolution lithospheric magnetic anomaly maps have been prepared of the earth over a plus or minus 50 deg latitude band. These maps have proven useful in the study of the structures, nature, and processes of the lithosphere.

Ravat, Dhananjay↗

High Accuracy Evaluation of the Finite Fourier Transform Using Sampled Data

Many system identification and signal processing procedures can be done advantageously in the frequency domain. A required preliminary step for this approach is the transformation of sampled time domain data into the frequency domain. The analytical tool used for this transformation is the finite Fourier transform. Inaccuracy in the transformation can degrade system identification and signal processing results. This work presents a method for evaluating the finite Fourier transform using cubic interpolation of sampled time domain data for high accuracy, and the chirp Zeta-transform for arbitrary frequency resolution. The accuracy of the technique is demonstrated in example cases where the transformation can be evaluated analytically. Arbitrary frequency resolution is shown to be important for capturing details of the data in the frequency domain. The technique is demonstrated using flight test data from a longitudinal maneuver of the F-18 High Alpha Research Vehicle.

Morelli, Eugene A.↗

Tunable Diode Laser Heterodyne Spectrophotometry of Ozone

Tunable diode laser heterodyne spectrophotometry (TDLHS) has been used to make extremely high resolution (less than 0.0005/ cm) solar spectra in the 9.6 micron ozone band. Observations have shown that a signal-to-noise ratio of 95 : 1 (35% of theoretical) for an integration time of 1/8 second can be achieved at a resolution of 0.0005 wavenumbers. The spectral data have been inverted to yield a total column amount of ozone, in good agreement with that. measured at the nearby National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ozone monitoring facility in Boulder, Colorado.

Fogal, P. F.↗

The Effects of Laterite and Associated Terrain Components on PBMR Response in HAPEX-Sahel

Terrain characteristics such as roughness and vegetation have been shown to significantly affect the interpretation of microwave brightness temperatures (T(B)s) for mapping soil moisture. This study, a part of the 1992 HAPEX-Sahel experiment (Hydrologic Atmospheric Pilot Experiment in the Sahel), aimed to determine the effects of laterite and associated terrain components (i.e. vegetation, soil, and exposed water bodies) on the T(B) response of the Pushbroom Microwave Radiometer (PBMR, L-band, 21 cm wavelength), using the NS001 Thematic Mapper Simulator data as a surrogate for ground data. Coincident PBMR and NS001 data acquired from the high altitude (about 1500 m) long transect flights were processed to obtain TBs and radiances, respectively. The transects covered a range of moisture conditions. For this preliminary evaluation, no atmospheric corrections were applied, and the data sets were aligned by matching the acquisition times of the data records. NS001 pixels (about 4 m) were averaged to approximate the resolution of the PBMR (about 450 m), before their flight line data were compared. The laterite plateaux were found to have a surprisingly strong effect on the PBMR T(B) response. T(B) variations along the flight line could largely be explained by a combination of density and dielectric properties of laterite. The effect of surface moisture was distinguishable from the laterite effect, with the distinction apparently related to the occurrence of ephemeral pools of water after rainfall. Model simulated T(B)s agreed reasonably well with the observed T(B)s.

Teng, William L.↗

Profiles of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Their Component Pulses

One physically informative regularity of their otherwise heterogeneous ensemble, is that many Gamma-Ray Bursts consist of well defined pulses. To objectively quantify the temporal structure of BATSE bursts, we have developed an automatic modeling procedure that separates overlapping pulses and determines the energy-dependence of the pulse-shape parameters. No binning of photon arrival times is needed, so when applied to time-tagged events (TTE) the procedure captures variability information down to the shortest time scales present in the raw data. Maximizing the Bayesian likelihood function Pr(data/model) yields estimates of the model parameters, including the number of pulses present, and allows intercomparison of models of different forms. As with any nonlinear optimization, good initial guesses are crucial to avoid convergence to undesirable local minima. We find excellent initial pulse decompositions by wavelet-denoising a cumulative distribution of the raw photon arrival data; differentiation then gives a time profile mostly free of the systematic effects of degraded resolution (as in ordinary Fourier smoothing) and binning. We present statistical information on pulse rise-time, decay-time, peakedness, and amplitudes, plus their energy dependences - both within a single burst and for a large ensemble of bursts.

Scargle, Jeff D.↗

Stochastic Models of Tropical Rain-Rate Fields

Because of the extreme variability of rain rate in space and time and the difficulties with remote sensing methods of measuring rain rates, accurate determination of rainfall over large areas and time periods has long been a problem for hydrologists, meteorogists, and climatologists. A number of statistical models of rain have been developed in order to investigate the impact of rain variability on satellite remote sensing methods, validation of satellite rain products, and generation of rain maps with accompanying error estimates. These models may be useful in examining 'sub-grid scale' issues in representing precipitation in numerical mdoels. A stochastic model will first be described which can generate time-dependent high-resolution spatial rain fields with space and time correlations similar to those seen in rain data, as well as representing the presence of areas with zero rain rate and log-normally distributed rain rates where there is rain. A simpler model derived from this, formulated in the spectral domain, seems to imply fractal-like rain statistics at small scales when fit to rain data.

Bell, Thomas L.↗

Galileo Infrared Observations of the Shoemaker Levy 9 G and R Fireballs and Splash

The Galileo spacecraft was fortuitously situated for a direct view of the impacts of comet Shoemaker(ka)evy 9 in Jupiter's atmosphere and measurements were recorded by the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) instrument for several of the impact events. Seventeen discrete wavelength channels were used between 0.7 to 5.0 microns, obtained with a time resolution of 5 seconds. Two phases of the impact phenomena are found in the data: the initial fireball, which was evident for one minute, and subsequent fallback of impact ejecta onto the atmosphere, starting six minutes after fireball initiation.

Shoemaker Levy↗

Inexpensive Implementation of Many Strain Gauges

It has been proposed to develop arrays of strain gauges as arrays of ordinary metal film resistors and associated electronic readout circuitry on printed circuit boards or other suitable substrates. This proposal is a by-product of a development of instrumentation utilizing metal film resistors on printed-circuit boards to measure temperatures at multiple locations. In the course of that development, it was observed that in addition to being sensitive to temperature, the metal film resistors were also sensitive to strains in the printed-circuit boards to which they were attached. Because of the low cost of ordinary metal film resistors (typically <$0.01 apiece at 2007 prices), the proposal could enable inexpensive implementation of arrays of many (e.g., 100 or more) strain gauges, possibly concentrated in small areas. For example, such an array could be designed for use as a computer keyboard with no moving parts, as a device for sensing the shape of an object resting on a surface, or as a device for measuring strains at many points on a mirror, a fuel tank, an airplane wing, or other large object. Ordinarily, the effect of strain on resistance would be regarded as a nuisance in a temperature-measuring application, and the effect of temperature on resistance would be regarded as a nuisance in a strain-measuring application. The strain-induced changes in resistance of the metal film resistors in question are less than those of films in traditional strain gauges. The main novel aspect of present proposal lies in the use of circuitry affording sufficient sensitivity to measure strain plus means for compensating for the effect of temperature. For an array of metal film resistors used as proposed, the readout circuits would include a high-accuracy analog-to-digital converter fed by a low noise current source, amplifier chain, and an analog multiplexer chain. Corrections would be provided by use of high-accuracy calibration resistors and a temperature sensor. By use of such readout circuitry, it would be possible to read the resistances of as many as 100 fixed resistors in a time interval of 1 second at a resolution much greater than 16 bits. The readout data would be processed, along with temperature calibration data, to deduce the strain on the printed-circuit board or other substrate in the areas around the resistors. It should also be possible to also deduce the temperature from the readings.

Berkun, Andrew C.↗

Role of MODIS Vegetation Phenology Products in the ForWarn System for Monitoring of Forest Disturbances in the Conterminous United States

This presentation discusses MODIS vegetation phenology products used in the ForWarn Early Warning System (EWS) tool for near real time regional forest disturbance detection and surveillance at regional to national scales. The ForWarn EWS is being developed by the USDA Forest Service NASA, ORNL, and USGS to aid federal and state forest health management activities. ForWarn employs multiple historical land surface phenology products that are derived from MODIS MOD13 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. The latter is temporally processed into phenology products with the Time Series Product Tool (TSPT) and the Phenological Parameter Estimation Tool (PPET) software produced at NASA Stennis Space Center. TSPT is used to effectively noise reduce, fuse, and void interpolate MODIS NDVI data. PPET employs TSPT-processed NDVI time series data as an input, outputting multiple vegetation phenology products at a 232 meter resolution for 2000 to 2011, including NDVI magnitude and day of year products for seven key points along the growing season (peak of growing season and the minima, 20%, and 80% of the peak NDVI for both the left and right side of growing season), cumulative NDVI integral products for the most active part of the growing season and sequentially across the growing season at 8 day intervals, and maximum value NDVI products composited at 24 day intervals in which each product date has 8 days of overlap between the previous and following product dates. MODIS NDVI phenology products are also used to compute nationwide NRT forest change products refreshed every 8 days. These include percent change in forest NDVI products that compare the current NDVI from USGS eMODIS products to historical MODIS MOD13 NDVI. For each date, three forest change products are produced using three different maximum value NDVI baselines (from the previous year, three previous years, and all previous years). All change products are output with a rainbow color table in which forests with the most severe NDVI decreases are assigned hot colors (yellow to red) and forests with prominent NDVI increases are assigned cold colors (blue tones). All mentioned products have been integrated as data layers into ForWarn s geospatial data viewer known as the U.S. Forest Change Assessment Viewer (FCAV). The latter is used to view and assess the context of the mentioned forest change products with respect to ancillary data layers, such as land cover, elevation, hydrologic features, climatic data, storm data, aerial disturbance surveys, fire data, and land ownership. The FCAV also includes a temporal NDVI profiler for viewing phenological change in multi-year NDVI associated with known or suspected regionally apparent forest disturbances (e.g., from fire and insects). ForWarn forest change products have been used to detect, track, and assess several biotic and abiotic regional forest disturbance events across the country, including ephemeral and longer lasting damage from storms, drought, and insects. Such change products are most effective for viewing severe disturbances affecting multiple MODIS pixels. MODIS vegetation phenology products contribute vital current information on forest conditions to the ForWarn system and this role is expected to grow as these products are refined and derivative products are added.

Spruce, Joseph P.↗

High-Speed On-Board Data Processing for Science Instruments: HOPS

The project called High-Speed On-Board Data Processing for Science Instruments (HOPS) has been funded by NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) program during April, 2012 â€" April, 2015. HOPS is an enabler for science missions with extremely high data processing rates. In this three-year effort of HOPS, Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) and 3-D Winds were of interest in particular. As for ASCENDS, HOPS replaces time domain data processing with frequency domain processing while making the real-time on-board data processing possible. As for 3-D Winds, HOPS offers real-time high-resolution wind profiling with 4,096-point fast Fourier transform (FFT). HOPS is adaptable with quick turn-around time. Since HOPS offers reusable user-friendly computational elements, its FPGA IP Core can be modified for a shorter development period if the algorithm changes. The FPGA and memory bandwidth of HOPS is 20 GB/sec while the typical maximum processor-to-SDRAM bandwidth of the commercial radiation tolerant high-end processors is about 130-150 MB/sec. The inter-board communication bandwidth of HOPS is 4 GB/sec while the effective processor-to-cPCI bandwidth of commercial radiation tolerant high-end boards is about 50-75 MB/sec. Also, HOPS offers VHDL cores for the easy and efficient implementation of ASCENDS and 3-D Winds, and other similar algorithms. A general overview of the 3-year development of HOPS is the goal of this presentation.

Beyon, Jeffrey↗

Evolution of an Atmospheric Kármán Vortex Street From High‐Resolution Satellite Winds: Guadalupe Island Case Study

Vortex streets formed in the stratocumulus‐capped wake of mountainous islands are the atmospheric analogues of the classic Kármán vortex street observed in laboratory flows past bluff bodies. The quantitative analysis of these mesoscale unsteady atmospheric flows has been hampered by the lack of satellite wind retrievals of sufficiently high spatial and temporal resolution. Taking advantage of the cutting‐edge Advanced Baseline Imager, we derived kilometer‐scale cloud‐motion winds at 5‐min frequency for a vortex street in the lee of Guadalupe Island imaged by Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite‐16. Combined with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data, the geostationary imagery also provided accurate stereo cloud‐top heights. The time series of geostationary winds, supplemented with snapshots of ocean surface winds from the Advanced Scatterometer, allowed us to capture the wake oscillations and measure vortex shedding dynamics. The retrievals revealed a markedly asymmetric vortex decay, with cyclonic eddies having larger peak vorticities than anticyclonic eddies at the same downstream location. Drawing on the vast knowledge accumulated about laboratory bluff body flows, we argue that the asymmetric island wake arises from the combined effects of Earth's rotation and Guadalupe's nonaxisymmetric shape resembling an inclined flat plate at low angle of attack. However, numerical simulations will need to establish whether or not the selective destabilization of the shallow atmospheric anticyclonic eddies is caused by the same mechanisms that destabilize the deep columnar anticyclones of laboratory flows, such as three‐dimensional vertical perturbations due to centrifugal or elliptical instabilities.

Horváth, Á.↗

In Situ Measurements of Ammonia In Plumes Emitted From Wildfires And Agricultural Fires in the US

Emissions of trace gases and particles from fires have a major impact on climate, visibility, air quality, and public health. Biomass burning emissions include reactive nitrogen gases, among which ammonia (NH3) plays a prominent role. NH3 is a short-lived gas that acts as precursor for secondary inorganic aerosols. This process is still poorly constrained in downwind fire plumes. In summer 2019, NASA and NOAA carried out the joint airborne FIREX-AQ (Fire Influence on Regional to global Environments and Air Quality) mission over the continental US to sample plumes from wildfires and agricultural fires. On board the NASA DC-8, we used a modified PTR-ToF-MS instrument for measuring NH3 in situ and at high time resolution. Over the course of the mission, we collected a large set of NH3 data in plumes emitted from fires differing in fuel type and burning stage. Herein, we will present the measured NH3 emissions ratios and factors, compare them with the literature, and investigate the dependence of NH3 emissions on fuel type and burning conditions.

ammonia↗

Prithvi-EO-2.0: A Versatile Multi-Temporal Foundation Model for Earth Observation Applications

This technical report presents Prithvi-EO-2.0, a new geospatial foundation model that offers significant improvements over its predecessor, Prithvi-EO-1.0. Trained on 4.2M global time series samples from NASA’s Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 data archive at 30m resolution, the new 300M and 600M parameter models incorporate temporal and location embeddings for enhanced performance across various geospatial tasks. Through extensive benchmarking with GEOBench, the 600M version outperforms the previous Prithvi-EO model by 8% across a range of tasks. It also outperforms six other geospatial foundation models when benchmarked on remote sensing tasks from different domains and resolutions (i.e. from 0.1m to 15m). The results demonstrate the versatility of the model in both classical earth observation and high-resolution applications. Early involvement of end-users and subject matter experts (SMEs) are among the key factors that contributed to the project’s success. In particular, SME involvement allowed for constant feedback on model and dataset design, as well as successful customization for diverse SME-led applications in disaster response, land use and crop mapping, and ecosystem dynamics monitoring. Prithvi-EO-2.0 is available on Hugging Face and IBM terratorch, with additional resources on GitHub. The project exemplifies the Trusted Open Science approach embraced by all involved organizations.

Daniela Szwarcman↗

Solar Coronal Structure Study

The subject of this investigation is to study the physics of the solar corona through the analysis of the EUV and UV data produced by two flights (12 May 1992 and 25 April 1994) of the Lockheed Solar Plasma Diagnostics Experiment (SPDE) sounding rocket payload, in combination with Yohkoh and ground-based data. Each rocket flight produced both spectral and imaging data. These joint datasets are useful for understanding the physical state of various features in the solar atmosphere at different heights ranging from the photosphere to the corona at the time of the, rocket flights, which took place during the declining phase of a solar cycle, 2-4 years before the minimum. The investigation is narrowly focused on comparing the physics of small- and medium-scale strong-field structures with that of large-scale, weak fields. As we close th is investigation, we have to recall that our present position in the understanding of basic solar physics problems (such as coronal heating) is much different from that in 1995 (when we proposed this investigation), due largely to the great success of SOHO and TRACE. In other words, several topics and techniques we proposed can now be better realized with data from these missions. For this reason, at some point of our work, we started concentrating on the 1992 data, which are more unique and have more supporting data. As a result, we discontinued the investigation on small-scale structures, i.e., bright points, since high-resolution TRACE images have addressed more important physics than SPDE EUV images could do. In the final year, we still spent long time calibrating the 1992 data. The work was complicated because of the old-fashioned film, which had problems not encountered with more modern CCD detectors. After our considerable effort on calibration, we were able to focus on several scientific topics, relying heavily on the SPDE UV images. They include the relation between filaments and filament channels, the identification of hot loops, and the physical conditions of such loops especially at their foot-points. A total of four papers were completed from this contract which are listed in the last section.

Nitta, Nariaki↗

Turbulent CO2 Flux Measurements by Lidar: Length Scales, Results and Comparison with In-Situ Sensors

The vertical CO2 flux in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is investigated with a Doppler differential absorption lidar (DIAL). The instrument was operated next to the WLEF instrumented tall tower in Park Falls, Wisconsin during three days and nights in June 2007. Profiles of turbulent CO2 mixing ratio and vertical velocity fluctuations are measured by in-situ sensors and Doppler DIAL. Time and space scales of turbulence are precisely defined in the ABL. The eddy-covariance method is applied to calculate turbulent CO2 flux both by lidar and in-situ sensors. We show preliminary mean lidar CO2 flux measurements in the ABL with a time and space resolution of 6 h and 1500 m respectively. The flux instrumental errors decrease linearly with the standard deviation of the CO2 data, as expected. Although turbulent fluctuations of CO2 are negligible with respect to the mean (0.1 %), we show that the eddy-covariance method can provide 2-h, 150-m range resolved CO2 flux estimates as long as the CO2 mixing ratio instrumental error is no greater than 10 ppm and the vertical velocity error is lower than the natural fluctuations over a time resolution of 10 s.

Gilbert, Fabien↗