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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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NASA NTRS2005

An Agent-Based Interface to Terrestrial Ecological Forecasting

The latest generation of NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites has brought a new dimension to continuous monitoring of the living part of the Earth System, the biosphere. EOS data can now provide weekly global measures of vegetation productivity and ocean chlorophyll, and many related biophysical factors such as land cover changes or snowmelt rates. However, the highest economic value would come from forecasting impending conditions of the biosphere, to allow decision makers to mitigate dangers or exploit positive trends. NASA's strategic plan for the Earth Science Enterprise i d e n a s ecological forecasting as a focus for research. Ecological forecasting predicts the effects of changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment on ecosystem activity. Possible applications of such a system include predicting shortfalls or bumper crops of agricultural production, populations of threatened or invasive species or wildfire danger in time to allow improves preparation and logistical efficiency. Petabytes of remote sensing data are now available to help measure, understand and forecast changes in the Earth system, but using these data effectively can be surprisingly hard. The volume and variety of data files and formats are daunting. Simple data management activities, such as locating and transferring files, changing file formats, gridding point data, and scaling and reprojecting gridded data, can consume far more personnel time and resources than the actual data analysis. Some scientists commit to a particular data source or resolution just because using anything different would be more effort that it's worth. Better tools can help, but most of the tools developed to date are little more than shell scripts; they lack the flexibility to meet the diverse needs of users and are difficult to extend to handle changes in available data sources.

Golden, Keith↗
NASA NTRS2004

An Overview of Ecological Modeling and Machine Learning Research Within the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

In the early 1980 s NASA began research to understand global habitability and quantify the processes and fluxes between the Earth's vegetation and the biosphere. This effort evolved into the Earth Observing System Program which current encompasses 18 platforms and 80 sensors. During this time, the global environmental research community has evolved from a data poor to a data rich research area and is challenged to provide timely use of these new data. This talk will outline some of the data mining research NASA has funded in support for the environmental sciences in the Intelligent Systems project and will give a specific example in ecological forecasting, predicting the land surface properties given nowcasts and weather forecasts, using the Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS).

Coughlan, Joseph C.↗
NASA NTRS2005

"Ames Research Center: Linking our Origins to our Future"

Our research traces a path from interstellar materials to inhabited worlds and beyond. We examine how protoplanetary disks evolve and form terrestrial planets, the evolutionary paths of habitable planets, and how external factors (e.g., orbital eccentricity) and internal factors (atmospheric circulation) affect habitability. We trace, spectroscopically and chemically, the evolution of organic molecules from the interstellar medium onto habitable bodies. We examine how membranes might form under prebiotic planetary conditions. We evolve proteins capable of sustaining early metabolism, such as synthesis of biopolymers and transport of ions across membranes. We estimate the frequency of finding a functional prebiotic protein that formed spontaneously. We characterize the formation of diagnostic microbial biosignatures in rock-hosted ecosystems in ophiolite springs as an analog for subsurface life within our solar system, and photosynthetic microbial mats as biota that could be detected on extrasolar planets. We develop quantitative models that simulate energy relationships, biogeochemical cycling, trace gas exchange, and biodiversity. We examine the effects of climate variability on a vegetation-rich biosphere over intermediate time scales, using South American ecosystems as a model. We address natural transport of life beyond its planet of origin, such as on a meteorite, where survivors must withstand radiation, desiccation, and time in transit. We fly organisms and ecosystems in low Earth orbit to test their resistance to space. The Ames E&PO program disseminates these themes to national- and international-scale audiences through partnerships with the California Academy of Sciences, Yellow stone National Park, New York Hall of Science, and several K-14 educational organizations.

DesMarais, David J.↗
NASA NTRS2012

The HYSPIRI Decadal Survey Mission: Update on the Mission Concept and Science Objectives for Global Imaging Spectroscopy and Multi-Spectral Thermal Measurements

The NASA HyspIRI mission is planned to provide global solar reflected energy spectroscopic measurement of the terrestrial and shallow water regions of the Earth every 19 days will all measurements downlinked. In addition, HyspIRI will provide multi-spectral thermal measurements with a single band in the 4 micron region and seven bands in the 8 to 12 micron region with 5 day day/night coverage. A direct broadcast capability for measurement subsets is also planned. This HyspIRI mission is one of those designated in the 2007 National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey: Earth Science and Applications from Space. In the Decadal Survey, HyspIRI was recognized as relevant to a range of Earth science and science applications, including climate: "A hyperspectral sensor (e.g., FLORA) combined with a multispectral thermal sensor (e.g., SAVII) in low Earth orbit (LEO) is part of an integrated mission concept [described in Parts I and II] that is relevant to several panels, especially the climate variability panel." The HyspIRI science study group was formed in 2008 to evaluate and refine the mission concept. This group has developed a series of HyspIRI science objectives: (1) Climate: Ecosystem biochemistry, condition & feedback; spectral albedo; carbon/dust on snow/ice; biomass burning; evapotranspiration (2) Ecosystems: Global plant functional types, physiological condition, and biochemistry including agricultural lands (3) Fires: Fuel status, fire frequency, severity, emissions, and patterns of recovery globally (4) Coral reef and coastal habitats: Global composition and status (5) Volcanoes: Eruptions, emissions, regional and global impact (6) Geology and resources: Global distributions of surface mineral resources and improved understanding of geology and related hazards These objectives are achieved with the following measurement capabilities. The HyspIRI imaging spectrometer provides: full spectral coverage from 380 to 2500 at 10 nm sampling; 60 m spatial sampling with a 150 km swath; and fully downlinked coverage of the Earth's terrestrial and shallow water regions every 19 days to provide seasonal cloud-free coverage of the terrestrial surface. The HyspIRI Multi-Spectral Thermal instrument provides: 8 spectral bands from 4 to 12 microns; 60 m spatial sampling with a 600 km swath; and fully downlinked coverage of the Earth's terrestrial shallow water regions every 5 days (day/night) to provide nominally cloud-free monthly coverage. The HyspIRI mission also includes an on-board processing and direct broadcast capability, referred to as the Intelligent Payload Module (IPM), which will allow users with the appropriate antenna to download a subset of the HyspIRI data stream to a local ground station. These science and science application objectives are critical today and uniquely addressed by the combined imaging spectroscopy, thermal infrared measurements, and IPM direct broadcast capability of HyspIRI. Two key objectives are: (1) The global HyspIRI spectroscopic measurements of the terrestrial biosphere including vegetation composition and function to constrain and reduce the uncertainty in climate-carbon interactions and terrestrial biosphere feedback. (2) The global 8 band thermal measurements to provide improved constraint of fire related emissions. In this paper the current HyspIRI mission concept that has been reviewed and refined to its current level of maturity with a Data Products Symposium, Science Workshop and NASA HWorkshop is presented including traceability between the measurements and the science and science application objectives.

Green, Robert O.↗
NASA NTRS2017

GEONEX: Land Monitoring From a New Generation of Geostationary Satellite Sensors

The latest generation of geostationary satellites carry sensors such as ABI (Advanced Baseline Imager on GOES-16) and the AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager on Himawari) that closely mimic the spatial and spectral characteristics of Earth Observing System flagship MODIS for monitoring land surface conditions. More importantly they provide observations at 5-15 minute intervals. Such high frequency data offer exciting possibilities for producing robust estimates of land surface conditions by overcoming cloud cover, enabling studies of diurnally varying local-to-regional biosphere-atmosphere interactions, and operational decision-making in agriculture, forestry and disaster management. But the data come with challenges that need special attention. For instance, geostationary data feature changing sun angle at constant view for each pixel, which is reciprocal to sun-synchronous observations, and thus require careful adaptation of EOS algorithms. Our goal is to produce a set of land surface products from geostationary sensors by leveraging NASA's investments in EOS algorithms and in the data/compute facility NEX. The land surface variables of interest include atmospherically corrected surface reflectances, snow cover, vegetation indices and leaf area index (LAI)/fraction of photosynthetically absorbed radiation (FPAR), as well as land surface temperature and fires. In order to get ready to produce operational products over the US from GOES-16 starting 2018, we have utilized 18 months of data from Himawari AHI over Australia to test the production pipeline and the performance of various algorithms for our initial tests. The end-to-end processing pipeline consists of a suite of modules to (a) perform calibration and automatic georeference correction of the AHI L1b data, (b) adopt the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm to produce surface spectral reflectances along with compositing schemes and QA, and (c) modify relevant EOS retrieval algorithms (e.g., LAI and FPAR, GPP, etc.) for subsequent science product generation. Initial evaluation of Himawari AHI products against standard MODIS products indicate general agreement, suggesting that data from geostationary sensors can augment low earth orbit (LEO) satellite observations.

geostationary↗
NASA NTRS1992

Earth System science

Recent research has solidified a view of the Earth as a global-scale interactive system with complex chemical, physical, biological and dynamical processes that link the ocean, atmosphere, land (soils, ice, snow) and marine and terrestrial living organisms. These processes both within and between the major parts of the system help determine global and regional climate and control the biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles essential to life. The study of the Earth System requires measurements ranging from the scales of the smallest processes to the global scale. An ambitious satellite observational program, the Earth Observing System (EOS), carried out along with the complementary and ongoing World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) represents a major international effort to understand this System and predict its future changes. The complex and intriguing nature of the Earth System is discussed along with a number of closely coupled processes occurring within it. These are: clouds, precipitation and vegetation; ocean circulation, sea-surface temperature and phytoplankton; coupled oceanic and atmospheric circulation (the Southern Oscillation); biological activity, atmospheric chemistry and climate; and biological emissions and the ozone layer.

Prinn, R. G.↗
NASA NTRS2004

A LEO Hyperspectral Mission Implementation for Global Carbon Cycle Observations

For both terrestrial and ocean carbon cycle science objectives, high resolution (less than l0 nm) imaging spectrometers capable of acquiring multiple regional to global scale observations per day should enable the development of new remote sensing measurements for important but as yet unobservable variables, with the overall goal of linking both terrestrial and ocean carbon cycle processes to climate variability. For terrestrial research, accurate estimates of carbon, water and energy (CWE) exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and atmosphere a needed to id- the geographical locations and temporal dynamics of carbon sources/sinks and to improve regional climate models and climate change assessments. It is an enormous challenge to estimate CWE exchange from the infrequent temporal coverage and sparse spectral information provided by most single polar-orbiting, earth-looking satellite. The available satellite observations lack a sufficient number of well-placed narrow bands from which to derive spectral indices that capture vegetation responses to stress conditions associated with down-regulation of photosynthesis. Physiological status can best be assessed with spectral indices based on continuous, narrow bands in the visible/near infrared spectra, as can seasonal and annual terrestrial productivity. For coastal and ocean constituents, narrow-band observations in the ultraviolet and visible are essential to investigate the variability, dynamics and biogeochemical cycles of the world's coastal and open ocean regions, which will in turn help in measuring ocean productivity and predicting the variability of ocean carbon uptake and its role in climate change.

Gervin, Janette C.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Remotely Sensed Soil Moisture Can Capture Dynamics Relevant to Plant Water Uptake

A frequently expressed viewpoint across the Earth science community is that global soil moisture estimates from satellite L-band (1.4 GHz) measurements represent moisture only in a shallow surface layer (0–5 cm) and consequently are of limited value for studying global terrestrial ecosystems because plants use water from deeper rootzones. Using this argumentation, many observation-based land surface studies avoid satellite-observed soil moisture. Here, based on peer-reviewed literature across several fields, we argue that such a viewpoint is overly limiting for two reasons. First, microwave soil emission depth considerations and statistical considerations of vertically correlated soil moisture information together indicate that L-band measurements carry information about soil moisture extending below the commonly referenced 5 cm in many conditions. However, spatial variations of effective depths of representation remain uncertain. Second, in reviewing isotopic tracer field studies of plant water uptake, we find a prevalence of vegetation that primarily draws moisture from these upper soil layers. This is especially true for grasslands and croplands covering more than a third of global vegetated surfaces. Even some deeper-rooted species (i.e., shrubs and trees) preferentially or seasonally draw water from the upper soil layers. Therefore, L-band satellite soil moisture estimates are more relevant to global vegetation water uptake than commonly appreciated (i.e., relevant beyond only shallow soil processes like soil evaporation). Our commentary encourages the application of satellite soil moisture across a broader range of terrestrial hydrosphere and biosphere studies while urging more rigorous estimates of its effective depth of representation.

Andrew F. Feldman↗