Malaria Transmission and Spillover across the Peru–Ecuador Border: A Spatiotemporal Analysis
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
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.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a precursor for secondary air pollutants, which are associated with decreased visibility, and decreased ecosystem and respiratory health. NO2 is a growing threat to national parks within the Delaware Basin where nearby oil and gas activity contributes to deteriorating park conditions, implying adverse effects on the local tourism economy and public health. To demonstrate spatial and temporal patterns of air pollution in the parks, we examined average monthly, seasonal, and annual tropospheric column concentrations of NO2 in Carlsbad Caverns (CAVE) and Guadalupe Mountain (GUMO) National Parks. We used both the NASA Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and the European Space Agency (ESA) Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) to map NO2 tropospheric column densities. Using ground-based emissions values from the Environmental Protection Agency National Emissions Inventory (NEI) for two nearby natural gas processing plants (Indian Basin Gas Plant, South Carlsbad Plant), we extrapolated monthly trends from these point sources and compared seasonal emissions levels with the measurements recorded by OMI and TROPOMI. The NEI data show an 8% increase in flaring from 2013–2021. OMI measured a 38.3% NO2 increase over the Delaware Basin, 15.29% increase over CAVE, and 4.26% decrease over GUMO from 2011–2018. TROPOMI measured a -1% NO2 change over the Delaware Basin, 3% over CAVE, and 7% over GUMO from 2018–2020. The analysis indicates a positive correlation between emissions from fossil fuel exploration and NO2 concentrations above CAVE and GUMO. This information will inform National Park Service air quality monitoring and policy efforts to ensure compliance with the Clean Air Act.
An accurate understanding of unsteady aerodynamic loads is critical for launch vehicle structural design and for development of the vibro-acoustic environment for payload components. Analysts commonly use point-wise surface pressure measurements from wind tunnel testing to build statistical models of the in-flight turbulent boundary layer flow structures, often extrapolating over large swaths of the surface due to measurement sparsity. We present novel results from a transonic wind tunnel test using fast-response pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) and show how it can be used to visualize and quantify localized turbulent boundary layer wall pressure statistics with unprecedented spatial resolution. The wind tunnel model is a scaled model of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Block 1B Crew configuration and analysis focused on the compression corner between the Service Module fairing and the Universal Stage Adapter.
Wildfires are a major concern around the globe because of the immediate impact they have on people's lives, local ecosystems, and the environment. Soil moisture is one of the most important factors that influences wildfire occurrences and spread. However, it is also one of the most challenging hydrological variables to measure routinely and accurately. Therefore, soil moisture is significantly underutilized in operational wildfire risk applications. Thus, the aim here is to use a well-established operational soil moisture product to isolate the soil moisture-fire relationship and assess the utility of using soil moisture as a leading indicator of potential fire risk. We evaluated the value of remotely-sensed soil moisture observations from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) sensor for monitoring and predicting fire risk in Australia and California. We quantified the relationship between observed fire activity and soil moisture conditions and analyzed the soil moisture conditions for two extreme fire events. Our findings show that fire activity is strongly associated with soil moisture anomalies. Lagged correlation analysis demonstrated that a remote-sensing based soil moisture product could predict fire activity with a 1-2 month lead-time. Soil moisture anomalies consistently decreased in the months preceding fire occurrence, often from normal to drier conditions, according to a spatiotemporal analysis of soil moisture in two extreme fire events. Overall, our findings indicate that soil moisture conditions prior to large wildfires can aid in their prediction and operational satellite-based soil moisture products such as the one used here have real value for supporting wildfire susceptibility and impacts.
This viewgraph presentation provides an overview of land surface process and air quality research at MSFC including atmospheric modeling and ongoing research whose objective is to undertake a comprehensive spatiotemporal analysis of the effects of accurate land surface characterization on atmospheric modeling results, and public health applications. Land use maps as well as 10 meter air temperature, surface wind, PBL mean difference heights, NOx, ozone, and O3+NO2 plots as well as spatial growth model outputs are included. Emissions and general air quality modeling are also discussed.
As the number of Earth pointing satellites has increased over the last several decades, the data volume retrieved from instruments onboard these satellites has also increased. It is expected that this trend will continue as more data intensive missions and small satellite constellations are launched. Currently, feature detection - namely atmospheric phenomena - in these datasets is performed manually and is thus not scalable with the growing data archives. Recent advancements in computational efficiency allow for the Earth science community to leverage machine learning to identify interesting atmospheric phenomena. Given the wide range of distinctive features in various atmospheric phenomena, a specialized machine learning model is required for accurate detection of these phenomena independently. The Phenomena Portal, developed at NASA IMPACT, is designed to provide visualization for the output from these machine learning models. In addition, detected events for each atmospheric phenomena are stored in a database that can be used to more easily use/subset larger spatiotemporal datasets. The user interface also incorporates additional features to enhance the user experience including spatiotemporal analysis, multiple base layer images, and a slider to filter events with lower probabilities of positive detection. Each detection supports user feedback on whether the detection is true or false that can then be stored and used to improve the machine learning model performance.
Solar coronal plumes long seemed to possess a simple geometry supporting spatially coherent, stable outflow without significant fine structure. Recent high-resolution observations have challenged this picture by revealing numerous transient, small-scale, collimated out-flows (“jetlets”) at the base of plumes. The dynamic filamentary structure of solar plumes above these outflows, and its relationship with the overall plume structure, have remained largely unexplored. We analyzed the statistics of continuously observed fine structure in-side a single representative bright plume within a mid-latitude coronal hole during 2016 July2-3. By applying advanced edge-enhancement and spatiotemporal analysis techniques to ex-tended series of high-resolution images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, we determined that the plume was composed of numerous time-evolving filamentary substructures, referred to as “plumelets” in this paper, that accounted for most of the plume emission. The number of simultaneously identifiable plumelets was positively correlated with plume brightness, peaked in the fully formed plume, and remained saturated thereafter. The plumelets had transverse widths of 10 Mm and intermittently supported upwardly propagating periodic disturbances with phase speeds of 190-260 km s−1and longitudinal wavelengths of 55-65 Mm. The characteristic frequency (3.5 mHz) is commensurate with that of solar p-modes. Oscillations in neighboring plumelets are uncorrelated, indicating that the waves could be driven by p-mode flows at spatial scales smaller than the plumelet separation. Multiple independent sources of outflow within a single coronal plume should impart significant fine structure to the solar wind that may be detectable by Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter.
The recent availability of timely synoptic earth imagery from the Earth Resources Technology Satellites (ERTS) provides a wealth of information for the monitoring and management of vital natural resources. Formal language definitions and syntax interpretation algorithms were adapted to provide a flexible, computer information system for the maintenance of resource interpretation of imagery. These techniques are incorporated, together with image analysis functions, into an Interactive Resource Information Management and Analysis System, IRIMAS, which is implemented on a Texas Instruments 980A minicomputer system augmented with a dynamic color display for image presentation. A demonstration of system usage and recommendations for further system development are also included.
Moderate Resolution Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MODIS) and Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiomater (MISR) provide regular aerosol observations with global coverage. It is essential to examine the coherency between space- and ground-measured aerosol parameters in representing aerosol spatial and temporal variability, especially in the climate forcing and model validation context. In this paper, we introduce Maximum Covariance Analysis (MCA), also known as Singular Value Decomposition analysis as an effective way to compare correlated aerosol spatial and temporal patterns between satellite measurements and AERONET data. This technique not only successfully extracts the variability of major aerosol regimes but also allows the simultaneous examination of the aerosol variability both spatially and temporally. More importantly, it well accommodates the sparsely distributed AERONET data, for which other spectral decomposition methods, such as Principal Component Analysis, do not yield satisfactory results. The comparison shows overall good agreement between MODIS/MISR and AERONET AOD variability. The correlations between the first three modes of MCA results for both MODIS/AERONET and MISR/ AERONET are above 0.8 for the full data set and above 0.75 for the AOD anomaly data. The correlations between MODIS and MISR modes are also quite high (greater than 0.9). We also examine the extent of spatial agreement between satellite and AERONET AOD data at the selected stations. Some sites with disagreements in the MCA results, such as Kanpur, also have low spatial coherency. This should be associated partly with high AOD spatial variability and partly with uncertainties in satellite retrievals due to the seasonally varying aerosol types and surface properties.
Spatial filtering is an effective way to improve the precision of coordinate time series for regional GPS networks by reducing so-called common mode errors, thereby providing better resolution for detecting weak or transient deformation signals. The commonly used approach to regional filtering assumes that the common mode error is spatially uniform, which is a good approximation for networks of hundreds of kilometers extent, but breaks down as the spatial extent increases. A more rigorous approach should remove the assumption of spatially uniform distribution and let the data themselves reveal the spatial distribution of the common mode error. The principal component analysis (PCA) and the Karhunen-Loeve expansion (KLE) both decompose network time series into a set of temporally varying modes and their spatial responses. Therefore they provide a mathematical framework to perform spatiotemporal filtering.We apply the combination of PCA and KLE to daily station coordinate time series of the Southern California Integrated GPS Network (SCIGN) for the period 2000 to 2004. We demonstrate that spatially and temporally correlated common mode errors are the dominant error source in daily GPS solutions. The spatial characteristics of the common mode errors are close to uniform for all east, north, and vertical components, which implies a very long wavelength source for the common mode errors, compared to the spatial extent of the GPS network in southern California. Furthermore, the common mode errors exhibit temporally nonrandom patterns.
Drought can cause immense agricultural and ecological damage resulting in high mitigation and compensation costs. Climate variability in future decades is expected to cause severe drought conditions and threaten necessary water resources. Stakeholders seek to implement effective drought assessments in preparation for potential economic and environmental damage invoked by drought. Although in-situ measurements are accurate, the current infrastructure is spatially limited and costly to maintain. A framework was created to compare modeled, satellite and in-situ data in drought monitoring. Here we show that the comparison of in-situ and remotely sensed soil moisture (SM) measurements can increase the spatiotemporal range of SM assessments. Data collected between 2003 and 2021 by NASA’s SPoRT Land Information System (SPoRT-LIS) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission were standardized and compared with in-situ data provided through the Illinois Climate Network (WARM). Statistical analysis results including the Pearson correlation coefficient (r), root mean squared error, mean absolute error and others were calculated to compare the WARM measurements to the SMAP and SPoRT-LIS products. Results indicate that both satellite products demonstrate seasonally variable bias that is not present in the in-situ measurements. Bias was highest in the winter months and lowest in the late summer and early fall months in both satellite datasets. Overall, WARM-SPoRT comparisons resulted in lower seasonal variability. However, on average, the SMAP comparison demonstrated higher correlation values and lower error values. The WARM-SMAP average correlation (r) was 0.61 compared to the WARM-SPoRT average correlation (r) value of 0.54. Average mean absolute error values calculated for the SMAP and SPoRT comparisons were 0.07 and 0.08 percent soil moisture by volume, respectively. These analyses suggest integrating in-situ measurements and those provided by NASA Earth observations can be utilized in a multi-faceted SM evaluation, a valuable contribution to drought monitoring and water resource decision making.
This study aimed to delineate the geographic hotspots of negative trends in biomass productivity in the Lower Mekong Basin countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) and identify correlated regional environmental and anthropogenic factors. A long-term time-series (1982–2015) of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index at a resolution of approximately 9.16 km x 9.16 km was used to specify the areas with significant decline or increase in productivity. The relationships between vegetation changes and land attributes, such as climate, population density, soil/terrain conditions, and land-cover types, were examined. Rainfall time-series maps were used to identify areas that might have been affected by land degradation from those correlated with rainfall. Most of the detected potentially degraded areas were found in Cambodia, the Northwest and the Highland of Vietnam, the Northern Mountains of Thailand and Laos, and the mountainous border between Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. About 15% of the total land area of these four countries experienced a reduction in biomass productivity during the 34-year study period. The map of hotspots of changes in productivity can be used to direct further studies, including those at finer spatial resolution that may support policy makers and researchers in targeting the strategies for combating land degradation.
Crop phenology represents an integrative indicator of climate change and plays a vital role in terrestrial carbon dynamics and sustainable agricultural development. However, spatiotemporal variations of crop phenology remain unclear at large scales. This knowledge gap has hindered our ability to realistically quantify the biogeochemical dynamics in agroecosystems, predict future climate, and make informed decisions for climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this study, we improved an EVI-curve-based approach and used it to detect spatiotemporal patterns in cropping intensity and five major phenological stages over North America during 2000–2016 using vegetation index in combination with agricultural survey data and other ancillary maps. Our predicted crop phenological stages showed strong linear relationships with the survey-based datasets, with R(exp 2), RMSEs, and MAEs in the ranges of 0.35 –0.99, three to ten days, and two to eight days, respectively. During the study period, the planting dates were advanced by 0.60 days/year (p < 0.01), and harvesting dates were delayed by 0.78 days/year (p < 0.01) over North America. A minimum temperature increase by 1 °C caused a 4.26-day planting advance (r = −0.50, p < 0. 01) or a 0.66-day harvest delay (r = 0.10, p < 0.01). While, a higher maximum temperature resulted in a planting advance by 4.48 days/°C (r = −0.62, p < 0.01) or a harvest advance by 2.22 days/°C (r = −0.40, p < 0.01). Our analysis illustrated evident spatiotemporal variations in crop phenology in response to climate change and management practices. The derived crop phenological datasets and cropping intensity maps can be used in regional climate assessments and in developing adaptation strategies.
This study summarizes the results from fitting a Bayesian hierarchical spatiotemporal model to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths at the county level in the United States for the year 2020. Two models were created, one for cases and one for deaths, utilizing a scaled Besag, York, Mollié model with Type I spatial-temporal interaction. Each model accounts for 16 social vulnerability and 7 environmental variables as fixed effects. The spatial pattern between COVID-19 cases and deaths is significantly different in many ways. The spatiotemporal trend of the pandemic in the United States illustrates a shift out of many of the major metropolitan areas into the United States Southeast and Southwest during the summer months and into the upper Midwest beginning in autumn. Analysis of the major social vulnerability predictors of COVID-19 infection and death found that counties with higher percentages of those not having a high school diploma, having non-White status and being Age 65 and over to be significant. Among the environmental variables, above ground level temperature had the strongest effect on relative risk to both cases and deaths. Hot and cold spots, areas of statistically significant high and low COVID-19 cases and deaths respectively, derived from the convolutional spatial effect show that areas with a high probability of above average relative risk have significantly higher Social Vulnerability Index composite scores. The same analysis utilizing the spatiotemporal interaction term exemplifies a more complex relationship between social vulnerability, environmental measurements, COVID-19 cases, and COVID-19 deaths.
This paper reports on the measurement of radiative heating for shock heated flows which simulate conditions for Mars and Earth entries. Radiation measurements are made in NASA Ames' Electric Arc Shock Tube at velocities from 3-15 km/s in mixtures of N2/O2 and CO2/N2/Ar. The technique and limitations of the measurement are summarized in some detail. The absolute measurements will be discussed in regards to spectral features, radiative magnitude and spatiotemporal trends. Via analysis of spectra it is possible to extract properties such as electron density, and rotational, vibrational and electronic temperatures. Relaxation behind the shock is analyzed to determine how these properties relax to equilibrium and are used to validate and refine kinetic models. It is found that, for some conditions, some of these values diverge from non-equilibrium indicating a lack of similarity between the shock tube and free flight conditions. Possible reasons for this are discussed.
Stratospheric intrusions "the introduction of ozone-rich stratospheric air into the troposphere" have been linked with surface ozone air quality exceedances, especially at the high elevations in the western USA in springtime. However, the impact of stratospheric intrusions in the remaining seasons and over the rest of the USA is less clear. A new approach to the study of stratospheric intrusions uses NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) model and assimilation products with an objective feature tracking algorithm to investigate the atmospheric dynamics that generate stratospheric intrusions and the different mechanisms through which stratospheric intrusions may influence tropospheric chemistry and surface air quality seasonally over both the western and the eastern USA. A catalog of stratospheric intrusions identified in the MERRA-2 reanalysis was produced for the period 2004-2015 and validated against surface ozone observations (focusing on those which exceed the national air quality standard) and a recent data set of stratospheric intrusion-influenced air quality exceedance flags from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Considering not all ozone exceedances have been flagged by the EPA, a collection of stratospheric intrusions can support air quality agencies for more rapid identification of the impact of stratospheric air on surface ozone and demonstrates that future operational analyses may aid in forecasting such events. An analysis of the spatiotemporal variability of stratospheric intrusions over the continental US was performed, and while the spring over the western USA does exhibit the largest number of stratospheric intrusions affecting the lower troposphere, the number of intrusions in the remaining seasons and over the eastern USA is sizable. By focusing on the major modes of variability that influence weather in the USA, such as the Pacific North American (PNA) teleconnection index, predicative meteorological patterns associated with stratospheric intrusions and their regional effects on tropospheric ozone were identified. Improved understanding of the connections between large-scale climate variability and local-scale dynamically-driven air quality events may support improved seasonal prediction of such events.
Spatiotemporal variability in the carbon isotope composition of sedimentary organic matter (OM) preserves information about the evolution of the biosphere and of the exogenic carbon cycle as a whole. Primary compositions, and imprints of the post-depositional processes that obscure them, exist at the scale of individual sedimentary grains (mm to micron). Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) (1) enables analysis at these scales and in petrographic context, (2) permits morphological and compositional characterization of the analyte and associated minerals prior to isotopic analysis, and (3) reveals patterns of variability homogenized by bulk techniques. Here we present new methods for in situ organic carbon isotope analysis with sub-permil precision and spatial resolution to 1 micron using SIMS, as well as new data acquired from a suite of Archean rocks. Three analytical protocols were developed for the CAMECA ims1280 at WiscSIMS to analyze domains of varying size and carbon concentration. Average reproducibility (at 2SD) using a 6 micron spot size with two Faraday cup detectors was 0.4 %, and 0.8 % for analyses using 1 micron and 3 micron spot sizes with a Faraday cup (for C-12) and an electron multiplier (for C-13). Eight coals, two ambers, a shungite, and a graphite were evaluated for micron-scale isotopic heterogeneity, and LCNN anthracite (delta C-13 = -23.56 +/- 0.1 %, 2SD) was chosen as the working standard. Correlation between instrumental bias and H/C was observed and calibrated for each analytical session using organic materials with H/C between 0.1 and 1.5 (atomic), allowing a correction based upon a C-13H/C-13 measurement included in every analysis. Matrix effects of variable C/SiO2 were evaluated by measuring mm to sub-micron graphite domains in quartzite from Bogala mine, Sri Lanka. Apparent instrumental bias and C-12 count rate are correlated in this case, but this may be related to a crystal orientation effect in graphite. Analyses of amorphous Archean OM suggest that instrumental bias is consistent for 12C count rates as low as 10% relative to anthracite. Samples from the ABDP-9 (n=3; Mount McRae Shale, approximately 2.5 Ga), RHDH2a (n=2; Carrawine Dolomite and Jeerinah Fm, approximately 2.6 Ga), WRL1 (n=3; Wittenoom Fm, Marra Mamba Iron Formation, and Jeerinah Fm, approximately 2.6 Ga), and SV1 (n=1; Tumbiana Fm, approximately 2.7 Ga) drill cores, each previously analyzed for bulk organic carbon isotope composition, yielded 100 new, in situ data from Neoarchean sedimentary OM. In these samples, delta C-13 varies between -53.1 and -28.3 % and offsets between in situ and bulk compositions range from -8.3 to 18.8%. In some cases, isotopic composition and mode of occurrence (e.g. morphology and mineral associations) are statistically correlated, enabling the identification of distinct reservoirs of OM. Our results support previous evidence for gradients of oxidation with depth in Neoarchean environments driven by photosynthesis and methane metabolism. The relevance of these findings to questions of bio- and syngenicity as well as the alteration history of previously reported Archean OM will be discussed.
Retrievals of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) satellite sensor require the assumption of an extinction-to-backscatter ratio, also known as the lidar ratio. This paper evaluates a new method to calculate lidar ratio of sea spray aerosol using two independent sources: the AOD from Synergized Optical Depth of Aerosols (SODA) and the integrated attenuated backscatter from CALIOP. The method applied in this study allows particulate lidar ratio to be calculated for individual CALIOP retrievals of single aerosol layer columns over the ocean. Analyses are carried out using CALIOP level 2, 5km sea spray aerosol layer products and collocated SODA nighttime data from December 2007 to December 2009. The global mean lidar ratio for sea spray aerosols was found to be 26 sr, roughly 30 higher than the one prescribed by CALIOP. Data analysis also showed considerable spatiotemporal variability in calculated lidar ratio over different parts of the remote oceans. The calculated aerosol lidar ratios are shown to be inversely related to the mean ocean surface wind speed: increase in ocean surface wind speed (U10) from 0 to 15 ms-1 reduces the mean lidar ratios for sea spray particles from 32 sr (for 0 U10 4 ms-1) to 22 sr (for U10 15 ms-1). Such changes in the lidar ratio are expected to have a corresponding effect on sea spray AOD. The outcomes of this study are relevant for future improvements of the SODA and CALIOP operational product and could lead to more accurate retrievals of sea spray AOD.