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At least 109 records · Page 6

Usefulness of LANDSAT data for monitoring plant development and range conditions in California's annual grassland

A network of sampling sites throughout the annual grassland region was established to correlate plant growth in stages and forage production to climatic and other environmental factors. Plant growth and range conditions were further related to geographic location and seasonal variations. A sequence of LANDSAT data was obtained covering critical periods in the growth cycle. Data were analyzed by both photointerpretation and computer aided techniques. Image characteristics and spectral reflectance data were then related to forage production, range condition, range site, and changing growth conditions.

Carneggie, D. M.↗

BOREAS TF-11 Biomass Data over the SSA-Fen

The BOREAS TF-11 team collected several data sets in its efforts to fully describe the flux and site characteristics at the SSA-Fen site. This data set contains plant cover, standing crop of plant biomass, and estimated net primary productivity at each chamber site at the end of the 1994 field season. The measurements were conducted as part of a 2 x 2 factorial experiment in which we added carbon (300 g/sq m as wheat straw) and nitrogen (6 g/sq m as urea) to four replicate locations in the vicinity of the TF-11 tower. The data are stored in tabular ASCII files.

Valentine, David W.↗

NASA's Solar System Treks: Online Portals for Planetary Mapping and Modeling

NASA's Solar System Treks are a suite of web-based of lunar and planetary mapping and modeling portals providing interactive visualization and analysis tools enabling mission planners, planetary scientists, students, and the general public to access mapped lunar data products from past and current missions for the Moon, Mars, Vesta, and more. New portals for additional planetary bodies are being planned. This presentation will recap significant enhancements to these toolsets during the past year and look ahead to future features and releases. Moon Trek is a new portal replacing its predecessor, the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Portal (LMMP), that significantly upgrades and builds upon the capabilities of LMMP. It features greatly improved navigation, 3D visualization, fly-overs, performance, and reliability. Additional data products and tools continue to be added. These include both generalized products as well as polar data products specifically targeting potential sites for NASA's Resource Prospector mission as well as for missions being planned by NASA's international partners. The latest release of Mars Trek includes new tools and data products requested by NASA's Planetary Science Division to support site selection and analysis for Mars Human Landing Exploration Zone Sites. Also being given very high priority by NASA Headquarters is Mars Trek's use as a means to directly involve the public in upcoming missions, letting them explore the areas the agency is focusing upon, understand what makes these sites so fascinating, follow the selection process, and get caught up in the excitement of exploring Mars. Phobos Trek, the latest effort in the Solar System Treks suite, is being developed in coordination with the International Phobos/Deimos Landing Site Working Group, with landing site selection and analysis for JAXA's MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission as a primary driver.

Day, Brian↗

Slush hydrogen propellant production, transfer, and expulsion studies at the NASA K-Site Facility

Slush hydrogen is currently being considered as a fuel for the National AeroSpace Plane (NASP) because it offers the potential for decreased vehicle size and weight. However, no large scale data was available on the production, transfer, and tank pressure control characteristics required to use the fuel for the NASP. Therefore, experiments were conducted at NASA-Lewis K-Site Facility to improve the slush hydrogen data base. Slush hydrogen was produced using the evaporative cooling, or freeze-thaw, technique in batches for approx. 800 gallons. This slush hydrogen was pressure transferred to a 5 ft diameter spherical test tank following production, and flow characteristics were measured during this transfer process. The slush hydrogen in the test tank was pressurized and expelled using a pressurized expulsion technique to obtain information on tank pressure control for the NASP. Results from the production, transfer, pressurization, and pressurized expulsion tests are described.

Hardy, Terry L.↗

Slush hydrogen propellant production, transfer, and expulsion studies at the NASA K-Site Facility

Slush hydrogen is currently being considered as a fuel for the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) because it offers the potential for decreased vehicle size and weight. However, no large-scale data was available on the production, transfer, and tank pressure control characteristics required to use the fuel for the NASP. Therefore, experiments were conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center K-Site Facility to improve the slush hydrogen database. Slush hydrogen was produced using the evaporative cooling, or freeze-thaw, technique in batches of about 800 gallons. This slush hydrogen was pressure transferred to a 5 ft diameter spherical test tank following production, and flow characteristics were measured during this transfer process. The slush hydrogen in the test tank was pressurized and expelled using a pressurized expulsion technique to obtain information on tank pressure control for the NASP. Results from the production, transfer, pressurization, and pressurized expulsion tests are described.

Hardy, Terry L.↗

Overview of Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2: Retrieval, Cross-Mission Comparison, and Global Monitoring for GPP

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), launched in July 2014, is capable of measuring Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF), a functional proxy for terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP). Although its primary mission is to measure the column-averaged mixing ratio of CO2 (Xco(sub 2)) to constrain global carbon source/sink distribution, one of the OCO-2 spectrometers allows for a robust SIF retrieval solely based on solar Fraunhofer lines. Here we present a technical overview of the OCO-2 SIF product, aiming to provide the scientific community guidance on best practices for data analysis, interpretation, and application. This overview consists of the retrieval algorithms, OCO-2 specific bias correction, retrieval uncertainty evaluation, cross-mission comparison with other existing SIF products, and a global-scale examination of the SIF-GPP relationship. With the initial three years of data (September 2014 onward), we compared OCO-2 SIF with retrievals from Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) and Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2), and examined its relationship with FLUXCOM and MODIS GPP datasets. Our results show that OCO-2 SIF, along with GOSAT products, closely resemble the mean spatial and temporal patterns of FLUXCOM GPP from regions to the globe. Compared with GOME-2, however, OCO-2 depicts a more realistic spatial contrast between the tropics and extra-tropics. The linear relationship between OCO-2 SIF and existing modeled GPP products diverges somewhat across biomes at the global scale, consistent with previous GOSAT or GOME-2 based findings when modeled GPP products were used, but in contrast to a consistent cross-biome SIF-GPP relationship obtained at flux tower sites with OCO-2 products. This contrast suggests a critical need to reconcile differences in diverse SIF and GPP products and the relationships among them. Overall, the OCO-2 SIF products are robust and valuable for monitoring the global terrestrial carbon cycle and for constraining the carbon source/sink strengths of the Earth system. Finally, insights are offered for future satellite missions optimized for SIF retrievals.

GPP↗

Web-Based Satellite Products Database for Meteorological and Climate Applications

The need for ready access to satellite data and associated physical parameters such as cloud properties has been steadily growing. Air traffic management, weather forecasters, energy producers, and weather and climate researchers among others can utilize more satellite information than in the past. Thus, it is essential that such data are made available in near real-time and as archival products in an easy-access and user friendly environment. A host of Internet web sites currently provide a variety of satellite products for various applications. Each site has a unique contribution with appeal to a particular segment of the public and scientific community. This is no less true for the NASA Langley's Clouds and Radiation (NLCR) website (http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov) that has been evolving over the past 10 years to support a variety of research projects This website was originally developed to display cloud products derived from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) over the Southern Great Plains for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. It has evolved into a site providing a comprehensive database of near real-time and historical satellite products used for meteorological, aviation, and climate studies. To encourage the user community to take advantage of the site, this paper summarizes the various products and projects supported by the website and discusses future options for new datasets.

Phan, Dung↗

Online Remote Sensing Interface

BasinTools Module 1 processes remotely sensed raster data, including multi- and hyper-spectral data products, via a Web site with no downloads and no plug-ins required. The interface provides standardized algorithms designed so that a user with little or no remote-sensing experience can use the site. This Web-based approach reduces the amount of software, hardware, and computing power necessary to perform the specified analyses. Access to imagery and derived products is enterprise-level and controlled. Because the user never takes possession of the imagery, the licensing of the data is greatly simplified. BasinTools takes the "just-in-time" inventory control model from commercial manufacturing and applies it to remotely-sensed data. Products are created and delivered on-the-fly with no human intervention, even for casual users. Well-defined procedures can be combined in different ways to extend verified and validated methods in order to derive new remote-sensing products, which improves efficiency in any well-defined geospatial domain. Remote-sensing products produced in BasinTools are self-documenting, allowing procedures to be independently verified or peer-reviewed. The software can be used enterprise-wide to conduct low-level remote sensing, viewing, sharing, and manipulating of image data without the need for desktop applications.

Lawhead, Joel↗

An Evaluation of MODIS-Retrieved Aerosol Optical Depth over a Mountainous AERONET Site in the Southeastern US

The literature shows that aerosol optical depth (AOD) derived from the MODIS Collection 5 (C5) dark target algorithm has been extensively validated by spatiotemporal collocation with AERONET sites on both global and regional scales.Although generally comparing well over the eastern US region, poor performance over mountains in other regions indicate the need to evaluate the MODIS product over a mountain site. This study compares MODIS C5 AOD at 550nm to AOD measured at the Appalachian State University AERONET site in Boone, NC over 30 months between August 2010 and September 2013. For the combined Aqua and Terra datasets, although more than 70% of the 500 MODIS AOD measurements agree with collocated AERONET AOD to within error envelope of +/- (0.05 + 15%), MODIS tends to have a low bias (0.02-0.03). The agreement between MODIS and AERONET AOD does not depend on MODIS quality assurance confidence (QAC) value. However, when stratified by satellite, MODIS-Terra data does not perform as well as Aqua, with especially poor correlation (r = 0.39) for low aerosol loading conditions (AERONET AOD less than 0.15).Linear regressions between Terra and AERONET possess statistically-different slopes for AOD < 0.15 and AOD > or = 0.15. AERONET AOD measured only during MODIS overpass hours is highly correlated with daily-averaged AERONET AOD. MODIS monthly-averaged AOD also tracks that of AERONET over the study period. These results indicate that MODIS is sensitive to the day-to-day variability, as well as the annual cycle of AOD over the Appalachian State AERONET site. The complex topography and high seasonality in AOD and vegetation indices allow us to specifically evaluate MODIS dark target algorithm surface albedo and aerosol model assumptions at a regionally-representative SE US mountain site.

air quality↗

Four Years of Airborne Measurements of Wildfire Emissions in California, with a Focus on the Evolution of Emissions During the Soberanes Megafire

Biomass burning is an important source of trace gases and particles which can influence air quality on local, regional, and global scales. With wildfire events increasing due to changes in land use, increasing population, and climate change, characterizing wildfire emissions and their evolution is vital. In this work we report in situ airborne measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapor (H2O), ozone (O3), and formaldehyde (HCHO) from nine wildfire events in California between 2013 and 2016, which were sampled as part of the Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) based at NASA Ames Research Center. One of those fires, the Soberanes Megafire, began on 22 July 2016 and burned for three months. During that time, five flights were executed to sample emissions near and downwind of the Soberanes wildfire. In situ data are used to determine enhancement ratios (ERs), or excess mixing ratio relative to CO2, as well as assess O3 production from the fire. Changes in the emissions as a function of fire evolution are explored. Air quality impacts downwind of the fire are addressed using ground-based monitoring site data, satellite smoke products, and the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) photochemical grid model.

Iraci, Laura T.↗

An extended Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) stable isotope record. Implications for paleoclimate and the nature of the K/T boundary event

In order to obtain a detailed single site record of marine productivity and temperature across the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary, both delta C-13 and delta O-18 values were measured in paired surface and deep water microfossil and nannofossil samples of mid-latitude South Atlantic Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 528. Additionally, the percent sedimentary carbonate content of the rock samples from which the analyzed fossil samples were taken, were determined. The analyzed interval spanned the last approximately 1 million years of the Cretaceous (the Abathomphalus mayaroensis foraminiferal zone) and the first approximately 9 million years of the Tertiary (the Paleocene). Paired samples were analyzed every 150 cm of the entire 165 m sampled interval (1 sample per recovered DSDP section), every 20 cm for 2.0 m below and 2.5 m above the K/T boundary, and every 0.25 cm immediately below, at, and above the K/T boundary clay. The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary and earliest Paleocene record of DSDP Site 528 is marked by at least two strong decreases in the surface-to-deep delta C-13 gradient (one at the K/T boundary (66.4 mybp1) and one approximately 150,000 to 200,000 years later). Both of these decreases co-occur with radical decreases in percent carbonate content and appear to indicate not one, but two, strong decreases in marine primary productivity during the analyzed interval.

Dhondt, Steven↗

GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Exchanges Project): Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Release 4 Integrated Product (IP4) - Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document and Evaluation

The World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) program is an integrated program of research, observations, and science activities with the mission to “Observe, understand and model the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes in the Earth’s atmosphere and at the surface.” Since the public release in 2010 of SRB Release 3, GEWEX reorganized to formulate the Data and Assessments Panel (GDAP) aimed at performing community assessments of the long-term global data products with focus on integrating various data products to address issues in the closing of the global energy and water cycles. SRB Release 4 Intergrated Product (Rel4-IP) integrates data products from the cloud, aerosol, atmosphere, ocean surface, and land surface projects within GDAP to produce a long-term time series of Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) and surface radiative estimates. This Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) describes the various inputs, algorithms and resulting top-of-atmosphere and surface flux products that span from July 1983 through June 2017. Comparisons of the TOA flux products are made to overlapping CERES data products when possible. The surface radiative flux products are assessed relative to the globally distribution Baseline Surface Radiation Network measurements sites. Variability of the various products are compared to ERBE and CERES during overlapping time periods. The variability of the product show excellent correspondent to CERES during overlap years and improved statistical agreement with surface measurements. This document also discusses known issues with the data products to help the user understand the uncertainty and known issues.

Surface radiation budget↗

Identification of surface-exposed domains on the reducing side of photosystem I

Photosystem I (PSI) is a multisubunit enzyme that catalyzes the light-driven oxidation of plastocyanin or cytochrome c6 and the concomitant photoreduction of ferredoxin or flavodoxin. To identify the surface-exposed domains in PSI of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, we mapped the regions in PsaE, PsaD, and PsaF that are accessible to proteases and N-hydroxysuccinimidobiotin (NHS-biotin). Upon exposure of PSI complexes to a low concentration of endoproteinase glutamic acid (Glu)-C, PsaE was cleaved to 7.1- and 6.6-kD N-terminal fragments without significant cleavage of other subunits. Glu63 and Glu67, located near the C terminus of PsaE, were the most likely cleavage sites. At higher protease concentrations, the PsaE fragments were further cleaved and an N-terminal 9.8-kD PsaD fragment accumulated, demonstrating the accessibility of Glu residue(s) in the C-terminal domain of PsaD to the protease. Besides these major, primary cleavage products, several secondary cleavage sites on PsaD, PsaE, and PsaF were also identified. PsaF resisted proteolysis when PsaD and PsaE were intact. Glu88 and Glu124 of PsaF became susceptible to endoproteinase Glu-C upon extensive cleavage of PsaD and PsaE. Modification of PSI proteins with NHS-biotin and subsequent cleavage by endoproteinase Glu-C or thermolysin showed that the intact PsaE and PsaD, but not their major degradation products lacking C-terminal domains, were heavily biotinylated. Therefore, lysine-74 at the C terminus of PsaE was accessible for biotinylation. Similarly, lysine-107, or lysine-118, or both in PsaD could be modified by NHS-biotin.

Non-NASA Center↗

Diagnostic modeling of dimethylsulfide production in coastal water west of the Antarctic Peninsula

The rate of gross biological dimethylsulfide (DMS) production at two coastal sites west of the Antarctic Peninsula, off Anvers Island, near Palmer Station, was estimated using a diagnostic approach that combined field measurements from 1 January 2006 through 1 March 2006 and a one-dimensional physical model of ocean mixing. The average DMS production rate in the upper water column (0-60 m) was estimated to be 3.1 +/- 0.6 nM/d at station B (closer to shore) and 2.7 +/- 0.6 nM/d1 at station E (further from shore). The estimated DMS replacement time was on the order of 1 d at both stations. DMS production was greater in the mixed layer than it was below the mixed layer. The average DMS production normalized to chlorophyll was 0.5 +/- nM/d)/(mg cubic m) at station B and 0.7 +/- 0.2 (nM/d)/(mg/cubic m3) at station E. When the diagnosed production rates were normalized to the observed concentrations of total dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSPt, the biogenic precursor of DMS), we found a remarkable similarity between our estimates at stations B and E (0.06 +/- 0.02 and 0.04 +/- 0.01 (nM DMS / d1)/(nM DMSP), respectively) and the results obtained in a previous study from a contrasting biogeochemical environment in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre (0.047 =/- 0.006 and 0.087 +/- 0.014 (nM DMS d1)/(nM DMSP) in a cyclonic and anticyclonic eddy, respectively).We propose that gross biological DMS production normalized to DMSPt might be relatively independent of the biogeochemical environment, and place our average estimate at 0.06 +/- 0.01 (nM DMS / d)/(nM DMSPt). The significance of this finding is that it can provide a means to use DMSPt measurements to extrapolate gross biological DMS production, which is extremely difficult to measure experimentally under realistic in situ conditions.

Dimethylsulfide↗

A Framework for the Generation and Dissemination of Drop Size Distribution (DSD) Characteristics Using Multiple Platforms

Proper characterization of the precipitation drop size distribution (DSD) is integral to providing realistic and accurate space- and ground-based precipitation retrievals. Current technology allows for the development of DSD products from a variety of platforms, including disdrometers, vertical profilers and dual-polarization radars. Up to now, however, the dissemination or availability of such products has been limited to individual sites and/or field campaigns, in a variety of formats, often using inconsistent algorithms for computing the integral DSD parameters, such as the median- and mass-weighted drop diameter, total number concentration, liquid water content, rain rate, etc. We propose to develop a framework for the generation and dissemination of DSD characteristic products using a unified structure, capable of handling the myriad collection of disdrometers, profilers, and dual-polarization radar data currently available and to be collected during several upcoming GPM Ground Validation field campaigns. This DSD super-structure paradigm is an adaptation of the radar super-structure developed for NASA s Radar Software Library (RSL) and RSL_in_IDL. The goal is to provide the DSD products in a well-documented format, most likely NetCDF, along with tools to ingest and analyze the products. In so doing, we can develop a robust archive of DSD products from multiple sites and platforms, which should greatly benefit the development and validation of precipitation retrieval algorithms for GPM and other precipitation missions. An outline of this proposed framework will be provided as well as a discussion of the algorithms used to calculate the DSD parameters.

Wolf, David B.↗

A Process-based, Climate-Sensitive Model to Derive Methane Emissions from Natural Wetlands: Application to 5 Wetland Sites, Sensitivity to Model Parameters and Climate

Methane emissions from natural wetlands constitutes the largest methane source at present and depends highly on the climate. In order to investigate the response of methane emissions from natural wetlands to climate variations, a 1-dimensional process-based climate-sensitive model to derive methane emissions from natural wetlands is developed. In the model the processes leading to methane emission are simulated within a 1-dimensional soil column and the three different transport mechanisms diffusion, plant-mediated transport and ebullition are modeled explicitly. The model forcing consists of daily values of soil temperature, water table and Net Primary Productivity, and at permafrost sites the thaw depth is included. The methane model is tested using observational data obtained at 5 wetland sites located in North America, Europe and Central America, representing a large variety of environmental conditions. It can be shown that in most cases seasonal variations in methane emissions can be explained by the combined effect of changes in soil temperature and the position of the water table. Our results also show that a process-based approach is needed, because there is no simple relationship between these controlling factors and methane emissions that applies to a variety of wetland sites. The sensitivity of the model to the choice of key model parameters is tested and further sensitivity tests are performed to demonstrate how methane emissions from wetlands respond to climate variations.

Walter, Bernadette P.↗

AstroBetter: A Blog and Wiki for Professional Astronomers

AstroBetter.com is a multi-contributor blog and wiki website designed for information sharing among professional astronomers. The goal of the site is to increase the productivity of astronomers by creating a centralized location for tips and tools of our multifaceted trade. Our content includes topics related to data reduction and analysis, general computing, writing papers and proposals, giving talks, teaching, career planning, productivity, organization, and diversity and equity in science and education. While we have several contributors, the site is intended to be community driven and we encourage everyone to publish to the wiki, submit guest posts, suggest post ideas, and to comment on blog entries. One of our primary goals is to consolidate and reduce the transient nature of the astronomy community's collective knowledge base by having an active wiki. Currently, the most common way to share astro-centric tools and tips that are not appropriate for a published paper, is to put them on an individual's website. However, the average astronomer's website will have at least four different addresses over the course of their career and only the site owner can edit the content. As a result, information on personal websites goes stale very quickly and deal links to such sites abound. It is our hope that community maintained wikis, such as the one hosted on AstroBetter, will gradually replace the personal website. In this poster we introduce the contributors to AstroBetter, show statistics about our current readership, give excerpts of some of our most popular posts and wiki entries, and show how anyone can add or edit content on the wiki. The goal of this poster is to spread the work about AstroBetter and increase our community of readers and wiki editors, because together, we can AstroBetter.

Rigby, Jane↗