Climate Change Accuracy: Observing Requirements and Economic Value
No abstract available
Wielicki, Bruce↗
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Climate Change Observation Accuracy: Requirements and Economic Value
This presentation will summarize a new quantitative approach to determining the required accuracy for climate change observations. Using this metric, most current global satellite observations struggle to meet this accuracy level. CLARREO (Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory) is a new satellite mission designed to resolve this challenge is by achieving advances of a factor of 10 for reflected solar spectra and a factor of 3 to 5 for thermal infrared spectra. The CLARREO spectrometers can serve as SI traceable benchmarks for the Global Satellite Intercalibration System (GSICS) and greatly improve the utility of a wide range of LEO and GEO infrared and reflected solar satellite sensors for climate change observations (e.g. CERES, MODIS, VIIIRS, CrIS, IASI, Landsat, etc). A CLARREO Pathfinder mission for flight on the International Space Station is included in the U.S. Presidentâ€"TM"s fiscal year 2016 budget, with launch in 2019 or 2020. Providing more accurate decadal change trends can in turn lead to more rapid narrowing of key climate science uncertainties such as cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. A new study has been carried out to quantify the economic benefits of such an advance and concludes that the economic value is ~ $9 Trillion U.S. dollars. The new value includes the cost of carbon emissions reductions.
Wielicki, Bruce↗
Peaceful uses of earth-observation spacecraft. Volume I - Introduction and summary
Earth orbiting satellite observation for science and economics
SCIENTIFIC SATELLITE↗
Brief History of Agricultural Systems Modeling
Agricultural systems science generates knowledge that allows researchers to consider complex problems or take informed agricultural decisions. The rich history of this science exemplifies the diversity of systems and scales over which they operate and have been studied. Modeling, an essential tool in agricultural systems science, has been accomplished by scientists from a wide range of disciplines, who have contributed concepts and tools over more than six decades. As agricultural scientists now consider the next generation models, data, and knowledge products needed to meet the increasingly complex systems problems faced by society, it is important to take stock of this history and its lessons to ensure that we avoid re-invention and strive to consider all dimensions of associated challenges. To this end, we summarize here the history of agricultural systems modeling and identify lessons learned that can help guide the design and development of next generation of agricultural system tools and methods. A number of past events combined with overall technological progress in other fields have strongly contributed to the evolution of agricultural system modeling, including development of process-based bio-physical models of crops and livestock, statistical models based on historical observations, and economic optimization and simulation models at household and regional to global scales. Characteristics of agricultural systems models have varied widely depending on the systems involved, their scales, and the wide range of purposes that motivated their development and use by researchers in different disciplines. Recent trends in broader collaboration across institutions, across disciplines, and between the public and private sectors suggest that the stage is set for the major advances in agricultural systems science that are needed for the next generation of models, databases, knowledge products and decision support systems. The lessons from history should be considered to help avoid roadblocks and pitfalls as the community develops this next generation of agricultural systems models.
agricultural systems↗
Social, economic and political factors associated with earth resources observation and information analyses.
Discussion of some of the interest conflicts between ecology and economics that arise, particularly in riparian environments, when a population-increase entailed growth in public service requirements is met by indiscriminate technology applications. Reviewed instances of such conflicts include the aborted cross-Florida barge canal project and the Florida Power and Light Company facility at Turkey point.
Hall, J. J.↗
Evidence for globally coherent variability in solar magnetic flux emergence
We examine the large-scale spatial and temporal variations in the emergence of X-ray bright points on the sun, in order to study the global properties of magnetic flux emergence. Major variations in the rate of flux emergence are observed at all solar latitudes, on a time scale of 3-5 months. The most economical explanation of the observations is that the full sun participated in a single large eruptive event during the available 8 month observing period from Skylab in 1973. The peak of this global event corresponds in time to the eruption of a major complex of activity. Moreover, it appears that the only portion of the solar surface which deviates from the above pattern of behavior is the low latitude region in the vicinity of the AR complex; this area shows a temporary depletion immediately following the AR outburst. The high-latitude regions in both hemispheres show the same variation and appear to lead the low-latitude emergence by approximately 1 month.
Golub, L.↗
Observing Climate Change From Space: Approach, Requirements, and Economic Value
No abstract available
Mlynczak, M.↗
The Value of Near Real-Time Earth Observations for Improved Flood Disaster Response
Information is a critical resource in disaster response scenarios. Data regarding the geographic extent, severity, and socioeconomic impacts of a disaster event can help guide emergency responders and relief operations, particularly when delivered within hours of data acquisition. Information from remote observations provides a valuable tool for assessing conditions "on the ground" more quickly and efficiently. Here, we evaluate the social value of a near real-time flood impact system using a disaster response case study, and quantify the Value of Information (VOI) of satellite-based observations for rapid response using a hypothetical flooding disaster in Bangkok, Thailand. MODIS imagery from NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) system is used to produce operational estimates of inundation depths and economic damages.These rapid Earth observations are coupled with a decision-analytical model to inform decisions on emergency vehicle routing. Emergency response times from vehicles routed using flood damage data are compared with baseline routes without the benefit of advance information on road conditions. Our results illustrate how the application of near real-time Earth observations can improve the response time and reduce potential encounters with flood hazards when compared with baseline routing strategies. Results indicate a potential significant economic benefit (i.e.,millions of dollars) from applying near real-time Earth observations for improved flood disaster response and management.
emergency response↗
NASA's Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) Mission
The Soil Moisture Active-Passive (SMAP) Mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being formulated by NASA in response to the 2007 National Research Council s Decadal Survey. SMAP will make global measurements of soil moisture at the Earth's land surface and its freeze-thaw state. These measurements will allow significantly improved estimates of water, energy and carbon transfers between the land and atmosphere. Soil moisture measurements are also of great importance in assessing flooding and monitoring drought. Knowledge gained from SMAP observations can help mitigate these natural hazards, resulting in potentially great economic and social benefits. SMAP observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw timing over the boreal latitudes will also reduce a major uncertainty in quantifying the global carbon balance and help to resolve an apparent missing carbon sink over land. The SMAP mission concept will utilize an L-band radar and radiometer sharing a rotating 6-meter mesh reflector antenna flying in a 680 km polar orbit with an 8-day exact ground track repeat aboard a 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to provide high-resolution and high-accuracy global maps of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state every two to three days. In addition, the SMAP project will use these surface observations with advanced modeling and data assimilation to provide estimates of deeper root-zone soil moisture and net ecosystem exchange of carbon. SMAP recently completed its Phase A Mission Concept Study Phase for NASA and transitioned into Phase B (Formulation and Detailed Design). A number of significant accomplishments occurred during this initial phase of mission development. The SMAP project held several open meetings to solicit community feedback on possible science algorithms, prepared preliminary draft Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs) for each mission science product, and established a prototype algorithm testbed to enable testing and evaluation of the performance of candidate algorithms. SMAP conducted an Applications Workshop in September 2009 to coordinate with potential application users interested in the mission data. A draft Applications Plan describing the Project s planned outreach to potential applications users has been prepared and will be updated during Phase B. SMAP made a significant evaluation of the potential terrestrial radio frequency interference (RFI) source environment and established radiometer and radar flight hardware and ground processing mitigation approaches. SMAP finalized its science orbit and orbit injection approach to optimize launch mass and prepared launch and commissioning scenarios and timeline. A science data communications approach was developed to maximize available science data volume to improve science margins while maintaining moderately short data product latencies to support many potential applications using existing ground assets and with minimum impact to the flight system. SMAP developed rigid multi-body and flexible body dynamics and control models and system designs for the 6-meter rotating instrument reflector-boom assembly (RBA) and flight system to confirm pointing and control performance, and devised strategies to efficiently implement on-orbit balancing if needed. Industry partners were selected for the spin mechanism assembly (SMA) and RBA. Preliminary designs for the radar and radiometer were initiated, including constructing breadboards of key assemblies.
Kellogg, Kent↗
Impacts and Conclusions of NASA DEVELOP’s Environmental Justice Landscape Analyses and Feasibility Studies
The NASA DEVELOP National Program builds dual capacity in their partner organizations and participants (students and early or transitioning career professionals) to apply Earth science and remote sensing for decision making about environmental and policy issues. The first iteration of projects at DEVELOP’s Environmental Justice (EJ) node conducted landscape analyses to identify geospatial understandings and needs of organizations working at the intersection of EJ and disasters and air quality. Their findings about collaboration, community engagement, networking, and holistic approaches to justice informed the planning and structures of the EJ node’s successive feasibility projects, which leverage NASA Earth observations and sociodemographic and economic data to provide geospatial analyses tailored to partner concerns. This poster provides an overview of DEVELOP’s approach to conducting EJ feasibility projects, use of Earth observations, end products, project outcomes, challenges, and impacts.
Julianne Bo-Heen Liu↗
Hawai‘i Island Disasters: Using NASA Earth Observations to Assess Coastal Flood Risk with Measures of Land Cover Change, Flood Extent, and Vulnerability for Adaptation and Mitigation Planning on Hawai‘i Island
As the County of Hawai‘i faces an increased risk of extreme flooding events, sea-level rise, and other hazards associated with climate change, the need for building geospatial capacity to make better-informed decisions is critical. The County of Hawai‘i and Arizona State University partnered with NASA DEVELOP to complete a macro-scale risk analysis for the island of Hawai‘i analyzing flooding, land cover, vulnerability, and exposure factors using Earth observations and socio-economic data. The team assessed the variation in urban coastal vulnerability around the entire island of Hawai‘i, using satellite imagery of coastal land cover typology from satellite products such as Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The team made a sharable geodatabase containing datasets modeling vulnerability to coastal flooding as well as the Hawai‘i Flood Risk Toolbox (HiFloRT) which contains multiple tools for the County to map land cover, extreme rainfall and flood extent across the Island. The end products will allow the County of Hawai‘i to establish a protocol and standard framework for the utilization of Earth observations in future planning.
Garren Kalter↗
SWOT: The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission. Wide- Swath Altimetric Elevation on Earth
The elevation of the surface of the ocean and freshwater bodies on land holds key information on many important processes of the Earth System. The elevation of the ocean surface, called ocean surface topography, has been measured by conventional nadirlooking radar altimeter for the past two decades. The data collected have been used for the study of large-scale circulation and sea level change. However, the spatial resolution of the observations has limited the study to scales larger than about 200 km, leaving the smaller scales containing substantial kinetic energy of ocean circulation that is responsible for the flux of heat, dissolved gas and nutrients between the upper and the deep ocean. This flux is important to the understanding of the ocean's role in regulatingfuture climate change.The elevation of the water bodies on land is a key parameter required for the computation of storage and discharge of freshwater in rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Globally, the spatial and temporal variability of water storage and discharge is poorly known due to the lack of well-sampled observations. In situ networks measuring river flows are declining worldwide due to economic and political reasons. Conventional altimeter observations suffers from the complexity of multiple peaks caused by the reflections from water, vegetation canopy and rough topography, resulting in much less valid data over land than over the ocean. Another major limitation is the large inter track distance preventing good coverage of rivers and other water bodies.This document provides descriptions of a new measurement technique using radar interferometry to obtain wide-swath measurement of water elevation at high resolution over both the ocean and land. Making this type of measurement, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional altimetry in both oceanographic and hydrologic applications, is the objective of a mission concept called Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), which was recommended by the National Research Council's first decadal survey of NASA's Earth science program. This document provides wide-ranging examples of research opportunities in oceanography and land hydrology that would be enabled by the new type of measurement. Additional applications in many other branches of Earth System science ranging from ocean bathymetry to sea ice dynamics are also discussed. Many of the technical issues in making the measurement are discussed as well. Also presented is a preliminary design of the SWOT Mission concept, which is being jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency.
altimetry↗
Very Large Eddy Simulations of a Jet-A Spray Reacting Flow in a Single Element LDI Injector With and Without Invoking an Eulerian Scalar DWFDF Method
This paper presents the very large eddy simulations (VLES) of a Jet-A spray reacting flow in a single element lean direct injection (LDI) injector by using the National Combustion Code (NCC) with and without invoking the Eulerian scalar DWFDF method, in which DWFDF is defined as the density weighted time filtered fine grained probability density function. The flow field is calculated by using the time filtered compressible Navier-Stokes equations (TFNS) with nonlinear subscale turbulence models, and when the Eulerian scalar DWFDF method is invoked, the energy and species mass fractions are calculated by solving the equation of DWFDF. A nonlinear subscale model for closing the convection term of the Eulerian scalar DWFDF equation is used and will be briefly described in this paper. Detailed comparisons between the results and available experimental data are carried out. Some positive findings of invoking the Eulerian scalar DWFDF method in both improving the simulation quality and maintaining economic computing cost are observed.
Shih, Tsan-Hsing↗
Principle characteristics of the National Earth Observation Satellite. Project SPOT
A recent meeting of the Economic and Social Committee examined the programs and means currently being implemented by France in the field in the field of space research and industry which could bring about fast results. This was prompted by man's desire to insure rational resource management of his planet and by man's awareness of the definite contribution that space observation can make to this field of research. Through discussion, the Economic and Social Committee has approved the plan for creating an earth observation satellite. A detailed discussion of the principle characteristics of this earth observation satellite include the objectives, the orbit, characteristics and operations of the platform, maintenance, attitude measurement, the power available and many other characteristics.
Cazenave, M.↗
Review of power requirements for satellite remote sensing systems
The space environment offers a multitude of attributes and opportunities to be used to enhance human life styles and qualities of life for all future generations, worldwide. Among the prospects having immense social as well as economic benefits are earth-observing systems capable of providing near real-time data in such areas as food and fiber production, marine fisheries, ecosystem monitoring, disaster assessment, and global environmental exchanges. The era of Space Station, the Shuttle program, the planned unmanned satellites in both high and low Earth orbit will transfer to operational status what, until now, has been largely research and development proof of concept for remotely sensing Earth's natural and cultural resources. An important aspect of this operational status focuses on the orbital designs and power requirements needed to optimally sense any of these important areas.
Morain, Stanley A.↗
Second-Generation Design of Micro-Spec: A Medium-Resolution, Submillimeter-Wavelength Spectrometer-on-a-Chip
Micro-Spec (μ-Spec) is a direct-detection spectrometer which integrates all the components of a diffraction-grating spectrometer onto a ∼10-cm2 chip through the use of superconducting microstrip transmission lines on a single-crystal silicon substrate. A second-generation μ-Spec is being designed to operate with a spectral resolution of 512 in the submillimeter (500-1000 μm, 300-600 GHz) wavelength range, a band of interest for several spectroscopic applications in astrophysics. High altitude balloon missions would provide the first test bed to demonstrate the μ-Spec technology in a space-like environment and would be an economically viable venue for multiple observation campaigns. This work reports on the current status of the instrument design and will provide a brief overview of each instrument subsystem. Particular emphasis will be given to the design of the spectrometer's two-dimensional diffractive region, through which the light of different wavelengths is focused on the detectors along the focal plane. An optimization process is employed to generate geometrical configurations of the diffractive region that satisfy specific requirements on spectrometer size, operating spectral range, and performance. An optical design optimized for balloon missions will be presented in terms of geometric layout, spectral purity, and efficiency.
Cataldo, G.↗
Future of Big Earth Data Analytics
The state of the art of Big Earth Data Analytics can be expected to evolve rapidly in the coming years. The forces driving evolution come from both growth in the data and advancement in the field of data analytics. In the data area, advances in sensor instrumentation and platform miniaturization are increasing both data resolution and coverage, resulting in enormous growth in data Volume. Increases in temporal resolution in particular also generate demands for higher data Velocity. At the same time, the proliferation of instruments and the platforms on which they reside is increasing the Variety of datasets. The Variety increase in turn leads to questions about the Veracity of the data. In the algorithm area, powerful machine learning methods are coming to the fore, particularly Deep Neural Networks. These are powerful at detecting interesting features in the data, integrating many different measurements (i.e., data fusion), and classification problems. However, they are still challenging when seeking explanations of how natural or socio-economic phenomena work using Earth Observations. Thus, classical analysis techniques will remain relevant when the emphasis is on forming or testing explanations, as well as to support interactive data exploration.
Lynnes, Christopher↗
Weathering the Storm: Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Maritime, Atmospheric and Polar Environments
Unmanned systems have the potential to efficiently, effectively, economically, and safely bridge critical observation requirements in an environmentally friendly manner. As the United States Atmospheric, Marine and Arctic areas of interest expand and include hard-to-reach regions of the Earth (such as the Arctic and remote oceanic areas) optimizing unmanned capabilities will be needed to advance the United States science, technology and security efforts. Through increased multi-mission and multi-agency operations using improved inter-operable and autonomous unmanned systems, the research and operations communities will better collect environmental intelligence and better protect our country against hazardous weather, environmental, marine and polar hazards. This presentation will examine UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) operations which includes developing a coordinated effort to maximize the efficiency and capabilities of unmanned systems across the federal government and research partners. Numerous intra- and inter-agency operational demonstrations and assessments have been made to verify and validated these UAS observations. The NASA-specific elements will consist of an overview of NASA UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) available to science and recent missions.
Atmospheric↗