SEARCH · Search NASA
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.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Stellar evolution - International Conference, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, November 1963
Stratigraphic distribution of carbohydrate residues in middle Devonian Onondaga beds of Pennsylvania and western New York and application to paleontology and paleoecology
The Central Park Conservancy stewards New York City’s iconic Central Park with a mission to preserve the park for all. This mission is complicated by the spread of Dutch elm disease (DED) which has threatened the culturally and ecologically significant American elm tree (Ulmus americana). Central Park is home to one of the largest and last remaining urban concentrations of American elm and the Conservancy currently protects them through integrated pest management. This paper discusses an interdisciplinary feasibility study that assessed the application of NASA Earth observations from 2014 to 2023 to detect changes in forest phenology possibly related to DED. Landsat 8 and 9 imagery was used to calculate multiyear time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and quantify changes in land surface phenology for a given year. A pixel-based logistic regression analysis was performed using changes in NDVI, tree site locations, and recorded occurrences of trees infected with DED as inputs. The results of this analysis show that changes in NDVI derived from Landsat data are capable of detecting unhealthy tree canopies with 71% precision and healthy tree canopies with 41% precision. The study had uncertainties and limitations due to the spatial and temporal resolutions of Landsat, the natural variability in land surface phenology and NDVI, and the attempt to detect disease impacts while disease prevention and mitigation is occurring. As is, the findings of this study and its methods provide managers with an approach for integrating Earth observations to make more informed decisions in the application and timing of urban forest management activities.
The trophic importance of bacterioplankton as a source of carbon and sulfur nutrition for consumers in meromictic lakes was tested using stable carbon (delta 13C) and sulfur (delta 34S) isotopic measurements. Studies in three lakes near Syracuse, New York, showed that most consumers ultimately derive their C and S nutrition from a mixture of terrestrial detritus, phytoplankton, and littoral vegetation, rather than from bacterioplankton. Food webs in these meromictic lakes are thus similar to those in other lakes that lack dense populations of bacterioplankton.
Conference on origin and evolution of atmospheres and oceans at New York City in April 1963
Results are given of remote sensing experiments conducted in the New York Bight between April 7-17, 1975, to evaluate the role of remote sensing technology to aid in monitoring ocean dumping. Remote sensors were flown on the C-54, U-2, and C-130 aircraft while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration obtained concurrent in situ sea truth data using helicopters and surface platforms. The test site, aircraft platforms, experiments, and supporting sensors are described. The operation of each aircraft are discussed and aircraft flight lines, flight parameters, and data identification parameters are presented in figures and tables.
Under-utilized forest resources in the Northeast can supply fiber to new markets. Information on forest resources, however, is often too aggregated to estimate available woody material with sufficient detail for planning specific projects. Over the past year, staff of Cornell University's Remote Sensing Program, under a grant from NASA, assisted New York State agency personnel by assessing available woody material for two potential development projects, a wood-fired power plant and a particle board manufacturing plant. These feasibility studies are reviewed, illustrating how information derived from high-altitude aircraft photographs, LANDSAT imagery, and available supporting data were integrated to arrive at estimates of woody material.
Valued for their myriad multifunctional roles in preserving habitat for biodiversity, cycling nutrients, protecting shorelines, improving water quality, and sequestering blue carbon, coastal and riverine marshes continue to disappear not only due to land use change but also sea level rise. Blue carbon’s role in the carbon cycle has been underappreciated until the last few decades, and the carbon stocks for U.S. Atlantic coastal margins have previously been estimated for a depth of 0.5-1 meter. We select several North American East Coast databases that have been utilized to study sea level rise and instead use them to estimate marsh depth from New York to Georgia; in local marshes that lack depth data, we present new depth data and perform several full-depth transects. This alongside marsh area data from the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) enables us to estimate marsh volume. We then utilize an average carbon density of 27 kg/m 3 by Holmquist et al. 2018 to calculate blue carbon stocks. We present the inventories of peat depth by state, marsh area by state, and total marsh volume by state, followed by the blue carbon stocks. The peat depth inventory of eastern U.S. marshes reveals that riverine marshes are significantly deeper than coastal marshes. While both are important, we highlight the jeopardy of rapidly eroding urban marshes due to the heavy metals these marshes have sequestered for centuries as they contaminate the surrounding estuary. Uncertainties and caveats include carbon density values, loss of marsh since the NWI assessment, and depth averages. The high cost of marsh disappearance underscores the urgent need for their preservation.
Earth-moon system - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Conference, New York, January 1964
A zoom stereoscope was used to interpret aerial color photographs of the Finger Lakes region near Bath, New York, and areas of conifers were delineated on acetate sheets. Scale was determined for each photograph and units were converted to acres. Photographically enlarged positive transparencies of imagery from LANDSAT bands 5,6, and 7 for the southern portion of the study area were placed in a cold additive viewer and registered with each other to provide a composite image. A green filter was used on band 5, blue on band 6, and red on band 7. Conifers appeared at dark, reddish purple. Average was determined using a grid. Results show that the total confer stands within 50 miles of Bath is approximately 176,000 acres of which 60,000 acres are in Pennsylvania. The study was conducted to determine the feasibility of locating a particleboard manufacturing firm in the Southern Tier.
This final report describes the remote sensing facility that was put into place at the State University of New York (SUNY) through the support obtained from the above referenced NASA award and the associated matching funds from SUNY.
The Indicators and Monitoring chapter of the first New York City Panel on Climate Change Report began with the paradigm: What cannot be measured cannot be managed (Rosenzweig et al., 2010). This statement is as valid today as it was then.The NPCC1 (2010) Indicators and Monitoring chapter addressed the need for assembling a suite of indicators to monitor climate change and adaptation in order to inform climate change decision making. It outlined criteria for selection of indicators (policy relevance, analytic soundness, measurability), defined categories of indicators (physical climate change; risk exposure, vulnerability, and impacts; adaptation; new research), and provided examples of specific indicators. Table 8.1 is a summary table of indicator development contribution from the NPCC1 I&M chapter (Jacob et al., 2011). The chapter explored the institutional requirements for indicator data availability, continuity, archiving, and public accessibility.
The author has identified the following significant events. The Earth Resources Technology Satellite made a transit over New York Bight on 16 August, 1972. Imagery from this transit shows several oceanographic features that demonstrate the usefulness of remote sensing for large area, synoptic observation of changes in water quality in the coastal zone. Both the extent and turbulent character of the Hudson River plume are discernible in the image. Residue from a dump of waste acid is visible over a five mile area in the apex of the Bight. Little dispersion of this residue has occurred which suggests that this feature will be a persistent signature in images from future satellite transits.
The author has identified the following significant results. Preliminary visual examination of film positives of thirty ERTS-1 scenes obtained over New York State and adjacent areas indicates the following: (1) sixty percent of the imagery has a cloud cover of 70-100 percent, twenty-five percent has a cloud cover of 0-30 percent, and the remainder has a cover of 40-65 percent; (2) on the useable imagery, the spectral lines which may turn out to be geologically-linked totals as follows: spectral linears, 5200 km; broadly curved lines (spectral curvilinears), 700 km; major forest boundaries, 3100 km; areas with spectral geological fabric, 3100 sgkm. In the central and northwest Adirondacks, known lineaments and faults were subtracted from the spectral linears leaving a residue which totals 160 km in the central Adirondacks and 230 km in the northwest Adirondacks. It must be emphasized that these are spectral linears which have not yet been checked out against any ground truth except geological.
Concurrent surface water measurements made from a moving oceanographic research vessel were used to calibrate and interpret remotely sensed data collected over a plume in the New York Bight Apex on 23 June 1977. Multiple regression techniques were used to develop equations to map synoptic distributions of chlorophyll a and total suspended matter in the remotely sensed scene. Thermal (which did not have surface calibration values) and water quality parameter distributions indicated a cold mass of water in the Bight Apex with an overflowing nutrient-rich warm water plume that originated in the Sandy Hook Bay and flowed south near the New Jersey shoreline. Data analysis indicates that remotely sensed data may be particularly useful for studying physical and biological processes in the top several metres of surface water at plume boundaries.
The purpose of this investigation was to apply the previously reported methodology to remotely sensed data that were collected over wastewater sludge plumes in the New York Bight apex on September 22, 1975. Spectral signatures were also determined during this study. These signatures may be useful in the specific identification of sludge plumes, as opposed to other plumes such as those created by the disposal of industrial acid wastes.
A demonstration project to examine the utility of LANDSAT at the county and local government level is discussed. The project deals with the updating of the New York State land use and natural resources maps, valuable planning and development tools utilized by county governments. Both the feasibility of producing these maps and the transferability of them to the county government level are evaluated.
Concurrent surface water measurements made from a moving oceanographic research vessel were used to calibrate and interpret remotely sensed data collected over a plume in the New York Bight Apex on June 23, 1977. Multiple regression techniques were used to develop equations to subsequently map synoptic distributions of water quality parameters, chlorophyll A and total suspended matter, in the remotely sensed scene. Thermal (which did not have surface calibration values) and water quality parameter distributions indicated a cold mass of upwelled water in the Bight Apex with an overflowing nutrient-rich warm water plume that originated in the Sandy Hook Bay and flowed south near the New Jersey shoreline. Additional comparison of remotely sensed thermal and optical properties of the water with shipboard measurements indicated that remotely sensed data may be particularly useful for studying physical and biological processes in the top several meters of surface water at the plume boundaries.