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NASA NTRS2022

Gatlinburg & Beatty Wildfires: Evaluating the Role of Soil Moisture in Determining Vegetation Health, Fuel Loads, and Wildfires in the Gatlinburg and Beatty Wildfires

Wildfire potential monitoring, which is increasingly vital under climate change-induced droughts, could be improved by incorporating remotely-sensed soil moisture data. To better understand the connections between soil moisture and vegetation health, stakeholders are interested in using soil moisture data in the development of fire-related indices. NASA DEVELOP partnered with the Desert Research Institute’s Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), the North Carolina State Climate Office, and Oklahoma State University to evaluate how measures of remotely-sensed standardized soil moisture compare to vegetation health and fire fuel indices in a case study of two fire events: the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 Fire near Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the 2021 Bootleg Fire near Beatty, Oregon. The team visualized vegetation change six months prior to each event using spectral vegetation indices observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite and the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI). These visualizations were compared to soil moisture data from European Space Agency's (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Soil Moisture (CCI SM) project, collected in part by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. Overall, period of record percentiles and fraction of available water standardizations correlated more strongly with fuel load and vegetation indices, indicating their utility for fire potential monitoring. Soil moisture conditions remained exceptionally dry for several months before the Chimney Tops 2 Fire whereas drought conditions only intensified immediately prior to the Bootleg Fire. This indicates greater sensitivity to drought conditions under Western fire regimes. These findings will inform partners’ monitoring of wildfire potential in both regions and development of early warning systems.

soil moisture↗

NASA NTRS2022

Maine Ecological Forecasting III: Utilizing Earth Observations to Monitor Federally Endangered Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Habitat in Maine: An Interactive Workshop

Shifting patterns in land use and land cover (LULC), temperature, and precipitation have exacerbated a rapid decline in Federally Endangered wild Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations. The team at NASA DEVELOP partnered with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Downeast Salmon Federation (DSF) to create a comprehensive workshop designed to demonstrate the applicability of Earth observations in examining these threats using the Penobscot, Union, and Machias Rivers as case studies. This entailed curating tutorials for acquiring and analyzing satellite data using Google Earth Engine, EarthExplorer, and Earthdata. The team demonstrated how to classify LULC in ArcGIS Pro from 1985 until 2021 using Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operation Land Imager (OLI), Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI), and datasets from the United Stated Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD), showing an overall transition from coniferous forests to other LULC classes. The team also demonstrated how to use historical data from Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM IMERG) to generate 2021 land surface temperature (LST) and precipitation maps, respectively, showing that Maine was abnormally dry during the summer in an increasingly warm region. These workshop materials will aid the partners in integrating NASA Earth observations into their future salmon habitat restoration initiatives.

Jonathan Falciani↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

SERVIR: Cross-Comparison of Carbon Emission Estimates Based on Variable Land Use Land Cover Changes within SERVIR Focus Regions

Deforestation in the tropics contributes approximately one-fifth of the annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In an effort to reduce GHG emissions, SERVIR - a joint USAID and NASA initiative - is currently implementing the SERVIR CArbon Pilot (S-CAP) activity. By developing a comprehensive CO2 tracking system in Google Earth Engine based on both remotely sensed data and in situ observations, S-CAP aims to build capacity within the SERVIR regional hubs to improve decision making and local monitoring efforts surrounding GHG emissions. The S-CAP estimations are being completed throughout 11 pilot countries within the SERVIR regions of Asia, Africa, and the Americas to integrate partner contributions and local input into the development process. These emission estimate calculations use country-level REDD+ FREL reported values, global remotely sensed data (e.g. Global Forest Watch) and regional datasets and are completed using the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. From the S-CAP activity thus far, country CO2 estimations had varied differences, ranging from 56% to 197% between their lowest and highest estimates. The results from this study show that CO2 emission estimates can differ greatly depending on the land cover data sets used as well as the biomass values, and how a comprehensive database is essential in understanding the full range of impacts that land cover change has in these regions. Using this ensemble approach, SERVIR hubs can better select the most appropriate datasets available for estimating emissions.

Carbon Emission↗

NASA NTRS2011

Contribution of Near Real Time MODIS-Based Forest Disturbance Detection Products to a National Forest Threat Early Warning System

U.S. forests occupy approx. 751 million acres (approx. 1/3 of total land). These forests are exposed to multiple biotic and abiotic threats that collectively damage extensive acreages each year. Hazardous forest disturbances can threaten human life and property, bio-diversity and water supplies. Timely regional forest monitoring products are needed to aid forest management and decision making by the US Forest Service and its state and private partners. Daily MODIS data products provide a means to monitor regional forest disturbances on a weekly basis. In response, we began work in 2006 to develop a Near Real Time (NRT) forest monitoring capability, based on MODIS NDVI data, as part of a national forest threat early warning system (EWS)

Spruce, Joseph↗

NASA NTRS2017

Partnering with NASA: An Overview

Ames↗

NASA NTRS2017

Public-Private Partnerships: NASA as Your Business Partner

Partnerships is an important part of doing business at NASA. NASA partners with external organizations to access capabilities under collaborative agreements; enters into agreements for partner access to NASA capabilities; expand overall landscape of space activity; and spurring innovation. The U.S. national policy on commercial space is to develop a robust and competitive U.S. commercial space sector and to energize competitive domestic industries to participate in global markets. Commercial space must be competitive, while the government has other priorities such as safety, jobs, etc. NASA partnerships consist of Reimbursable and Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreements. Partnerships at Ames aligns with Ames' core competencies, and Partners often office in the NASA Research Park, which is an established regional innovation cluster that facilitates commercialization and services as a technology accelerator via onsite collaborations between NASA and its partners.

Ames↗

NASA NTRS1989

Synthesis of H2 in dirty ice mantles by fast ion energy loss: New experimental results increase the relevance of this mechanism

Recent experimental results support the importance of H2 production in molecular clouds by cosmic ray bombardment of the mantles of grains. The formation of molecules different from those originally present in the irradiated layer can be explained by the production of molecular fragments induced by the release of energy if the impinging fast particle. One way of considering the process is in terms of a transiently hot cylinder, initially about 50 A in diameter, that exists around the track of an individual fast ion. Since ice has a relatively low thermal conductivity, energy lost by the ion in the ice layers remains confined around the track for time long enough to be thermalized. The hot cylinder increases in diameter and decreases in temperature on a time scale of 10(exp -11) to 10(exp -10) sec. Molecular fragments that are formed in this high temperature region acquire enough mobility to recombine with different partners, forming new molecules. A Monte Carlo simulation of the interaction between cosmic rays and grain mantles, at various depths in the core of a spherical molecular cloud, was performed. The simulation was continued until 40,000 ions had hit each grain of the type and size chosen. During the performed experiments thin icy films made of H2O and CD4 mixed in the gas phase and deposited on a cold finger at 9 K were irradiated with 1.5 MeV helium beams. Among synthesized molecules were found H2, HD, and D2.

Pirranello, Valero↗

NASA NTRS1997

Hybrid Turbine Electric Vehicle

Hybrid electric power trains may revolutionize today's ground passenger vehicles by significantly improving fuel economy and decreasing emissions. The NASA Lewis Research Center is working with industry, universities, and Government to develop and demonstrate a hybrid electric vehicle. Our partners include Bowling Green State University, the Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, Lincoln Electric Motor Division, the State of Ohio's Department of Development, and Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical. The vehicle will be a heavy class urban transit bus offering double the fuel economy of today's buses and emissions that are reduced to 1/10th of the Environmental Protection Agency's standards. At the heart of the vehicle's drive train is a natural-gas-fueled engine. Initially, a small automotive engine will be tested as a baseline. This will be followed by the introduction of an advanced gas turbine developed from an aircraft jet engine. The engine turns a high-speed generator, producing electricity. Power from both the generator and an onboard energy storage system is then provided to a variable-speed electric motor attached to the rear drive axle. An intelligent power-control system determines the most efficient operation of the engine and energy storage system.

Viterna, Larry A.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Serving Fisheries and Ocean Metadata to Communities Around the World

NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) assists the oceanographic community in the discovery, access, and sharing of scientific data by serving on-line fisheries and ocean metadata to users around the globe. As of January 2006, the directory holds more than 16,300 Earth Science data descriptions and over 1,300 services descriptions. Of these, nearly 4,000 unique ocean-related metadata records are available to the public, with many having direct links to the data. In 2005, the GCMD averaged over 5 million hits a month, with nearly a half million unique hosts for the year. Through the GCMD portal (http://gcmd.nasa.gov/), users can search vast and growing quantities of data and services using controlled keywords, free-text searches, or a combination of both. Users may now refine a search based on topic, location, instrument, platform, project, data center, spatial and temporal coverage, and data resolution for selected datasets. The directory also offers data holders a means to advertise and search their data through customized portals, which are subset views of the directory. The discovery metadata standard used is the Directory Interchange Format (DIF), adopted in 1988. This format has evolved to accommodate other national and international standards such as FGDC and IS019115. Users can submit metadata through easy-to-use online and offline authoring tools. The directory, which also serves as the International Directory Network (IDN), has been providing its services and sharing its experience and knowledge of metadata at the international, national, regional, and local level for many years. Active partners include the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), federal agencies (such as NASA, NOAA, and USGS), international agencies (such as IOC/IODE, UN, and JAXA) and organizations (such as ESIP, IOOS/DMAC, GOSIC, GLOBEC, OBIS, and GoMODP).

Meaux, Melanie F.↗

NASA NTRS2021

Montana Water Resources II: Enhancing a Moisture Index for Drought and Flood Monitoring in the Missouri River Basin

The Missouri River Basin is a major global breadbasket, containing large amounts of agricultural land. Recent devastating weather events have motivated regional organizations to dedicate efforts to drought and flood monitoring and early warning systems. The DEVELOP team partnered with the following organizations: Montana Climate Office, NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Missouri Basin River Forecast Center, NOAA Regional Climate Services of the Central Region, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, and the US Army Corps of Engineers' Missouri River Basin Water Management Division. The team collaborated with the partners in their efforts to monitor flood and drought by enhancing a composite moisture index (CMI) for the Missouri River Basin. The CMI leverages NASA Earth observations to derive snow cover data from the Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mission and snow water equivalent and snowdepth datasets from the NOAA NWS National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center’s Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS). Building upon this framework, the team added groundwater storage data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On missions, soil moisture data from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), and United States Geological Survey in situ streamflow data to the CMI. To test the tool’s validity, the team compared the CMI results to historically extreme dry and extreme wet years, March 2017 and March 2019, respectively. The CMI accurately reflects both 2017 and 2019 climate conditions in the Missouri River Basin. The refined CMI enhances the understanding of antecedent soil moisture conditions and improves flood and drought forecasting in the Missouri River Basin before the growing season.

Chloe Schneider↗

NASA NTRS2018

Developing Land Use Land Cover Maps for the Lower Mekong Basin to Aid Hydrologic Modeling and Basin Planning

This paper discusses research methodology to develop Land Use Land Cover (LULC) mapsfor the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) for basin planning, using both MODIS and Landsat satellitedata. The 2010 MODIS MOD09 and MYD09 8-day reflectance data was processed into monthlyNDVI maps with the Time Series Product Tool software package and then used to classify regionallycommon forest and agricultural LULC types. Dry season circa 2010 Landsat top of atmosphere reflectance mosaics were classified to map locally common LULC types. Unsupervised ISODATAclustering was used to derive most LULC classifications. MODIS and Landsat classifications werecombined with GIS methods to derive final 250-m LULC maps for Sub-basins (SBs) 1â€“8 of the LMB.The SB 7 LULC map with 14 classes was assessed for accuracy. This assessment compared randomlocations for sampled types on the SB 7 LULC map to geospatial reference data such as Landsat RGBs,MODIS NDVI phenologic profiles, high resolution satellite data, and Mekong River Commissiondata (e.g., crop calendars). The SB 7 LULC map showed an overall agreement to reference data of~81%. By grouping three deciduous forest classes into one, the overall agreement improved to ~87%.The project enabled updated regional LULC maps that included more detailed agriculture LULCtypes. LULC maps were supplied to project partners to improve use of Soil andWater AssessmentTool for modeling hydrology and water use, plus enhance LMB water and disaster managementin a region vulnerable to flooding, droughts, and anthropogenic change as part of basin planningand assessment.

land use land cover mapping; SWAT hydrologic model↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Assessing Urban Heat in the Cincinnati and Covington Area to Inform Local Decision-Makers and Environmental Justice Initiatives

The Urban Heat Island effect is a phenomenon characterized by urban areas experiencing temperatures that are, on average, warmer than surrounding suburban and rural regions. Urban Heat Islands are fueled by expansive impervious surfaces, vehicle emissions, and insufficient urban green space. Densely populated urban centers like the Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky area can experience negative health impacts due to the Urban Heat Island. NASA DEVELOP partnered with Groundwork USA and Groundwork Ohio River Valley to combine environmental education and outreach with technical capacity building in NASA Earth observations. The DEVELOP team used Landsat 5 TM and ISS ECOSTRESS to calculate daytime and nighttime land surface temperature anomalies. The team found that the Cincinnati and Covington area was 8.32°F warmer during the day and 4.97°F warmer at night compared to non-urban areas. The team also ran the Natural Capital Project InVEST Urban Cooling Model to map a heat mitigation index for the study area. The heat mitigation index models the cooling capacity of each pixel and the effect of green spaces on the pixel’s ability to mitigate heat. Results show which communities are most vulnerable to impacts of increased urban heat. The team also assessed alternative tree canopy scenarios with the InVEST model to better understand the effectiveness of potential heat mitigation strategies. Increasing tree canopy cover by 25% in urbanized land cover types was found to reduce mean temperature across the study area by 0.87°F. Combining these results with work from Groundwork’s Climate Safe Neighborhoods program highlights the relationship between extreme heat and historical-race based housing practices in the region. Results provide partners at Groundwork with refined methodologies to support future education and outreach, as well as increase future capacity to NASA Earth observations.

Celeste Gambino↗

NASA NTRS2019

Utilizing Satellite Based Observations and Physical Hydrological Modeling for Freshwater Ecosystem Health in the Lower Mekong River Basin

Freshwater availability is necessary to promote economic growth through agriculture, fisheries, transport, environmental health, and social equity.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Conservation International (CI) are partnering to use remote sensing Earth observations to improve regional efforts that assess natural resources for conservation and sustainable management. (Vollmer et al.,2018) have presented the social-ecological framework named the Freshwater Health Index (FHI), which takes account of the interplay between governance, stakeholders, freshwater ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide.In this work, we develop decision support and making tools for natural resources conservation in the Lower Mekong by leveraging the FHI framework, multiple data products, and hydrological modeling capabilities (Mohammed et al., 2018). Modeling capabilities enable the integration of satellite-based daily gridded precipitation, air temperature, digital elevation model, soil characteristics, and land cover and land use information to simulate water flux framework.

Mohammed, Ibrahim N.↗

NASA NTRS2010

HIMALA: Climate Impacts on Glaciers, Snow, and Hydrology in the Himalayan Region

Glaciers are the largest reservoir of freshwater on Earth, supporting one third of the world s population. The Himalaya possess one of the largest resources of snow and ice, which act as a freshwater reservoir for more than 1.3 billion people. This article describes a new project called HIMALA, which focuses on utilizing satellite-based products for better understanding of hydrological processes of the river basins of the region. With support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), together with its partners and member countries, has been working on the application of satellite-based rainfall estimates for flood prediction. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) partners are working with ICIMOD to incorporate snowmelt and glacier melt into a widely used hydrological model. Thus, through improved modeling of the contribution of snow and ice meltwater to river flow in the region, the HIMALA project will improve the ability of ICIMOD and its partners to understand the impact of weather and climate on floods, droughts, and other water- and climate-induced natural hazards in the Himalayan region in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.

Brown, Molly Elizabeth↗

NASA NTRS2021

Framework for Coordinated Efforts in the Exploration of Volatiles in the South Polar Region of the Moon

The exploration of the lunar south polar region and the ground truthing of polar volatiles is one of the top priorities for several space agencies and private partners. Here we use Moon Mineralogy Mapper surficial water ice detections to investigate the location of water ice-bearing permanently shaded regions near the south pole. We extract a variety of parameters such as their temperature regime, slope, hydrogen content, number of ice detections, depth stability for water ice and dry ice, and mobility aspects. We identify 169 water ice-bearing PSRs and use their characteristics to identify sites that allow to access the highest abundances of volatiles, sites that can be visited to characterize the lateral or vertical distribution of volatiles (water ice and dry ice), and sites that allow for the fastest recovery of a scientifically interesting sample. Collectively, 37 PSRs are identified as sites of interest, including 11 that would address more than one mission objective and may be, for that reason, higher priority targets of exploration. These PSRs are found in Shoemaker, Faustini, Cabeus, Malapert, Nobile, Sverdrup, Wiechert J and Haworth craters, as well as 3 unnamed craters (PSRs 57, 120, 89). These sites are all located within 6 degrees of the south pole. We present case studies for a relatively short traverse mission (20 to 50 km) to PSR 89, a medium length traverse (~100 km) to Sverdrup 1, and a longer traverse (~300 km) to Cabeus that can serve as a guide in planning upcoming exploration missions.

Myriam Lemelin↗

NASA NTRS2017

Exploring the Evolutionary Accident Hypothesis: Are Extant Protein Folds the Fittest or the Luckiest?

Considering the range of functions proteins perform, it is surprising they fold into a relatively small set of structures or "folds" that facilitate such function. One explanation is that only a minority were fit enough to emerge from Darwinian selection during the early evolution of life. Alternatively, perhaps only a fraction of all possible folds were trialed. Understanding proto-catalyst selection will aid understanding of the origins and early evolution of life. To investigate which explanation is correct, we study a protein evolved in vitro to bind ATP by Jack Szostak (Fig. 1). This protein adopts a fold which is absent from nature. We are testing whether this fold would have possessed the capability to evolve that would have been essential to survive natural selection on early Earth. Folds that couldn't improve their fitness and evolve to perform new functions would have been replaced by rivals that could. To determine whether the fold is evolvable, we are attempting to change the function of the protein by rationally redesigning to bind GTP. Two design strategies in the region of the nucleobase have been implemented to provide hydrogen bonding partners for the ligand i) an insertion ii) a MET to ASN mutation. Redesigns are being studied computationally at Ames Research Center including free energy of binding calculations. Binding affinities of promising redesigns are to be validated by experimental collaborators at ForteBio using Super Streptavidin Biosensors. If the fold is found to be non-evolvable, this may suggest that many structures were trialed, but the majority were pruned on the basis of their evolvability. Alternatively, if the fold is demonstrated to be evolvable, it would be difficult to explain its absence from nature without considering the possibility that the fold simply wasn't sampled on early Earth. This would not only further our understanding of the origins of life on Earth but also suggest a common phe-nomenon of proto-catalyst evolution.

Shannon, G.↗

NASA NTRS2022

Washington, D.C. & Maryland Energy: Estimating Solar Potential Using NASA POWER Data to Inform Renewable Energy Policy for Washington, D.C.

In line with the Sustainable D.C. 2.0 plan to combat climate change, Washington D.C. aims to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 2050. As solar energy is a clean, renewable energy form, its integration into the region’s power grids lowers energy costs and incentivizes sustainable development. We partnered with the Washington D.C. Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE) to determine how urban areas surrounding D.C. can better be incorporated into decisions regarding renewable energy policy. The team used NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) solar data and a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) derived digital surface model, to estimate and visualize rooftop solar potential for Maryland’s Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. POWER provided solar irradiance data adjusted for tilt angle while the digital surface model contributed aspect and slope data. This methodology factored out areas that were unsuitable for solar panel installation while displaying areas that possess a high potential for energy return. The team found the total rooftop solar potential for the study area to be almost 32 million kW, which is equivalent to roughly 660 kW per building. The methodology used to generate the solar potential maps can be applied to other regions of the country seeking to efficiently utilize solar energy. The end users at the DOEE can use our resulting solar potential map and data table to effectively target buildings that have the highest potential to generate solar energy.

Edward Cronin↗

NASA NTRS2015

NASAs Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute- Expanded Goals and More Partners

The NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) has been pursuing international partnerships since its inception as the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), in order to both leverage the science being done by its domestic member institutions as well as to help lunar science and exploration become a greater global endeavor. The international partners of the Institute have pursued a broad program of lunar science stimulated by scientific partnerships enabled by the SSERVI community. Furthermore, regional partnerships have been formed such as the new pan-European lunar science consortium, which promises both new scientific approaches and mission concepts. International partner membership requires long-term commitment from both the partner and SSERVI, together with tangible and specific plans for scientific interaction that will produce results of mutual benefit to both the institute's U.S. Teams and the international partner. International partners are invited to participate in all aspects of the Institute's activities and programs, on a basis of no exchange of funds. Through these activities, SSERVI researchers and international partners participate in sharing ideas, information, and data arising from their respective research efforts, and contribute to the training of young scientists. This talk will present an overview of the Institute and the international nodes. We will also discuss the various processes to become a SSERVI partner as well as the opportunities available for collaborations with the SSERVI national teams.

SSERVI↗