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Every day is Earth Day for climate scientists
GHCC researchers will use Landsat 7
images for a closer look at terra firma
April
22, 1999: Even though they deal mostly with water, scientists
at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) are looking
forward to getting data from a satellite designed to study land.
"Landsat 7 is going to help us out tremendously in urban heat island studies," said Dale Quattrochi, a NASA scientist at the GHCC in Huntsville, Alabama. Quattrochi and Jeff Luvall are the GHCC's lead scientists studying urban heat island phenomenon. The central effort has been the long-term Project ATLANTA (ATlanta Land-use ANalysis: Temperature and Air-quality) which includes a University of Georgia team led by Dr. C.P. Lo. The results of Project Atlanta led to 1998's Urban Heat Island Pilot Project (UHIPP) which conducted similar measurements over Baton Rouge, Sacramento, and Salt Lake City.
Right: An image from the Landsat 5 thermal channel (top)
is shows how hot areas (red) correspond with urban areas (gray)
in the false-color image of Atlanta (below). Credit: NASA and
University of Georgia
December 3: Mars Polar Lander nears touchdown  December 2: What next, Leonids? November 30: Polar Lander Mission Overview November 30: Learning how to make a clean sweep in space |
On the other hand, asphalt, concrete, and other manmade materials are very effective at absorbing light and reradiating it as infrared radiation that raises the temperature of the air. In turn, that makes air-conditioning systems work harder, even after sunset.
 Dr. Dale Quattrochi, one of the lead
scientists on the urban heat island study, was recognized as
a world leader in the field of thermal infrared remote sensing
by the Association of American Geographers' Remote Sensing Specialty
Group. Quattrochi received the group's Outstanding Contributions
Medal for 1999 at the group's annual convention in Hawaii. The
Outstanding Contributions Medal is the only award presented in
the remote sensing field by the AAG. Quattrochi is one of only
two NASA or non-academic researchers to receive the award since
its inception in 1980. Quattrochi earned a doctorate in geography
from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, a master's degree
from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a bachelor's
degree from Ohio University in Athens. |
"Landsat 7's 15-meter-resolution black-and-white images will be very useful in combining with digital data to give us a better idea of what happens on the ground," Quattrochi said.
The thermal infrared channel on Landsat 7's Enhanced Thematic Mapper will see details as small as 60 meters (188 feet) on the ground as compared to 120 meters (376 feet) with prior Landsats' thermal channels.
"It's a great improvement," Luvall said. "It will give us a temporal distribution across the years and the seasons" to show trends in urban heating. The scientists still need to use aircraft, as in 1998's UHIPP, for detailed images to pinpoint individual heat sources. Aircraft are also needed to provide images to show heat storage the night immediately after a daytime observation since Landsat's orbit does not provide that sort of coverage.
Links to larger 640x605-pixel, 52K GIF. Credit: NASA and University of Georgia
Landsat
7 will also help scientists look into the past so we can chart
the future better.
Left: Landsat images help reveal an ancient causeway
(faint diagonal line) and temples (white dots) at Mirador, Guatemala.
Credit: NASA
"Landsat 7 will be used with other remote sensing techniques
to address issues in Mayan archeology and to monitor the effects
of increasing deforestation in the area," said NASA archaeologist
Tom Sever.The Peten, northern Guatemala, was inhabited by a population
of several million Maya before their collapse in the 9th century
A.D. The seventh and eight centuries were a time of crowning
glory for millions of Maya; by 930 A.D. only a few scattered
houses remained, testifying to one of the greatest disasters
in human history. What is known is that at the time of their
collapse the Maya had cut down most of their trees.
| Web Links |
| NASA
Earth Science Enterprise captures the spirit of exploration
and focuses it on our own plan The Landsat home page includes information on the mission and the satellite. Cities Getting Ready for Next Heat Wave - Results applied from Urban Heat Island Pilot Project. Nov 20, 1998 story. Project ATLANTA home page includes technical details on the study, including a description of the ATLAS sensor. Remote sensing archaeology research at NASA. |
"Already, images from earlier Landsats have helped us track the loss of rain forests to farmers and loggers," Sever said. "It has also helped us recover several archaeological sites. Landsat 7's enhanced capabilities will be of great benefit to our efforts to answer questions about the past in order to protect the resources of the future."
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- May: GOES-L will be the 12th Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. Its cameras watch half the globe, giving scientists a broad view of developing weather.
- May: QuikSCAT is a quick flight of the backup for the wind scatterometer instrument lost when Japan's Midori satellite failed in late 1997. The scatterometer measures microwave energy reflected back to the satellite to determine wave height.
- July: Terra is the flagship of the Earth Observing System, a series of spacecraft that represent the next landmark steps in NASA's leadership role to observe the Earth from the unique vantage point of space. Focused on key measurements identified by a consensus of U.S. and international scientists, Terra will enable new research into the ways that Earth's land, oceans, air, ice, and life function as a total environmental system.
- September: Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (carried on the STS-99 Space Shuttle mission) is an international project spearheaded by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency and NASA, with participation of the German Aerospace Center DLR. This radar system will gather data that will result in the most accurate and complete topographic map of the Earth's surface that has ever been assembled.
- October: The Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor will measure Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), the dominant source of energy in Earth's climate. The ACRIM III instrument is third in a series of long-term solar-monitoring tools extending back to 1980.
- December: NOAA-L continues a series of NOAA Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) started in the spring of 1998 with the launch of NOAA-K. Operating at lower altitude than the GOES series, the NOAA series satellites trade the global view for twice-daily close-ups of most spots on Earth
- December: Earth Observing-1
is the front runner satellite in NASA's New Millennium Program
Earth Observing to develop and validate instruments and technologies
for space-based Earth observations with new, unique spatial,
spectral and temporal characteristics.
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Author: Dave
Dooling Curator: Linda Porter NASA Official: Ron Koczor |