We publish a lot of wildfire imagery on our natural hazards page (particularly after the wildfire season ramped up recently in Colorado and other states in the western U.S.) Most of the imagery is acquired during the day by instruments on polar-orbiting satellites: the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Aqua and Terra, the Advanced Land […]
Siberia 2012 – Embenchime River Expedition: Introduction
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 […]
Siberia 2012: Embenchime River Expedition – Biographies
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 […]
Notes from the Field – Week 4
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 […]
Musings from SMAPVEX12 Winnipeg
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 […]
Derecho Downs Trees from Indiana Eastward
On June 29, 2012, a long-lived, fast-moving windstorm blew over the eastern United States. The storm started in northwestern Indiana and, over the next 10 hours, traveled roughly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) toward the East Coast. Wind speeds matched those of an EF-1 tornado in places. The storm uprooted trees, damaged homes, smashed cars, downed […]
National Research Council Video Series Summarizes the State of Climate Science Research
A new video series from the National Research Council summarizes what scientists have learned about global warming and climate change. It’s difficult to pack decades of complex research into short video snippets, but the makers of these videos have done an excellent job. As you watch, keep an eye out for mentions of the key […]
Notes from the Field – Week 3
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 […]
Odds & Ends: Batu Tara Volcano Emits a Wispy Plume
Active since 2006, Batu Tara continues to puff away. A thin volcanic plume streams northwest from the cloud-shrouded volcano. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite collected this natural-color image on June 21, 2012. NASA image By Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon using EO-1 ALI data.