An unusually intense start to Canada’s wildfire season filled skies with smoke in May 2023. Then, at the beginning of June, scores of new fires raged in the eastern Canadian province of Quebec. NASA’s Aqua satellite, operated at Goddard, has captured imagery of the smoke. The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) based at Goddard has computed models of where the smoke may travel in coming days.
NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop will be held virtually on May 23-25, 2023. Sessions will run daily from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time/10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Central Time/8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
The NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) has posted a questions and answers document on the Request for Information’s (RFI) Landing Page. When they become available following the close of the RFI, NSPIRES will post on the RFI’s landing page under “Other Documents” 1) a Workshop Agenda, 2) Registration link and 3) Webex Information.
Agenda suggestions and additional questions or comments may be emailed to david.b.considine@nasa.gov; please include "NNH23ZDA010L" in the subject line.
Request for Information: NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop
Number: NNH23ZDA010L
Release Date: March 1, 2023
Response Date: April 4, 2023
Short Direct URL to the RFI: https://go.nasa.gov/TAARFI4VCW
NASA’s ICESat-2 mission measures the height of land, ice, and water by bouncing photons of light off their surfaces and timing how long it takes them to return to the spacecraft. Take a closer look at this fearful photon cloud … if you dare!
What do trees, tree height, lasers, and a NASA satellite called the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 have in common? Brian Campbell (610/GST) discusses this in his recent blog post “Four Years of ICESat-2 and the Upcoming NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: Trees in a Changing Climate.”
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program invites you to take part in our upcoming Land Cover Challenge: “Land Cover in a Changing Climate.”
The photos you take using The GLOBE Program’s GLOBE Observer app document the current land cover and may also show evidence of land cover or land use change in the area. We especially encourage you to look for places you know have changed (or where you know change is coming), and put any information about the reasons or timing for that change in the field notes section. While existing land cover databases (such as the 50-year record from the Landsat satellite) may be able to indicate where change is happening, they don’t always include the reasons why those changes occurred, so any local, on-the-ground knowledge you share with us can be especially helpful.
The thickness of melting Arctic sea ice, seen here north of Greenland on July 11, 2022, is tricky to measure from space, but a NASA campaign is designed to improve height measurements from the ICESat-2 satellite.
Aqua Project Scientist Claire Parkinson (610), Deputy Project Scientist Lazaros Oreopoulos (613), and others reflect on the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Aqua satellite.
Claire Parkinson was interviewed by Taylor Ganis in “Let’s Talk About the Arctic Ice: From a NASA Climate Scientist.” Claire talks about Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, the tone of the discussion about climate change, and topics related to career sequence and mentoring.
With Earth’s recent record-breaking temperatures, the pace of sea level rise has accelerated. NASA scientists take us on a trip into their research right here on our home planet. Join us as we fly over Antarctic ice sheets and consult with orbiting satellites on this exploration of our changing Earth.
Christopher Shuman (615/UMBC) was interviewed by Claire Fahy of The New York Times for the story “Iceberg Splits From Antarctica, Becoming World’s Largest” (also included in the Sunday print edition).
Paper Selected for IEEE Award
05/07/2021
The article "An active–passive microwave land surface database from GPM" was selected as the winner of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2020 Transactions Prize Paper Award. The Award will be presented at IGARSS 2021 in Brussels, Belgium. Congratulations to authors S. Munchak (612), S. Ringerud (612/UMD), L. Brucker (615/USRA), Y. You, I. de Gelis, and C. Prigent.
Sea ice geophysicist Melinda Webster is blogging from the RV Polarstern, an icebreaker ship locked in Arctic sea ice for the MOSAiC expedition. Webster will use MOSAiC data as a blueprint to evaluate and extend the seasonal capability of data from NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite for sea ice research.
In the early 1900s, Ernest Shackleton attempted to travel across Antarctica, but as they neared the continent his ship became stuck in an pack of sea ice and was slowly crushed before it reached the landmass. Over 100 years later and on the opposite side of the globe in the Arctic, researchers in the massive, double-hulled icebreaker, Polarstern, are also stuck in a pack of sea ice – but this time on purpose. And this ship isn’t sinking any time soon.
Flying a plane over Alaska’s vast landscape provides a birds-eye view of some incredible sights. Bears run across frigid streams, moose trample through mounds of snow, and golden eagles own the air above ice-capped mountains. Glaciers cut paths through these mountains, leaving lakes and rivers in their wake. These glaciers are especially interesting to scientists who want to learn more about climate change in a region that is changing more than any other.
Sea ice geophysicist Melinda Webster is blogging from the RV Polarstern, an icebreaker ship locked in Arctic sea ice for the MOSAiC expedition. Webster will use MOSAiC data as a blueprint to evaluate and extend the seasonal capability of data from NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite for sea ice research.
A series of research papers in recent months shows that we know more than ever before about the ice on our land and covering the seas. In case you missed them, here’s a look at some of the notable findings. Many are based on data from NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite, which just over a year ago released to the public more than a trillion new measurements of Earth’s height.
Hi there, from 39,000’. I’m Melinda Webster, a sea ice geophysicist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute. I’m on my way to the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition as the Ice Team Lead for Leg 4. Funded under NASA’s New Investigator Program, I’ll be using MOSAiC data as the ultimate blue print to evaluate and extend the seasonal capability of ICESat-2 data for sea-ice research.
On May 3, 2020, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service announced 27 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (Sammies) finalists for 2020 – outstanding federal employees who serve the public good and are addressing many of our country’s greatest challenges. One of those winners is climatologist and author, Claire Parkinson of the Earth Sciences Division.
Claire was selected for her achievements in conducting breakthrough scientific research documenting how the changing sea ice covers in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans have played a significant role in climate change and for her role as Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite. Claire is one of six finalists in the Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement category.
The Sammies, known as the “Oscars” of government service, are a highly respected honor with a rigorous selection process. Congratulations, Claire!
Antarctic iceberg A-68A, which broke from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017, has been floating solo in recent years. Not anymore. The colossal iceberg finally fractured in late April 2020, spawning a new companion named A-68C.