To many people, the Arctic is an almost unimaginably remote area at the end of the Earth – more a land of fable and fantasy than a real part of the everyday world. Most people have very little day-to-day connection with the forests, the fields, and the people who are all part of the vast […]
Dr. Jon Ranson is an earth scientist specializing in radar and lidar remote sensing of forests. He uses these tools for studying vegetation type and biomass in ecosystem research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He also serves as the Chief of Goddard’s Biospheric Science Laboratory, which is advancing the use of […]
Grant Wiseman Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Another hot and dry week here in southern Manitoba has us missing the rain just a little bit. We have experienced a very nice dry down cycle in weeks 3 and 4 after a wet up period initially in weeks 1 and 2. By all accounts this will contribute […]
Narendra Das Jet Propulsion Laboratory I am signing off from SMAPVEX12 at Winnipeg with good vibes, pleasant memories and expectation that this will be a very successful campaign. I hope that, like me, most of my teammates have learnt substantially about the study area and had a great field sampling experience, and have also made […]
Grant Wiseman Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Week 3 provided 7 days of much needed sunshine allowing for a study-site-wide dry down of soils and a significant increase in crop growth. Field crews were able to collect vegetation samples twice and soil moisture measurements four times! For more information, visit the SMAP Notes from the Field […]
Jacqueline Freeman Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Here are some photos from my veg team. They were taken today and show just some of the activities we perform during a vegetation sampling day. The first image is of Saeid and myself measuring crop height and diameter and recording all of the info onto a field sheet. […]
Eni Njoku Jet Propulsion Laboratory We are finally looking at a dry spell weatherwise for the next several days. The forecast is for clear weather (started yesterday) that should last through the coming week. PALS and UAVSAR had flights yesterday and today. Tomorrow (Sunday) there will be no flights, and then we plan to fly […]
Grant Wiseman Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Field teams had another successful week despite the weather still not living up to Manitoba’s famous warm sunny summers. The question on everybody’s mind is not if it is going to rain tomorrow but when? Week 2 contained two full soil sample day efforts, four vegetation collection days, the […]
Tom Jackson USDA ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory Having been involved in many field campaigns, one of the things that is interesting to do while driving around to the various test sites is to look for “roadside attractions”. There are a number of websites for tracking these down. On Saturday my route, which covered […]
During the SMAPVEX12 campaign measurements are being made simultaneously by airborne remote sensing instruments (PALS and UAVSAR) and by in situ sampling of the field sites. Measurements of the vegetation/crop structure characteristics and attributes during the vegetation growth phases are an important part of the data collection. Crop structure measurements collected during the campaign […]
