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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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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2019

Developing a Community of Practice for Applied Uses of Future PACE Data to Address Marine Food Security Challenges

External interaction:The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will include a hyperspectral imaging radiometer to advance ecosystem monitoring beyond heritage retrievals of the concentration of surface chlorophyll and other traditional ocean color variables, offering potential for novel science and applications. PACE is the first NASA ocean color mission to occur under the agency's new and evolving effort to directly engage practical end users prior to satellite launch to increase adoption of this freely available data toward societal challenges. Here we describe early efforts to engage a community of practice around marine food-related resource management, business decisions, and policy analysis. Obviously one satellite cannot meet diverse end user needs at all scales and locations, but understanding downstream needs helps in the assessment of information gaps and planning how to optimize the unique strengths of PACE data in combination with the strengths of other satellite retrievals, in situ measurements, and models. Higher spectral resolution data from PACE can be fused with information from satellites with higher spatial or temporal resolution, plus other information, to enable identification and tracking of new marine biological indicators to guide sustainable management. Accounting for the needs of applied researchers as well as non-traditional users of satellite data early in the PACE mission process will ultimately serve to broaden the base of informed users and facilitate faster adoption of the most advanced science and technology toward the challenge of mitigating food insecurity.

Schollaert Uz, Stephanie↗
NASA NTRS2013

Ten Years of Land Cover Change on the California Coast Detected using Landsat Satellite Image Analysis

Landsat satellite imagery was analyzed to generate a detailed record of 10 years of vegetation disturbance and regrowth for Pacific coastal areas of Marin and San Francisco Counties. The Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) methodology, a transformation of Tasseled-Cap data space, was applied to detected changes in perennial coastal shrubland, woodland, and forest cover from 1999 to 2009. Results showed several principal points of interest, within which extensive contiguous areas of similar LEDAPS vegetation change (either disturbed or restored) were detected. Regrowth areas were delineated as burned forest areas in the Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) from the 1995 Vision Fire. LEDAPS-detected disturbance patterns on Inverness Ridge, PRNS in areas observed with dieback of tanoak and bay laurel trees was consistent with defoliation by sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum). LEDAPS regrowth pixels were detected over much of the predominantly grassland/herbaceous cover of the Olema Valley ranchland near PRNS. Extensive restoration of perennial vegetation cover on Crissy Field, Baker Beach and Lobos Creek dunes in San Francisco was identified. Based on these examples, the LEDAPS methodology will be capable of fulfilling much of the need for continual, low-cost monitoring of emerging changes to coastal ecosystems.

Land Cover Change↗
NASA NTRS2020

Hawai'i Water Resources: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Assess Ocean Conditions Leading to the Spread of the Nuisance Red Algae (Chondria tumulosa) in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawai’i

Chondria tumulosa, a newly discovered red alga, was observed in low abundance in 2016 but has since proliferated and is now smothering and decimating vast expanse of coral reefs in Manawai, located in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM). If the spread persists, the outbreak of this cryptogenic species could potentially cause region-wide ecosystem degradation. In coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Marine National Monuments of the Pacific and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, this project created a tool to analyze oceanographic conditions (sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a, water velocity, salinity, turbidity) across the Monument that could potentially be driving the algal spread. The Google Earth Engine tool enabled the partners to visualize oceanographic conditions and gather time-series graphs utilizing Aqua and Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) and NOAA's Climate Data Record in a user-friendly interface. The team used in situ SST data from subsurface temperature recorders provided by the partners to validate the tool's accuracy. Preliminary statistical analysis of MODIS data found warming trends in SST in Manawai as well as increased chlorophyll-a levels during the summer months in contrast to the control (non-infected) Lalo atoll. The tool did not aim to classify algal presence due to limited availability of higher resolution satellite imagery but instead enabled PMNM managers to monitor conditions that may be conducive to algal growth around the monument to make informed decisions and mitigation practices.

DEVELOP Project Summary↗
NASA NTRS1981

Superflux I, II, and III experiment designs: Water sampling and analyses

Both airborne remote sensors and seagoing research vessels were used to study the effects of man's continual use of the Chesapeake Bay offshore environments. The major focus of the study was to: (1) advance the development and transfer of improved remote sensing systems and techniques for monitoring environmental quality and effects on living marine resources; (2) increase understanding of the influence of estuarine outwellings (plumes) on contiguous shelf ecosystems; and (3) provide a synoptic, integrated and timely data base for application to problems of marine resources and environmental quality.

Thomas, J. P.↗
NASA NTRS1991

What does remote sensing do for ecology?

The application of remote sensing to ecological investigations is briefly discussed. Emphasis is given to the recruitment problem in marine population dynamics, the regional analysis of terrestrial ecosystems, and the monitoring of ecological changes. Impediments to the use of remote sensing data in ecology are addressed.

Roughgarden, J.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Alpha, beta, or gamma: where does all the diversity go?

Global taxonomic richness is affected by variation in three components: within-community, or alpha, diversity, between-community, or beta, diversity; and between-region, or gamma, diversity. A data set consisting of 505 faunal lists distributed among 40 stratigraphic intervals and six environmental zones was used to investigate how variation of alpha and beta diversity influenced global diversity through the Paleozoic, and especially during the Ordovician radiations. As first shown by Bambach (1977), alpha diversity increased by 50 to 70 percent in offshore marine environments during the Ordovician and then remained essentially constant of the remainder of the Paleozoic. The increase is insufficient, however, to account for the 300 percent rise observed in global generic diversity. It is shown that beta diversity among level, soft-bottom communities also increased significantly during the early Paleozoic. This change is related to enhanced habitat selection, and presumably increased overall specialization, among diversifying taxa during the Ordovician radiations. Combined with alpha diversity, the measured change in beta diversity still accounts for only about half of the increase in global diversity. Other sources of increase are probably not related to variation in gamma diversity but rather to appearance and/or expansion of organic reefs, hardground communities, bryozoan thickets, and crinoid gardens during the Ordovician.

NASA Discipline Exobiology↗
NASA NTRS1998

Decoupled temporal patterns of evolution and ecology in two post-Paleozoic clades

Counts of taxonomic diversity are the prevailing standards for documenting large-scale patterns of evolution in the fossil record. However, the secular pattern of relative ecological importance between the bryozoan clades Cyclostomata and Cheilostomata is not reflected fully in compilations of generic diversity or within-fauna species richness, and the delayed ecological recovery of the Cheilostomata after the mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is missed entirely. These observations demonstrate that evolutionary success and ecological dominance can be decoupled and profoundly different, even over tens of millions of years.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2011

Microbial Diversity Analysis of the Bacterial and Archaeal Population in Present Day Stromatolites

Stromatolites are layered sedimentary structures resulting from microbial mat communities that remove carbon dioxide from their environment and biomineralize it as calcium carbonate. Although prevalent in the fossil record, stromatolites are rare in the modem world and are only found in a few locations including Highbome Cay in the Bahamas. The stromatolites found at this shallow marine site are analogs to ancient microbial mat ecosystems abundant in the Precambrian period on ancient Earth. To understand how stromatolites form and develop, it is important to identify what microorganisms are present in these mats, and how these microbes contribute to geological structure. These results will provide insight into the molecular and geochemical processes of microbial communities that prevailed on ancient Earth. Since stromatolites are formed by lithifying microbial mats that are able to mineralize calcium carbonate, understanding the biological mechanisms involved may lead to the development of carbon sequestration technologies that will be applicable in human spaceflight, as well as improve our understanding of global climate and its sustainability. The objective of my project was to analyze the archaeal and bacterial dIversity in stromatolites from Highborn Cay in the Bahamas. The first step in studying the molecular processes that the microorganisms carry out is to ascertain the microbial complexity within the mats, which includes identifying and estimating the numbers of different microbes that comprise these mats.

Ortega, Maya C.↗
NASA NTRS2023

A Data Set of Monthly Freshwater Fluxes From the Greenland Ice Sheet’s Marine-Terminating Glaciers on A Glacier–Basin Scale 2010–2020

The loss of mass from the Greenland ice sheet causes an increasing influx of freshwater to the Greenlandic fjords and the oceans. Freshwater fluxes from marine-terminating glaciers are important to understand fjord circulation and ecosystem dynamics. Here, we present a data set constructed by reformulating existing products into a shared temporal and spatial framework. We combine three publicly available data sets of solid-ice discharge (iceberg), liquid-surface runoff (runoff) and basal melt to present a cohesive overview of the flow of freshwater from marine-terminating glaciers to the Greenlandic fjords. We also calculate glacier drainage basins and compare our findings to previous studies showing that drainage-basin sizes may vary considerably depending on how they were reconstructed. The data set will be a valuable asset to oceanographic, glaciological and marine biological research activities.

Ice mass loss↗
NASA NTRS1998

Biotic transitions in global marine diversity

Long-term transitions in the composition of Earth's marine biota during the Phanerozoic have historically been explained in two different ways. One view is that they were mediated through biotic interactions among organisms played out over geologic time. The other is that mass extinctions transcended any such interactions and governed diversity over the long term by resetting the relative diversities of higher taxa. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that macroevolutionary processes effecting biotic transitions during background times were not fundamentally different from those operating during mass extinctions. Physical perturbations at many geographic scales combined to produce the long-term trajectory of Phanerozoic diversity.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2019

Going Beyond Standard Ocean Color Observations: Lidar and Polarimetry

Passive ocean color images have provided a sustained synoptic view of the distribution of ocean optical properties and color and biogeochemical parameters for the past 20-plus years. These images have revolutionized our view of the ocean. Remote sensing of ocean color has relied on measurements of the radiance emerging at the top of the atmosphere, thus neglecting the polarization and the vertical components. Ocean color remote sensing utilizes the intensity and spectral variation of visible light scattered upward from beneath the ocean surface to derive concentrations of biogeochemical constituents and inherent optical properties within the ocean surface layer. However, these measurements have some limitations. Specifically, the measured property is a weighted-integrated value over a relatively shallow depth, it provides no information during the night and retrievals are compromised by clouds, absorbing aerosols, and low Sun zenithal angles. In addition, ocean color data provide limited information on the morphology and size distribution of marine particles. Major advances in our understanding of global ocean ecosystems will require measurements from new technologies, specifically lidar and polarimetry. These new techniques have been widely used for atmospheric applications but have not had as much as interest from the ocean color community. This is due to many factors including limited access to in-situ instruments and/or space-borne sensors and lack of attention in university courses and ocean science summer schools curricula. However, lidar and polarimetry technology will complement standard ocean color products by providing depth-resolved values of attenuation and scattering parameters and additional information about particle morphology and chemical composition. This review aims at presenting the basics of these techniques, examples of applications and at advocating for the development of in-situ and space-borne sensors. Recommendations are provided on actions that would foster the embrace of lidar and polarimetry as powerful remote sensing tools by the ocean science community.

Jamet, Cedric↗
NASA NTRS2013

Retrieving Marine Inherent Optical Properties from Satellites Using Temperature and Salinity-dependent Backscattering by Seawater

Time-series of marine inherent optical properties (IOPs) from ocean color satellite instruments provide valuable data records for studying long-term time changes in ocean ecosystems. Semi-analytical algorithms (SAAs) provide a common method for estimating IOPs from radiometric measurements of the marine light field. Most SAAs assign constant spectral values for seawater absorption and backscattering, assume spectral shape functions of the remaining constituent absorption and scattering components (e.g., phytoplankton, non-algal particles, and colored dissolved organic matter), and retrieve the magnitudes of each remaining constituent required to match the spectral distribution of measured radiances. Here, we explore the use of temperature- and salinity-dependent values for seawater backscattering in lieu of the constant spectrum currently employed by most SAAs. Our results suggest that use of temperature- and salinity-dependent seawater spectra elevate the SAA-derived particle backscattering, reduce the non-algal particles plus colored dissolved organic matter absorption, and leave the derived absorption by phytoplankton unchanged.

Passive Remote Sensing↗
NASA NTRS2003

Insights into the Processing of Carbon by Early Microbial Ecosystems

Interactions between Earth and the biosphere that were crucial for early biological evolution also influenced substantially the processes that circulate C between its reservoirs in the atmosphere, ocean, crust and mantle. The C-13 C-12 values of crustal carbonates and organics have recorded changes both in biological discrimination and in the relative rates of burial of organics and carbonates. A full interpretation of these patterns needs further isotopic studies of microbial ecosystems and individual anaerobes. Thus we measured carbon isotope discrimination during autotrophic and heterotrophic growth of pure cultures of sulfate-reducing bacteria and archaea (SRB and SRA). Discrimination during CO2 assimilation is significantly larger than during heterotrophic growth on lactate or acetate. SRB grown lithoautotrophically consumed less than 3% of available CO2 and exhibited substantial discrimination, as follows: Desulfobacterium autotrophicum (alpha 1.0100 to 1.0123), Desulfobacter hydrogenophilus (alpha = 0.0138), and Desulfotomuculum acetoxidans (alpha = 1.0310). Mixotrophic growth of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans on acetate and CO2 resulted in biomass with delta C-13 composition intermediate to that of the substrates. We have recently extended these experiments to include the thermophilic SRA Archeoglobus spp. Ecological forces also influence isotopic discrimination. Accordingly, we quantified the flow of C and other constituents in modern marine cyanobacterial mats, whose ancestry extends back billions of years. Such ecosystem processes shaped the biosignatures that entered sediments and atmospheres. At Guerrero Negro, BCS, Mexico, we examined mats dominated by Microcoleus (subtidal) and Lyngbya (intertidal to supratidal) cyanobacteria. During 24 hour cycles, we observed the exchange of O2 and dissolved inorganic C (DIC) between mats and the overlying water. Microcoleus mats assimilated near-equal amounts of DIC during the day as they released at night, but Lyngbya mats typically showed net uptake of DIC over the diel cycle. Patterns of O2 daytime release and nighttime uptake mirrored these DIC trends in both mat types. Nighttime DIC effluxes from Microcoleus mats were equivalent in the presence versus absence of O2, whereas nighttime DIC effluxes from Lyngbya mats dropped markedly in the absence of O2. Thus aerobic diagenesis was more important in Lyngbya mats than in Microcoleus mats, perhaps because trapped O2 bubbles persist only in Lyngbya mats at night and thus sustain populations of aerbes. In both mat types, effluxes of H2, CH4 and short-chain fatty acids were much greater at night in the absence of 02, emphasizing the importance of fermentation. Differences observed between Microcoleus versus Lyngbya mats forecast differences in their microbial populations and in their patterns of gene expression.

DesMarais, D.↗
NASA NTRS2016

FluidCam 1 & 2 - UAV-based Fluid Lensing Instruments for High-Resolution 3D Subaqueous Imaging and Automated Remote Biosphere Assessment of Reef Ecosystems

We present NASA ESTO FluidCam 1 & 2, Visible and NIR Fluid-Lensing-enabled imaging payloads for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Developed as part of a focused 2014 earth science technology grant, FluidCam 1&2 are Fluid-Lensing-based computational optical imagers designed for automated 3D mapping and remote sensing of underwater coastal targets from airborne platforms. Fluid Lensing has been used to map underwater reefs in 3D in American Samoa and Hamelin Pool, Australia from UAV platforms at sub-cm scale, which has proven a valuable tool in modern marine research for marine biosphere assessment and conservation. We share FluidCam 1&2 instrument validation and testing results as well as preliminary processed data from field campaigns. Petabyte-scale aerial survey efforts using Fluid Lensing to image at-risk reefs demonstrate broad applicability to large-scale automated species identification, morphology studies and reef ecosystem characterization for shallow marine environments and terrestrial biospheres, of crucial importance to improving bathymetry data for physical oceanographic models and understanding climate change’s impact on coastal zones, global oxygen production, carbon sequestration.

Chirayath, Ved↗
NASA NTRS1983

Global biology - An interdisciplinary scientific research program at NASA, Ames Research Center

NASA has initiated new effort in Global Biology, the primary focus of which is to understand biogeochemical cycles. As part of this effort, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has formed at Ames Research Center to investigate the cycling of sulfur in the marine coastal zone and to study the cycling of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Both studies will use remotely sensed data, coupled with ground-based research, to identify and measure the transfer of major and minor biologically produced gases between these ecosystems and global reservoirs.

Lawless, J. G.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Global Biology: An Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Program at NASA Ames Research Center

NASA has initiated new effort in Global Biology, the primary focus of which is to understand biogeochemical cycles. As part of this effort, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has formed at Ames Research Center to investigate the cycling of sulfur in the marine coastal zone and to study the cycling of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Both studies will use remotely sensed data, coupled with ground-based research, to identify and measure the transfer of major and minor biologically produced gases between these ecosystems and global reservoirs.

Lawless, James G.↗