NASA Earth Observing Missions

1
NASA Earth Observing Missions
Michael D. King EOS Senior Project Scientist NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center

• EOS Missions
• Landsat 7, QuikScat, Terra, ACRIMSAT, Jason-1,
  SAGE III/ METEOR-3M, Aqua, ICESat, SORCE, Aura
• Earth Probe Missions
• ERBS, UARS, TOPEX/Poseidon, EP-TOMS, SeaWiFS,
  TRMM
• New Millennium Mission
• EO-1
• ESSP Missions
• GRACE, CALIPSO, CloudSat

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Landsat 7 Goals Objectives

• Land use and land cover change
• Agricultural evaluations, forest management
  inventories, water resource estimates, coastal
  zone appraisals
• Growth patterns of urban development, Spring
  run-off contaminants in lakes, land use in
  tropical rainforests, health of temperate conical
  forests
• Vegetation patterns
• Annual cycle of vegetation dynamics, drought
  stress, and flooding
• Glaciers and snow cover
• Growth and retreat
• Geological surveys
• Volcanic hazards

Landsat 7 4/15/99
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Glaciers as a Harbinger of Global Change

• Glacier National Park
• 110 glaciers have disappeared in the past 150
  years
• 37 remaining glaciers expected to disappear
  within 25 years
• Mt. Kilimanjaro
• All glaciers likely to disappear within 20 years
• 160,000 glaciers worldwide being monitored by
  satellites (especially Landsat 7/ETM and
  Terra/ASTER)

Gangotri Glacier, Himalaya
Bhutan-Himalaya
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Flooding in New OrleansHurricane Katrina
September 15, 2005
September 7, 2005
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Terra Goals Objectives

• Improve the ability to detect human impacts on
  climate by identifying indicators that can
  distinguish human activity from natural
  variability (Aqua Terra)
• Provide measurements of the effects of clouds,
  aerosols, and greenhouse gases on the Earths
  total energy balance (Aqua Terra)
• Provide estimates of global terrestrial and
  marine productivity that will enable more
  accurate calculations of global carbon storage
  (Aqua Terra)

• Contribute to improved methods of disaster
  prediction, characterization, and risk reduction
  from wild fires, volcanoes, floods, and droughts
  (Aqua Terra)

Terra 12/18/99
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MODIS Fire Occurrence(C. O. Justice, J.
DesCloitres Univ. of Maryland, NASA GSFC)
Terra/MODIS October 26, 2003

• USFS uses these data regularly to monitor fires
  and evacuate people
• Deep Space Network and Alaska Ground Stations
  affected in 2003
• Direct broadcast receiving stations in China,
  Russia, South Africa, Australia, and many other
  locations use these data for environmental
  monitoring

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MODIS Monthly Mean Aerosol Optical Thickness(Y.
J. Kaufman, D. Tanré, L. A. Remer NASA GSFC,
Univ. of Lille)
Terra September 2000

• Fine Mode
• Industrial pollution
• China, India, US, Europe
• Smoke from biomass burning
• Brazil and Bolivia
• southern Africa (DRC, Angola, Zambia)
• Australia, Borneo
• Coarse Mode
• Desert dust
• Sahara, Arabian Sea
• Sea salt
• Southern ocean

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MISR Aerosol Optical Thickness(D. J. Diner, R.
A. Kahn, J. V. Martonchik JPL)
March-May 2000
0.0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1.0
Aerosol Optical Thickness
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Aerosol Optical Thickness of Dust plumes in
Africa (N. C. Hsu, S. C. Tsay, M. D. King, J. R.
Herman NASA GSFC)
SeaWiFS
Cloud
Cloud
Hsu et al. (2004)
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MODIS Deep Blue Algorithm over the Middle
East(N. C. Hsu , S. C. Tsay, M. D. King NASA
GSFC)
August 7, 2005
Aerosol Optical Thickness
True Color Composite (0.65, 0.56, 0.47)
Syria
Iran
Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Persian Gulf
1.5
2.0
0.5
2.5
1.0
0.0
Aerosol Optical Thickness
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Spatially Complete Spectral Albedo Maps(E. G.
Moody, M. D. King, S. Platnick, C. B. Schaaf, F.
Gao GSFC, BU)
Moody et al. (2005)
Moody et al. (2005)
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Snow Albedo by IGBP EcosystemNorthern Hemisphere
Multiyear Average (2000-2004)
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Chlorophyll-a and Sea Surface Temperature(P. J.
Minnett, O. B. Brown, R. H. Evans, K. L. Carder
U. Miami, USF)
Terra May 2001

• Sea Surface Temperature
• Warm water in tropics
• Western tropical Pacific
• Indian Ocean
• Gulf Stream Kiroshio Current
• Cold water in polar latitudes
• Antarctic Ocean Malvinas Current
• Humboldt Benguela Current
• Biological productivity
• Productive regions
• Southern Ocean, coastal regions, north Atlantic
• Biological deserts
• Easter Island subtropical oceans

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MODIS Net Primary Productivity(S. W. Running, W.
E. Esaias Univ. of Montana, NASA GSFC)
Annual Mean 2002
3
2
kgC/m2/year
1
0
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Seasonal Measurements of CO at 700 hPa from MOPITT
December-February
March-May
June-August
September-November
0
135
270
Carbon Monoxide Concentration (parts per billion)
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Jason-1 Goals Objectives

• Provide measurements of sea surface topography
• The data collected provide information on
  ocean-surface current velocity and heights which,
  when combined with ocean models, can lead to a
  four-dimensional description of ocean circulation
• Increase understanding of ocean circulation
• Improve forecasting of climate events (e.g., El
  Niño and La Niña)
• Measure global sea level change

Jason-1 12/7/01
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Hurricane Rita Roars through a Warm Gulf(JPL and
University of Colorado)
TOPEX/Poseidon Jason-1 September 21-24, 2005

• The area shown in red is 35-60 cm higher than
  the surrounding Gulf
• Loop current has warmer sea surface temperature

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Aqua Goals Objectives

• Provide measurements of the vertical profile of
  temperature and moisture to enable improvements
  in weather forecasting
• Extend the time series of sea ice cover that was
  begun in 1978
• Provide measurements of surface moisture for
  improvements in weather forecasting
• Measure the rainfall rate using passive microwave
  radiometry (Aqua TRMM)

• Provide estimates of global terrestrial and
  marine productivity that will enable more
  accurate calculations of global carbon storage,
  exchange with the atmosphere, and year-to-year
  variability (Aqua Terra)

Aqua 5/4/02
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AIRS Measurements of Hurricane Isabel

• Measures vertical temperature (and moisture)
  structure of the atmosphere
• Air cools as it is lifted but is warmer at a
  fixed altitude over the hurricane

23C
0C
17C
September 13, 2003
Aqua/MODIS September 15, 2003
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AMSR-E Composite Sea Surface TemperatureAugust
25-27, 2005
C
35
28
-5
GOES Overlay for August 27, 2005
Orange colors denote temperature necessary for
hurricane formation
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Monthly Arctic Sea Ice Extent Deviations22
years from Nimbus 7 to DMSP
Seasonal Cycle Removed
1.0
-34300 3700 km2/yr
0.5
0.0
Sea Ice Extent (106 km2)
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
79
81
83
85
87
89
91
93
95
97
99
Year
Parkinson et al. (1999)
Sea Ice Minimum 2005
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ICESat Goals Objectives

• Mission Objectives
• Polar ice-sheet elevation changes and mass
  balance
• Cloud heights and aerosol distribution
• Land topography and vegetation biomass
• Sea ice characteristics
• Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS)
  determines information for each pulse
• 15 cm elevation accuracy over ice
• 75 m sampling within atmosphere
• Precise pointing (nadir) and off-nadir up to 5
• Unprecedented orbit accuracy

ICESat 1/12/03
GLAS built in-house at Goddard
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Observing the Polar Ice Sheets andAtmospheric
Cloud Aerosol Layers
GLAS cloud and aerosol layers from 532 nm data
RADARSAT mosaic image from CSA
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SORCE Goals Objectives

• How does the sun affect Earths climate?
• Ozone, one of the important greenhouse gases in
  the stratosphere and Earths biological shield,
  varies in accordance with variations in solar
  ultraviolet radiation
• By how much does the sun vary?
• Total solar irradiance variations on 11 year
  solar cycle
• Facular brightening and sunspot darkening

SORCE 1/25/03
Inset from TRACE
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Aura Goals Objectives

• Is the stratospheric ozone layer recovering?
• Ozone, one of the important greenhouse gases in
  the stratosphere and Earths biological shield,
  varies in accordance with variations in solar
  ultraviolet radiation
• What are the processes controlling air quality?
• Widespread burning for agricultural purposes
  (biomass burning) and industrial purposes affects
  trace gases in the lower atmosphere
• How is the Earths climate changing?
• Upper troposphere water vapor and aerosols force
  the climate

Aura 7/15/04
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Aura/MLS Destruction of Arctic Ozone in
WinterMLS Maps of HCl, ClO, and O3 at 18 km

• Auras MLS has quantified ozone destruction in
  the 2004-2005 Arctic winter
• The destruction this winter reached a level seen
  only once before in the Arctic

HCl
ClO
O3
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Observing Air Quality from SpaceAura/OMI
Observations of NO2
April 15, 2005
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Summary and Resources

• NASAs Earth observing satellites have played a
  crucial role in understanding and documenting
  global change
• global surface and atmospheric temperature
• glacial retreat
• sea ice extent and change
• solar radiation into and out of the
  Earth-atmosphere system
• atmospheric aerosol and cloud optical properties
• sources and sinks of carbon in the oceans and
  land
• ocean surface topography and winds
• stratospheric and tropospheric chemical
  constituents
• fires
• precipitation
• Resource on Earth science, including news
  stories, images of the day, data sets, and
  natural hazards
• earthobservatory.nasa.gov