. | . |
First ICESat-2 Global Data Released: Ice, Forests and More by Kate Ramsayer for GSFC News Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 30, 2019
More than a trillion new measurements of Earth's height - blanketing everything from glaciers in Greenland, to mangrove forests in Florida, to sea ice surrounding Antarctica - are now available to the public. With millions more observations added each day, data from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 is providing a precise global portrait of elevation and will allow scientists to track even the slightest changes in the planet's polar regions. "The data from ICESat-2 are really blowing our minds, and I'm really excited to see what people with different perspectives will do with it," said Lori Magruder, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas, Austin, and the ICESat-2 science team lead. The long-awaited ICESat-2 mission, launched in September 2018, continues the record of polar height data begun with the first ICESat satellite, which operated from 2003 to 2009. NASA's airborne Operation IceBridge project bridged the data gap between the two satellites. The new satellite provides far more measurements than its predecessor. ICESat took approximately 2 billion measurements in its lifetime, a figure ICESat-2 surpassed within its first week. When ICESat orbited over a rift in Antarctica's Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in October 2008, for example, it recorded a handful of data points indicating a crevasse in the ice. When ICESat-2 passed over 10 years later, it collected hundreds of measurements tracing the sheer walls and jagged floor of the growing rift. ICESat-2 is taking these measurements in a dense grid across the Arctic as well as Antarctica, recording each spot every season to track both seasonal and annual changes in ice. ICESat-2's ability to measure heights beyond the poles is also impressing scientists - Magruder pointed to coastal areas, where in clear waters the satellite can detect the seafloor up to 100 feet (30 m) below the surface. Over forests, the satellite not only detects the top of the canopy, but the forest floor below - which will allow researchers to calculate the mass of vegetation in a given area. All this is being done with six laser beams from a satellite 310 miles (500 kilometers) in space, noted Tom Neumann, ICESat-2 project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Getting the exact latitude, longitude, and elevation of where a photon bounced off Earth is hard - lots of things have to happen and go really, really well," he said. To make sure everything is working, the science team conducts a series of checks using data from airborne surveys, ground-based campaigns, even the satellite itself. That includes scientists travelling to Antarctica, where they drove modified snow-groomers along an arc of the 88-degree-south latitude line, taking highly accurate elevation measurements to compare with the data collected by ICESat-2 in space. Magruder compared measurements taken in White Sands, New Mexico, with what the satellite was tracking. In its most recent Antarctic and Arctic campaigns, NASA's airborne Operation IceBridge flew specific routes designed to take measurements over the same ice, at close to or exactly the same time the satellite flew overhead. ICESat-2 is designed to precisely measure the height of ice and track how it changes over time. Earth's melting glaciers cause sea levels to rise globally, and shrinking sea ice can change weather and climate patterns far from the planet's poles. Small changes across vast areas like the Greenland ice sheet can have large consequences. ICESat-2 will be able to measure the shift in annual elevation across the ice sheet to within a fraction of an inch. To do this, the satellite uses a laser altimeter - an instrument that times how long it takes light to travel to Earth's surface and back. With that time - along with the knowledge of where in space ICESat-2 is, and where on Earth the laser is pointing - computer programs create a height data point. The data is originally processed at NASA Goddard, then turned into advanced data products that researchers will be able to use to study elevations across the globe. ICESat-2 data products are now available for free from the National Snow and Ice Data Center here.
New Studies Increase Confidence in NASA's Measure of Earth's Temperature Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 27, 2019 A new assessment of NASA's record of global temperatures revealed that the agency's estimate of Earth's long-term temperature rise in recent decades is accurate to within less than a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, providing confidence that past and future research is correctly capturing rising surface temperatures. The most complete assessment ever of statistical uncertainty within the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) data product shows that the annual values are likely accurate to withi ... read more
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |