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Dr. Helen Poulos uses NASA Earth science data

Dr. Helen Poulos uses NASA Earth science data to understand how climate change is affecting the forests of the Southwestern United States.

The data and imagery that Dr. Poulos uses in her work come from a variety of sources, including NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). Located at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the LP DAAC ingests, processes, archives, and distributes data products related to land processes in NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) collection. These data are crucial to the investigation, characterization, and monitoring of biological, geological, hydrological, ecological, and related conditions.

“In terms of imagery, Landsat is very important for mapping fire severity, and I use observations of post-fire forest hydrology and plant water cycling from the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on the International Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument,” Poulos said. “I also use Daymet Daily Surface Weather data from [NASA's] Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC), data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2A and -2B satellites, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER-GDEM) product, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) gross primary productivity, fraction of photosynthetically active radiation, land surface temperature, and leaf area index products.”

Dr. Helen Poulos is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University College of the Environment

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International Workshop on High-Resolution Thermal EO

Bobcat Fire

The Workshop has concluded with approximately 300 participants from over 39 countries and 165 abstracts. The presentations will be available in due course and an announcement will be made once they are available.

The European Space Agency, together with ASI, CNES, ISRO and NASA is organizing the International Workshop on High-Resolution Thermal EO, to be held at ESA/ESRIN on 10-12 May 2023.

High-resolution thermal Earth Observation (EO) has been identified as a major observational gap in our rapidly warming climate. Land-surface temperature is a key variable needed for understanding and adapting to climate variability, managing water resources sustainably for agricultural production, mitigating health stress during heatwaves, predicting droughts, monitoring coastal and inland waters and addressing natural hazards such as fires and volcanoes.

The main objectives of the workshop are:

  • Assess the status of current and planned international high-resolution thermal missions for terrestrial and coastal applications
  • Review the main related activities and projects in the relevant science and operational application areas
  • Prepare the community for the use of the upcoming high-resolution thermal missions
  • Strengthen international cooperation and coordination in the space and ground segment operation, calibration and validation, products definition & harmonization, data access and data exploitation
  • Identify high-priorities topics for future R&D activities supporting the preparation of thermal EO applications

More information on the objectives and main topics of the workshop can found on the event website @ https://thermal2023.esa.int/

NASA Data on Plant ‘Sweating' Could Help Predict Wildfire Severity

Bobcat Fire

Smoke rises from the Bobcat Fire, which burned more than 115,000 acres (46,539 hectares) in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains in 2020. In the months before the fire, NASA’s ECOSTRESS passed over the area aboard the International Space Station, collecting data on plant water use. Credits: NASA

A new study uses data from the ECOSTRESS instrument aboard the space station to better understand why some parts of a wildfire burn more intensely than others.

Even in drought-stricken California, not all areas face the same degree of wildfire risk. A recent study featuring data from NASA's ECOSTRESS mission found relationships between the intensity of a wildfire and the water
stress in plants measured in the months before the blaze. The correlations weren't just a matter of dry plants burning more than hydrated ones; some areas where vegetation had sufficient water burned more severely, possibly because fires had more fuel to consume.

The research, led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, draws on plant water-use data collected by ECOSTRESS, short for the ECOsystem and Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station. The instrument measures the temperature of plants as they heat up when they run out of water. For this study, researchers focused on data collected during portions of 2019 and early 2020 over six areas - three in Southern California mountains and three in the Sierra Nevada - that were subsequently scorched by wildfires.

Other research has shown that wildfire season across the Western U.S. is starting earlier in the year and increasing in length and severity. In California - a state with 33 million acres (13 million hectares) of forests, much of it managed by federal, state, and local agencies - detailed insights on the relationship between wildfire and the availability of water to vegetation could help fire-management officials identify not just whether an area will likely catch fire, but how serious the damage will be if it does.

“We are in an intense megadrought - the worst in 1,200 years - and it's creating conditions for more catastrophic fires," said Christine Lee, a study co-author at JPL. “Data sets like those from ECOSTRESS will be
critical for advancing science and can provide information to support those who are responding to climate-change crises."

Comparing the ECOSTRESS data with separate postfire satellite imagery, researchers found that the rate at which plants release water by “sweating" - a process known as evapotranspiration - as well as how efficiently they use water for photosynthesis, can help predict whether subsequent wildfires are more or less intense. Both measures indicate whether a plant community is getting enough water or is under stress from lack of it.

“We were trying to understand what drives differences in why some areas have severe burns and other areas don't," said Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell, a water and ecosystems scientist at JPL and lead author of the paper. “The results show how crucial water stress is for predicting which areas burn the most and why it's important to monitor vegetation in these regions."

Tracking Plant Stress

Like humans, plants struggle to function when they're too hot. And in much the same way that sweating helps humans stay cool, plants rely on evapotranspiration to regulate their temperature. Evapotranspiration
combines the rate at which plants lose water as it evaporates from the soil and by transpiration, in which they release water through openings in their leaves, called stomates. To avoid losing too much water, plants start closing their stomates if they get too dry.

“As a result, they start to heat up because they don't have the benefit of ‘sweating' anymore," Lee said. “With ECOSTRESS, we can observe these really fine changes in temperature, which are used to understand changes in evapotranspiration and water-use efficiency."

In general, slower evapotranspiration and lower efficiency signal that plants are water-stressed. Higher values indicate that plants are getting enough water.

ECOSTRESS tracks evapotranspiration via a high-resolution thermal radiometer that can measure the temperature of patches of Earth's surface as small as 130 by 230 feet (40 by 70 meters).

High Versus Low Stress

In the paper, published in Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers found that water-stress-related variables, along with elevation, were dominant predictors of burn severity in areas struck by three Southern
California wildfires in 2020: the Bobcat Fire in the Angeles National Forest, along with the Apple and El Dorado fires in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Whether higher or lower stress predicted more severe burning depended on the primary type of vegetation in an area, Pascolini-Campbell said. For example, stressed pine forests tended to burn more severely, suggesting
that drier conditions made trees more flammable. Meanwhile, in grasslands, lower stress tended to correlate with more burn damage, a possible indication that robust vegetation growth produced more fuel, resulting in
more intense blazes. And in the Sierra Nevada regions burned by the Creek Fire, the Sequoia Complex Fire, and the North Complex Fire, results showed weaker relationships between pre-fire stress and burn severity. The study authors hypothesize that variables not captured in the analysis - wind or other weather conditions - were more influential in those burn areas.

Supporting Decision-Makers

The study comes as NASA is ramping up efforts to mobilize its technology, expertise, and resources to study wildfires. The agency in May announced the formation of NASA Wildland FireSense, an initiative aimed at bringing together experts from different disciplines, along with advanced technology and analytical tools, to develop approaches that can inform and guide fire management decision-makers.

The importance of tools such as ECOSTRESS, which is scheduled to operate until September 2023, will grow as climate change drives greater wildfire risk across the Western U.S., Pascolini-Campbell said. “It's a high-priority region for using these types of studies to see which areas are the most vulnerable," she added.

More About the Mission

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

News Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov

Paris Land Surface Temperature

Paris LST

With air temperatures in excess of 10 degree C above the average for the time of year in parts of Europe, the United States and Asia, June 2022 has gone down as a record breaker. The fear is that these extreme early-season heatwaves are a taste of what could soon be the norm as climate change continues to take hold. For those in cities, the heat dissipates slower creating 'urban heat islands', which make everyday life even more of a struggle.

An instrument, carried on the International Space Station, has captured the recent land-surface temperature extremes for some European cities, including Milan, Paris and Prague. While these images offer little direct consolation for those suffering the burden of heat, they are helping by providing geospatial information to mitigate effects of heatwaves in the future through planning and managing water resources more efficiently.

For ESA, this particular instrument, which is called ECOSTRESS and owned by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is important because it is helping in the development of a new Copernicus Sentinel satellite: the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM) mission. ... Read More

25. NASA’s ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the Heat

NASA's ECOSTRESS instrument on the space station documented how built and natural surfaces responded to record heat in Las Vegas.

On June 10, Las Vegas reached a record daily high temperature of 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius), and temperatures of the ground surface itself were higher still. NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument recorded this image of surface temperatures at 5:23 p.m. that day.

Within the city, the hottest surfaces were the streets - the grid of dark red lines in the center of the image. Pavement temperatures exceeded 122 F (50 C), while the exteriors of downtown buildings were a few degrees cooler than paved surfaces. Suburban neighborhoods averaged about 14 F (8 C) cooler than pavement, and green spaces such as golf courses were 23 F (13 C) cooler.

Cities are usually warmer than open land because of human activities and the materials used for building. Streets are often the hottest part of the built environment due to asphalt paving. Dark-colored surfaces absorb more heat from the Sun than lighter-colored ones; asphalt absorbs up to 95% of solar radiation and retains the heat for hours into the nighttime. In this image, patches of dark-colored volcanic rock south of Lake Mead are also noticeably hot.

ECOSTRESS measures the temperature of the ground, which is hotter than the air temperature during the daytime. The instrument launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify plants' thresholds for water use and water stress, giving insight into their ability to adapt to a warming climate. However, ECOSTRESS is also useful for documenting other heat-related phenomena, like patterns of heat absorption and retention. Its high-resolution images, with a pixel size of about 225 feet (70 meters) by 125 feet (38 meters), are a powerful tool for understanding our environment.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

News and Media:
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov

Written by Carol Rasmussen

24. NASA’s ECOSTRESS Detects "Heat Islands" in Extreme Indian Heat Wave

The instrument aboard the space station documents blistering temperatures in urban areas around Delhi during the historic heat wave on the Indian subcontinent.

A relentless heat wave has blanketed India and Pakistan since mid-March, causing dozens of deaths, fires, increased air pollution, and reduced crop yields. Weather forecasts show no prospect of relief any time soon. NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station instrument (ECOSTRESS) has been measuring these temperatures from space, at the highest spatial resolution of any satellite instrument.

This image, taken shortly before local midnight on May 5, shows urban areas and agricultural lands northwest of Delhi (the large red area in the lower right) that are home to about 28 million people. The image covers about 4,800 square miles (12,350 square kilometers).

Cities are usually markedly warmer than the surrounding countryside due to human activities and the materials used in the built environment. The image clearly delineates these urban “heat islands.” Nighttime temperatures in Delhi and several smaller villages were above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), peaking at about 102 degrees F (39 degrees C), while the rural fields nearby had cooled to around 60 degrees F (15 degrees C). This data suggests that city dwellers are experiencing considerably higher temperatures than the average temperatures reported for their regions.

ECOSTRESS measures the temperature of the ground itself, which is very similar to air temperature at night (though the ground may be warmer than the air in daylight hours). The instrument launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify plants’ thresholds for water use and water stress, giving insight into their ability to adapt to a warming climate. However, ECOSTRESS also records other heat-related phenomena, like this heat wave. With a pixel size of about 225 feet (70 meters) by 125 feet (38 meters), its high-resolution images serve as a powerful tool for understanding aspects of the weather event that might be overlooked by traditional observation networks.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

News and Media:
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov

Meeting a Young Professional

Meet Rebecca

Rebecca is a PhD student in Civil Engineering at Washington State University specializing in water resources engineering. She is also an intern at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Her research includes a wide spectrum of topics related to water resources and climate change. She has expertise in both remote sensing and modeling and incorporates a variety of tools in her research.... Read More

Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing - Podcast

Eyes_on_Earth_Podcast65

Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours. But civilian satellites with moderate resolution typically don't get imagery for the entire planet every day, and every day counts when large fires rage. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk through a tool called RADR-Fire built to pull data from a wide variety of sources to map disaster impacts on a day-by-day basis. ECOSTRESS, a sensor on the International Space Station whose data are archived at the NASA’s EROS-based Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), has been an especially useful source of information..... Listen Here

ECOSTRESS Data Reveal Surprising Water Use Patterns

Trees

Dr. Helen Poulos spent countless childhood hours wandering the forests of coastal California. On family camping trips through the woodlands, her curiosity piqued: How did these forests emerge? When they change, seasonally or otherwise, why do those changes occur the way they do?... Read Article

Temperature Check: Using Thermal Imaging To Assess Forest Health

We take our temperature to see if we have a fever. Now the temperature of trees can also be measured to determine the state our trees and forests. Scientists are beginning to use thermal imaging from drones and satellites to measure the health, growth, and recovery of forest systems. ...More Information

Trees

JPL Postdoc Research Day 2020

Every year the Postdoc Research Day poster session displays the postdocs' work to all members of the JPL-Caltech community on the JPL mall. However, due to COVID-19 safer-at-home policies, JPL this year forgo the traditional poster session format and instead the postdocs shared short-recorded presentations on the JPL Spark website.

Presentations summarizing the exciting research conducted by postdocs at JPL in:

• Astrophysics and Space Science
• Earth Science
• Planetary Science and Life Detection
• Technology, Instrumentation, and Engineering

The top presentation in each category were selected by a panel of judges and announced in December.

This year's award for Earth Science goes to:

Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell for her work on GRACE-FO and ECOSTRESS synergies
The presentation can be found herePDF File.

PDF File 

Awardees will each receive an engraved plaque and briefly summarize their research at an awards ceremony in January 2021. This is a great chance to become familiar with the cutting-edge science and technology work. The basis for possible future missions being conducted by JPL postdocs and their advisors.

Exploring for geothermal energy from the International Space Station

Mapping small temperature variations at the surface of the Earth with data derived from a sensor on the International Space Station is part of research conducted by researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands with international participation from Australia, New Zealand and Kenya.

ISS

Earlier this year Dutch Research Council NWO has awarded funding to nine new research proposals in the area of earth observation. The new projects will investigate for example geothermal energy, the navigation of songbirds and a historical set of aerial images of the Antarctic Peninsula. The researchers involved will receive the grant from the User Support Programme Space Research, which the Netherlands Space Office NSO realises on behalf of NWO.

So question is how does data from the International Space Station help in geothermal exploration? Well, this is explained in a nice post on the project by the University of Twente in the Netherlands on the Geothermal hotspot detection from Space Station-based ECOSTRESS data (GeoHot) project....  Read Full Article

We want to see what we can find in the earth

"I’m a remote sensing geologist," says Chris Hecker. Not a profession you hear of every day. The ITC researcher’s expertise has even earned him a spot on one of NASA’s Science and Application Teams, where he is leading project GeoHot. Its goal is to use a sensor on the International Space Station to find new geothermal fields.

Chris Hecker

‘In general, the focus of my work is to use remote sensing to find geo-resources. Those include precious minerals, critical raw materials such as lithium for batteries, rare earth elements for magnets and so on. Essentially, we want to see what we can find in the earth that can help us to develop as humanity and to support the energy transition,’ explains the scientist.

Hecker’s specialization is so called thermal infrared imaging, which allows him to detect not only particular minerals but also temperature differences – something that will come in handy in the aforementioned project for NASA. ....Read Full Article

21. NASA's ECOSTRESS Takes Surface Temperature Around California Fires

Southern California Fires

On Sept. 6, NASA’s ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) imaged active fires across California, including the El Dorado fire near Yucaipa and the Valley fire in Japatul Valley in the southern part of the state. As of Sept. 8, there were 25 major wildfires burning in California.

Both images, taken at 12:13 a.m. PDT (3:13 p.m. EDT), show multiple concentrated areas of surface temperatures (in red) higher than 375 degrees Fahrenheit (191 degrees Celsius). These high temperature regions were likely where the active fires were occurring. The surrounding areas show abnormally warm middle-of-the-night background surface temperatures (orange) due to the ongoing heat wave.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Future studies could use ECOSTRESS data products in a similar fashion as land surface temperature was used to assess the fires pictured above.

For information on Earth science activities aboard the International Space Station, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/issearthscience

NASA's ECOSTRESS Sees Fire-Induced Tornado From Space

Fire-induced Tornado, Loyalton, CA

 

NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) has imaged a temperature profile of an area surrounding a fire-induced tornado in Loyalton, California. A 20,000-acre wildfire early on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020, had been the source of the tornado.

Fire tornados are rare occurrences and happen due to the most unfavorable weather conditions: harsh winds and a surge in heat from a fire. They have the potential to be highly dangerous, leading to many areas to issue a weather alert to their residents to stay cautious and find places of shelter.

In this map, there is a concentrated area of high temperature, which is likely where the fire-induced tornado had taken place. Also present in the image are very cold clouds, possibly representing the pyrocumulonimbus cloud that usually forms above a fire tornado. The National Weather Service (NWS) also suggested outflow winds in excess of 60 mph, which points to the event to be an EF1 or EF2 tornado.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Future studies could use ECOSTRESS data products in a similar fashion as land surface temperature was used to assess the tornado pictured above.

20. NASA's ECOSTRESS Monitors California's Record-Breaking Heat Wave

DIGITAL NEWS AND MEDIA OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALTECH
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109    PHONE 818-354-5011

IMAGE ADVISORY: 2020-161

NASA's ECOSTRESS Monitors California's Record-Breaking Heat Wave

Los Angeles Heat Wave, Southern California
From cities to deserts, the intense heat gripping California is being closely monitored by an Earth-observing mission aboard the International Space Station.

As record temperatures and large wildfires scorch California, NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) has been tracking the heat wave from low Earth orbit. While ECOSTRESS's primary mission is to measure the temperature of plants heating up as they run out of water, it can also measure and track heat-related phenomena like heat waves, wildfires, and volcanoes.

At 3:56 p.m. PDT (6:56 p.m. EDT) on Aug. 14, as the space station passed over Los Angeles, ECOSTRESS was able to take a snapshot of the soaring land surface temperatures across the county, home to more than 10 million people. (Land surface temperature is the temperature of the ground rather than the air above it.) In the first image, ECOSTRESS measured a temperature range of about 70-125 degrees Fahrenheit (21-52 degrees Celsius), with the coolest being at the coasts and mountains. The highest surface temperatures, in dark red, were found northwest of downtown Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. (The instrument also captured the Ranch fire, seen in the center of the image, as it burned.) Land surface temperatures there reached over 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius), with a peak of 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit (53.5 degrees Celsius) between the cities of Van Nuys and Encino.

Death Valley

Those afternoon peaks were within range of morning surface temperatures ECOSTRESS gauged two days later in Death Valley, part of California's Mojave Desert. As shown in the second image, from Aug. 16 at 8:50 a.m. PDT (11:50 a.m. EDT), ECOSTRESS recorded a maximum temperature of 122.52 degrees Fahrenheit (50.29 degrees Celsius) near Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park. Read More....

19. NASA's ECOSTRESS Monitors California's Apple Fire From Space

DIGITAL NEWS AND MEDIA OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALTECH
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109    PHONE 818-354-5011

IMAGE ADVISORY: 2020-152

Apple Fire, Southern California

As the wildfire rages Southern California, an Earth-observing instrument aboard the International Space Station was able to measure its heat and dark smoke plume. 

NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) captured a birds-eye view of the vast Apple fire raging in Southern California. 

The wildfire began on the evening of Friday, July 31, after two smaller fires merged and rapidly grew in the hot conditions in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents. Air temperatures have soared past 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), stressing the vegetation and turning the area into a tinderbox. By Monday, the wildfire had exploded to over 26,000 acres.

ECOSTRESS recorded the image above at 1:15 p.m. PST (4:15 p.m. EDT) on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2020, when the burn area was approximately 4,000 acres in size. In the image, the black smoke plume can be seen drifting east and over Joshua Tree National Park in the Mojave Desert. With a spatial resolution of about 77 by 77 yards (70 by 70 meters), the image enables researchers to study surface-temperature conditions down to the size of a football field. In the active burn area, temperatures of between 390 and 1290 degrees Fahrenheit (200 and 700 degrees Celsius) were recorded, and in one pixel in the ECOSTRESS image of the burn zone, a peak temperature of 1387 degrees Fahrenheit (753 degrees Celsius) was detected.  Read More....

18. NASA's ECOSTRESS Mission Sees Plants 'Waking Up' From Space

Although plants don't sleep in the same way humans do, they have circadian rhythms — internal clocks that, like our own internal clocks, tell them when it's night and when it's day. And like many people, plants are less active at night. When the Sun comes up, they kick into gear, absorbing sunlight to convert carbon dioxide they draw from the air and water they draw from the soil into food, a process called photosynthesis. They also "sweat" excess water through pores on their leaves to cool themselves down, a process called evapotranspiration

NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) can see when plants "wake up" and begin these processes from space. The image above shows plants waking up (as evidenced by evapotranspiration) west of Lake Superior near the U.S.-Canada border. Plants in the red and pink areas began to awake at around 7 a.m. local time. Those in green areas awoke closer to 8 a.m., and those in blue areas, closer to 9 a.m....Read More

17. Drought-Stressed Forest Fueled Amazon Fires

A new satellite-based map of a section of the Amazon Basin reveals that at least some of the massive fires burning there this past summer were concentrated in water-stressed areas of the rainforest. The stressed plants released measurably less water vapor into the air than unstressed plants; in other words, they were struggling to stay cool and conserve water, leaving them more vulnerable to the fires.

The fires in the Amazon Basin, which continue to burn into November, are mainly the result of such human activities as land clearing and deforestation. The pattern - spotted from space by NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) - points to how water-stressed plants can impact the spread of fires. The data may one day help NASA's Earth-observing missions predict the path of future forest or brush fires like those currently raging in California.  Read More...

16. NASA's ECOSTRESS Detects Amazon Fires from Space

NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) captured imagery of fires in the Amazon regions of Brazil and Bolivia on Aug. 23, 2019. 

Costa Rica

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Costa Rica

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The red areas in the images — in eastern Bolivia and northern Brazil — are where surface temperatures exceeded the maximum measurable temperature of the instrument's sensor (approximately 220 degrees Fahrenheit, or 104 degrees Celsius), highlighting the burning areas along the fire fronts. The dark, wispy areas indicate thick smoke — thick enough to obscure much of the fire from view. The measurements cover areas of about 77 by 77 yards (70 by 70 meters) each, or about the size of a football field.  

Read Full Article...

15. NASA Gauges Plant Stress in Costa Rican Drought - Image Advisory

Costa Rica

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NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) has imaged the stress on Costa Rican vegetation caused by a massive regional drought that led the Central American nation's government to declare a state of emergency on July 23.

Parts of Costa Rica have received 75% less rainfall than normal in the drought, which is the result of abnormal weather patterns accompanying an El Niño that began in November 2018. The drought’s effects were already visible to ECOSTRESS in February 2019, as the image shows.

Launched to the International Space Station in June 2018, ECOSTRESS measures the temperature of plants as they heat up when they run out of water. A key benefit of the instrument, in addition to providing information on surface temperature and plant water use, is its ability to detect droughts as they stress plants.

In Costa Rica, more intense drought conditions — shown in red colors in this image — are centered on the province of Guanacaste, part of a Central American tropical dry forest region called the Dry Corridor that is particularly sensitive to droughts. Normally very cloudy, Guanacaste had few clouds (appearing in light gray) when ECOSTRESS acquired this image.

Read Full Article...

 

UVA researchers looking to study climate change with help from the ISS

UVA doctoral students Jake Malcomb and Linnea Saby

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UVA doctoral students Jake Malcomb and Linnea Saby plan to study the effects of climate change in Shenandoah National Park with help from the International Space Station. (Photo by Cody Huff, DSI Multimedia Producer)

Full Story:  https://news.virginia.edu/content/researchers-look-join-nasa-program-track-climate-change-impact-parks-trees

14. ECOSTRESS Captures European Heat Wave

European Heat Wave 

These maps of four European cities show ECOSTRESS surface temperature images acquired in the early mornings of June 27 and 28, 2019, during a heatwave. The images have been sharpened to delineate key features such as airports. Airports and city centers are hotter than surrounding regions because they have more surfaces that retain heat (asphalt, concrete, etc.).

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Europe's massive heat wave is on its way out — and it's leaving a slew of broken temperature records in its wake. Many countries were gripped by temperatures above 104 Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) between June 26 and June 30. According to the World Meteorological Organization, June 2019 is now the hottest month on record for the continent as a whole.

NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) measures Earth's surface temperature from the International Space Station at different times of day. Although its primary objective is to monitor the health of plants, ECOSTRESS can also detect heat events such as the one much of Europe just experienced.  Read More

ScienceCast, Sweating Can Be Cool

NASA's ECOSTRESS mission is studying how plants sweat, providing detailed measurements of plant temperatures from space.

Direct link to this episode:
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13. ECOSTRESS Maps LA's Hot Spots

ECOSTRESS captured new imagery of variations in surface-temperature patterns in Los Angeles County.

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September 18, 2018

FEATURE: 2018-217

NASA's ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) captured new imagery of variations in surface-temperature patterns in Los Angeles County. The first of its kind to be taken by one of the agency's newest Earth-observing mission, it is more detailed than previous imagery and, unlike prior imagery, was acquired at different times of the day.
LA scene

ECOSTRESS measures surface temperature -- the temperature you would feel if you touched the surface of something -- rather than the air temperature typically reported by weather stations. The images were acquired throughout the day between July 22 and Aug. 14 during an extended period of high temperatures in the Los Angeles area.

Cooler temperatures appear in blue, and warmer temperatures are shown in red. In the image taken July 22 at 4:07 a.m., the hottest (reddest) areas are dark asphalt surfaces that are unshaded during the day and remain warm throughout the night. They include freeways, airports, oil refineries and parking lots. The cool (blue) areas are clouds and higher-elevation mountainous regions (dark blue).  ...Read More

LA heat area

New NASA Mission to Detect Plant Water Use from Space

Doctors learn a lot about their patients’ health by taking their temperature. An elevated temperature, or fever, can be a sign of illness. The same goes for plants, but their temperatures on a global scale are harder to measure than the temperatures of individual people. 

That’s about to change, thanks to a new NASA instrument that soon will be installed on the International Space Station called ECOSTRESS, or ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station. ECOSTRESS will measure the temperature of plants from space. This will enable researchers to determine plant water use and to study how drought conditions affect plant health. .... Read More

2019 Fall AGU Talks and Events

Selected ECOSTRESS Presentations

DateStart TimeEnd TimeBldgRoomFinal NumberTitlePresenter
12/9/19 8:00:00 12:20:00 Moscone South Poster Hall G11B-0519 Relating Sentinel 1 InSAR and ECOSTRESS Thermal Data to Monitor the Lava Flow at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii Ninad P Bhagwat
12/10/19 8:00:00 12:20:00 Moscone South Poster Hall NG21B-0940 Uncertainty Quantification for ECOSTRESS Evapotranspiration Kerry Cawse-Nicholson
12/10/19 11:50:00 12:05:00 Moscone West 3024, L3 H22B-07 First evapotranspiration results from NASA’s ECOSTRESS mission Joshua B Fisher
12/10/19 14:55:00 15:10:00 Moscone West 3024, L3 H23C-06 Towards Ultra High-Resolution Plant Water Use Mapping: Synergizing ECOSTRESS with Planet CubeSats Bruno Aragon
12/11/19 11:20:00 11:35:00 Moscone West 3016, L3 H32F-05 Smelt Habitat Suitability and Thermal Refugia in the San Francisco Bay Delta as Seen by Landsat and ECOSTRESS with Comparison to CDEC Gregory Hillard Halverson
12/11/19 13:40:00 18:00:00 Moscone South Poster Hall A33L-2947 ECOSTRESS: calibration and validation during the first-year in orbit William Johnson
12/11/19 13:40:00 18:00:00 Moscone South Poster Hall B33I-2594 Water Use Efficiency from ECOSTRESS: First Look Savannah Cooley
12/11/19 17:00:00 17:15:00 Moscone West 3004, L3 A34F-05 Fusing NASA ECOSTRESS and NOAA GOES-16 datasets for study of thermal regimes and water stress in terrestrial systems. Kyle C McDonald
12/13/19 8:00:00 12:20:00 Moscone South Poster Hall GC51E-1103 ECOSTRESS status and plans Simon J Hook
12/13/19 8:00:00 12:20:00 Moscone South Poster Hall GC51E-1108 Monitoring dryland riparian vegetation water use and stress via ECOSTRESS Marc T Mayes
12/13/19 8:00:00 12:20:00 Moscone South Poster Hall GC51E-1127 Using Landsat and ECOSTRESS thermal data to monitor and evaluate ecosystem restoration progress: A case study comparing temperature change over years since restoration, diurnal temperature change, and field-sampled ecological data of 31 fields undergoing restoration to oak-woodland over 12 years in Southern Ontario. Jonas Hamberg
12/13/19 13:40:00 13:55:00 Moscone West 2003, L2 GC53A-01 Comparison of surface temperature estimations by means of ECOSTRESS, ASTER and Landsat 8 thermal data: preliminary analyses on Italian geothermal areas and active volcanoes Malvina Silvestri
12/13/19 14:10:00 14:25:00 Moscone West 2003, L2 GC53A-03 ECOSTRESS-Landsat Synergy for Mapping Evapotranspiration and Vegetation Stress in Agricultural Landscapes Martha Anderson
12/13/19 14:25:00 14:40:00 Moscone West 2003, L2 GC53A-04 High spatial resolution thermal infrared measurements from ECOSTRESS in support of Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) targeted observable science and applications Glynn C Hulley

 

 AGU 100 - GC51E - Advances Toward Global Imaging Spectroscopy and Thermal Infrared Measurements III PostersDec 13, 2019 from 08:00 AM to 12:20 PM — Moscone South - Poster Hall ,AGU 100 - GC53A - Advances Toward Global Imaging Spectroscopy and Thermal Infrared Measurements IDec 13, 2019 from 01:40 PM to 03:40 PM — Moscone West - 2003, L2 ,AGU 100 - GC54A - Advances Toward Global Imaging Spectroscopy and Thermal Infrared Measurements IIDec 13, 2019 from 04:00 PM to 06:00 PM — Moscone West - 2003, L2,

 

 

12. NASA’s ‘Space Botanist’ Observes California, Nevada Wildfires

ECOSTRESS has captured new imagery of three wildfires burning in California and Nevada.

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August 2, 2018

FEATURE: 2018-185

NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) has captured new imagery of three wildfires burning in California and Nevada -- the first image of its kind to be taken by the agency’s newest Earth-observing mission.

Main Fire scene

ECOSTRESS’ primary mission is to detect plant health by monitoring Earth’s surface temperature from the vantage point of the International Space Station. However, it can also detect other heat-related phenomenon -- like heat waves, volcanoes and fires.

The new image, acquired on July 28, captures three wildfires -- the Carr and Whaleback fires in California, and the Perry Fire in Nevada. Surface temperatures above 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) are shown in red, highlighting the burning areas along the fire fronts. Zooming in on the Carr and Perry fires shows the heat data in more detail, and also the very distinct smoke plumes the fires are producing. The measurements have a ground resolution of nearly 77 yards by 77 yards (70 meters by 70 meters) ...Read More

Carr Fire

Perry Fire

11. NASA’s 'Space Botanist' Gathers First Data

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July 23, 2018

NEWS RELEASE: 2018-172

Just days after its successful installation on the International Space Station, NASA's newest Earth-observing mission, the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), has collected its first science data on Earth’s surface temperature.

First Light

ECOSTRESS acquired this image the night of July 9 over Egypt. Yellow and red indicate generally higher temperatures. The River Nile is visible as a thin blue line on the main image. The black-and-white inset shows the level of detail available from ECOSTRESS, with the relatively cool Nile River and surrounding vegetation appearing darker. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

ECOSTRESS will measure the temperature of plants from space, enabling researchers to determine how much water plants use and to study how droughts affect plant health. ...Read More

10. ECOSTRESS Successfully Installed on Space Station

Updated at 11 a.m. PDT on July 6, 2018. 

NASA’s ECOSTRESS was removed from the Dragon spacecraft and robotically installed on the exterior of the space station's Japanese Experiment Module -Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) late Thursday, July 5. Functional testing is expected to begin next week.... Read More

ECOSTRESS on JEM-EF

9. SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft -- with NASA’s ECOSTRESS in tow

Three days after its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft -- with NASA’s ECOSTRESS in tow -- was installed on the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station’s Harmony module at 6:52 a.m. PDT (9:52 a.m. EDT) on Monday, July 2. 

ECOSTRESS will be taken off the Dragon spacecraft and robotically installed on the exterior of the station's Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit on Thursday night/Friday morning. Read More

ECOSTRESS Launches to Space Station on SpaceX Mission

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June 29, 2018

FEATURE: 2018-155

An Earth science instrument built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and experiments investigating cellular biology and artificial intelligence, are among the research heading to the International Space Station following Friday’s launch of a NASA-contracted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 5:42 a.m. EDT.

Dragon lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with more than 5,900 pounds of research, equipment, cargo and supplies that will support dozens of investigations aboard the space station. ...Read More

8. Four Other Things ECOSTRESS Can See

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June 28, 2018

FEATURE: 2018-152

NASA's Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) is designed to study how plants respond to heat and water stress by measuring the temperature of Earth's vegetation at all times of day with an accuracy of a few tenths of a degree.

Unusual heat can be a warning sign of important changes and concerns in many fields of research besides botany. Here are four other areas where ECOSTRESS's precise temperature measurements could make a difference...Read More

7. Watching Plants' Water Use Is No Sweat for ECOSTRESS

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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June 25, 2018

FEATURE: 2018-146

When you're working outside on a hot day, you probably have trouble staying hydrated. Heat affects how plants work just as it affects how you work. How plants respond to today's warming world is one of the key science questions NASA's new Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission aims to answer....Read More

6. SpaceX CRS-15 Briefings and Events

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ADVISORY: 2018-145b

NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX is targeting no earlier than 2:42 a.m. PDT (5:42 a.m. EDT) Friday, June 29, for the launch of its 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station. The cargo includes ECOSTRESS, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. ECOSTRESS measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress.

Live coverage will begin on NASA Television and the agency's website Thursday, June 28, with prelaunch events....Read More

4. ECOSTRESS Among Science Payloads on Next Space Station Mission - 12June2018

A new batch of science is headed to the International Space Stationaboard the SpaceX Dragon on the company's 15th mission for commercial resupply services, scheduled for launch June 29 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.... Read More

A7 ECOSTRESS Full Proposal Due April 23, 2019

This amendment to the ROSES-18 solicitation provides a new proposal due date for program element A.7 ECOSTRESS Science Team

NASA launched the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 29, 2018. This program element solicits proposals for membership on the ECOSTRESS Science and Applications Team. This team supports both basic research and analysis activities as well as applied research and applications activities associated with the production, validation, and utilization of ECOSTRESS data products. 

Because important ECOSTRESS data sets were not available during the partial government shutdown, the proposal due date for this program element has been delayed to April 23, 2019. Notices of Intent are still requested by February 27, 2019.

On or about February 12, 2019, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2018" (NNH18ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and will appear on the RSS feed at: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2018/

 

Questions concerning this program element should be directed to Woody Turner at woody.turner@nasa.gov.

 

3. Artificial Intelligence, Cancer Therapy and Chemical Gardens Aboard SpaceX Dragon for Station Resupply Mission

and ECOSTRESS! A new batch of science is headed to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Dragon on the company’s 15th mission for commercial resupply services. The spacecraft will deliver science that studies the use of artificial intelligence, plant water use all over the planet, gut health in space, more efficient drug development and the formation of inorganic structures without the influence of Earth’s gravity.

Ask NASA Climate: Too Hot to Handle: How Climate Change May Make Some Places Too Hot to Live

As Earth’s climate warms, incidences of extreme heat and humidity are rising, with significant consequences for human health. Climate scientists are tracking a key measure of heat stress that can warn us of harmful conditions.

ECOSTRESS imagery leads to groundbreaking discovery in post-fire plant recovery

Written By: Allison Bailey, ECOSTRESS Applied Sciences

The full research manuscript is available here.

ECOSTRESS imagery is at the forefront of a groundbreaking identification of key mechanisms during post-fire plant recovery study leading to a better understanding of shifting landscapes and the future of wildland fire management in the Western Region. 

Fire Recovery

For centuries and perhaps millennia, the historical fire regimes of the west have been dominated by frequent, low-severity wildfires through the late 19th century when fires virtually disappeared from the landscape due to grazing and fire suppression. Over a century of mounting fuel loadings, coupled with increasing aridity in recent decades has led to increases in fire size and severity across the western US. This has triggered a transition in many sites from pine forest to post-fire shrublands

For the past two years, Helen Poulos, assistant professor of environmental studies at Wesleyan University, has led a team of researchers deep into the rugged terrain of the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona.  The study's goal is to better understand the effects of these high-severity wildfires on the ecology of western landscapes, most notably, the fire-triggered shift from pine-dominated forests to oak shrublands. 

Due to the new technology of ECOSTRESS, the team is the first in history to identify the specific plant mechanisms activated diurnally and seasonally, not just overarching patterns, in post-fire plant recovery.  In her study, Poulos and her team found that post-fire shrublands maintain high evapotranspiration (ET) throughout the morning and midday, while other vegetation types shut down ET by 10 a.m.  The discovery of high ET in post-fire plant recovery is contrary to former post-fire research that suggested that ET was depressed due to a reduction in transpirational surface area, i.e., no vegetation cover.  For oak shrublands specifically, the higher the severity of the fire, the higher the ET. 

This shift to oak shrublands is of grave concern in terms of water availability to plants and downstream end users. High ET involves cycling greater amounts of water from the soil into the atmosphere, lowering the water table.  Poulos and her team have been an asset to park managers around the Chiricahua Mountains to help them better understand the future trajectory of these forests and prepare for shifting management practices to protect dense pine areas. 



ECOSTRESS Pivotal in Precision Agriculture

Written By: Allison Bailey, ECOSTRESS Applied Sciences

IrriWatch, a newly launched company focusing on the automation of irrigation monitoring to maximize crop yields and conserve water, attributes ECOSTRESS as playing a pivotal role in their platform. 

Crop irrigation processes, such as soil moisture which is pivotal to crop water intake, are highly dynamic and can fluctuate rapidly.  The sensitive nature of these processes and the growing concern of water scarcity have shifted irrigation ideologies to a precision irrigation concept. 

Precision irrigation decisions, i.e., when, where, and how much to water, have long been dependent on a farmer’s intuition. If economically feasible, farmers may rely on localized soil sensors physically input into the ground, which can be expensive and often lack precision. To support precision irrigation and financial accessibility, IrriWatch offers a platform that provides daily thermal data from sources such as ECOSTRESS to provide precise monitoring of root zone soil moisture and crop evapotranspiration at affordable prices to farmers.

Grower

“The beauty of ECOSTRESS is that it really reduces the time between consecutive images,” said Dr. Wim Bastiaanssen, founder of IrriWatch and the lead developer of the surface energy balance algorithm for land (SEBAL) model.  Before ECOSTRESS data, Bastiaanssen was reliant on 8-16 day cycles of thermal data for irrigation monitoring, which posed significant gaps in capturing environmental fluctuations.  “With ECOSTRESS, these cycles are reduced to four days overlap, and that is the great contribution of ECOSTRESS,” said Bastiaanssen.

Platforms, such as IrriWatch, are pivotal for future optimization of water and maximizing crop yields in regions facing food insecurity. These benefits not only conserve natural resources but have direct cost-benefit savings to the farmer. 

ECOSTRESS Shaping How We Address Urban Heat Islands

Written By: Allison Bailey, ECOSTRESS Applied Sciences

ECOSTRESS's precision capabilities redefine how municipalities and NGOs can address urban heat island effect in our most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods. 

Urban heat island (UHI) effects occur within urban settings due to the thermal energy dynamics of materials found within a built environment such as concrete. These heat island effects can lower air quality, increase energy and water demand, and increase heat-related casualties.  With a projected 68% of the global population residing in urban areas by 2050 and a global temperature increase of 32°F per decade due to climate change, there is an immediate need to address UHI effects. 

In 2017, Dr. Glynn Hulley, a scientist with Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems group at JPL, approached Climate Resolve, an LA-based NGO that advocates implementing heat mitigating measures, to support their efforts to cool Los Angeles. Hulley introduced the Climate Resolve team to ECOSTRESS, knowing the satellite imagery could provide precise resolution capable of geolocating the most heat-vulnerable areas of the city down to the street level.  In partnership with Los Angeles city-county, Climate Resolve now uses ECOSTRESS data to target heat-vulnerable areas and implement cooling strategies such as the "cool neighborhood" pilot program.

The "cool neighborhood" pilot program applies thermal-resistant paint to streets in neighborhoods susceptible to extreme heat. ECOSTRESS data was pivotal in geolocating and quantifying the effects of the cool pavement throughout various points of the day. "The surprising part to me was the efficacy of the cool paint itself.  We found a 10-12℉ difference between the areas we painted and the areas we did not paint on the street level.  On the neighborhood level, that averaged out to about a 2℉ cooling." stated Hulley.    

Urban Heat Island

Last month, Climate Resolve and the LA Bureau of Street Services presented ECOSTRESS data findings and the results of the "cool neighborhood" pilot to members of the California State Legislature.  The pilot program's success led to a $350 million budget allocation for heat mitigation efforts for California. 

Click on the link here to learn more about ECOSTRESS and the “cool neighborhood” case study. 

ECOSTRESS used in urban heat mitigation decision support

ECOSTRESS land surface temperature and urban heat analysis are being used by the city of Los Angeles to determine mitigation strategies for urban heat and heat stress.  See how our data is used in this presentation by the Assistant Director of Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services link

Farmers irrigating their crops may get help from space

Newswise — Farmers irrigating their crops may soon be getting some help from space.  In 2018, scientists launched ECOSTRESS, a new instrument now attached to the International Space Station.  Its mission: to gather data on how plants use water across the world.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) helps scientists answer three broad questions:

  • How do plants respond to drought?
  • What’s happening with plants’ water use over the course of a day?
  • Can vulnerability to drought be reduced through more monitoring?

See Full News Article

Intern Feature: Joalda Morancy

Written By: Allison Bailey, ECOSTRESS Applied Sciences

Joalda Morancy is an intern with the Carbon Cycles and Ecosystems Group at JPL. They use They/Them pronouns. 

The allure of space is palpable in Tampa, Florida, with the glimmer of evening stars bouncing off the balmy coastal waters and the promise of new exploration just a 2-hour drive east at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. But for Joalda Morancy, neither spending their formative years in Tampa nor being afforded the opportunities that other kids dream of, like Space Camp, sparked the passion for Space exploration, but YouTube did.  

Joalda Morancy

“I was on YouTube one day scouring through videos. A video showed up in my recommendation feed, and it was a video of astronaut Chris Hadfield at a Space station making a peanut butter sandwich in Space,” stated Morancy. Thus began the self-indulgent research wormhole within the deep abyss of the interwebs, learning the mysteries of all things Space. 

Morancy is now three years into their studies in Astrophysics and Geophysics at the University of Chicago, carrying on the passion for Space that one “peanut butter sandwich in Space” video sparked.  After several attempts at an internship with NASA, Morancy was finally accepted onto the Carbon Cycles and Ecosystems Group with JPL last year. 

A typical day at JPL for Morancy seems to be on par with what they do best, scouring the news feeds for current climate events and historical trends that they can analyze through ECOSTRESS data. Morancy pulls ECOSTRESS data to generate maps via QGIS to monitor and analyze the thermal effects of the climate events they find. 

“The mission has made me have a bigger appreciation for Earth Sciences than I did before,” stated Morancy.  “I like ECOSTRESS because of its versatility; I can understand how processes on earth work better. There are so many different things you can do with the data,” stated Morancy. 

When Morancy isn’t deep in their studies or analyzing global climate events, they are on a sci-fi adventure pushing their way through the ‘100 books in one-year’ challenge; so far, nothing competes with their favorite book, The Martian. Armed with the talent of playing the saxophone and a zest for The Strokes, a popular indie rock band from the early 2000s, there is a depth and breadth to Morancy that will take them far. 

While this may be the first you’ve heard of Morancy, we’re sure this won’t be the last as they strive to become an astronaut. Maybe one day, a video of Morancy making a ‘PB & J’ in Space will inspire another kid to stop their endless media scroll and deep dive into the mysteries of Space. 

Join the ECOSTRESS Slack Channel and Community of Practice

1.  submit a form indicating what type of project you're working on:  ECOSTRESS Community of Practice / Early Adopters: submit a form

2.  request to join the slack channel:  

Join us for ARSET’s first lightning style training

Please join us for ARSET’s first lightning style training, designed to support high demand and interest from the applications community in new NASA Earth observing technologies that can be used to support resources management.  This webinar will focus on a NASA instrument that was launched and installed on the International Space Station in Summer 2018.  Designed to study terrestrial ecosystems and plant water stress from the ISS, ECOSTRESS can also be used to better understand crop health, volcanoes, urban heat, wildland fires, coastal systems, and much more. Click here for details

Linking Managed and Natural Ecosystems Through Evapotranspiration and NASA’s Upcoming ECOSTRESS Mission

As global temperature and water availability changes become more extreme, how can we precisely track the effects of these changes on plant life? ECOSTRESS may provide the answer.

Link to Earthzine Article  Spater et al. 2017

NASA Administrator highlights ECOSTRESS at World Ag Expo

World Ag Expo is the world's largest annual agricultural exposition. More than 1,500 exhibitors display the latest in farm equipment, communications and technology on 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space. Free seminars focus on a variety of topics important to dairy producers, farmers, ranchers and agribusiness professionals. World Ag Expo is a can't miss show for anyone in ag.

World Agriculture Expo 2019  |  Link to Tweet   |  Link to Video  ECOSTRESS highlighted at about minute 28!

 

NASA Media Advisory M18-047

NASA to Preview Upcoming US Spacewalk, Provide Live Coverage

Expedition 55 Flight Engineers Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold will don spacesuits and exit the station’s Quest airlock about 8:10 a.m. March 29 to begin the 209th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades. 

They will install wireless communications equipment on the station’s Tranquility module to enhance payload data processing for the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) experiment being flown to the station on a future SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.   Read More...

Solicitation - NASA ROSES 2017 - ECOSTRESS Science Team

NASA ROSES 2017 ECOSTRESS Science Team

This program element will seek proposals for membership on the ECOSTRESS Science Team. The focus of these proposals will likely be utilization of ECOSTRESS Level 2 (Surface Temperature and Emissivity), Level 3 (Evapotranspiration), and/or Level 4 (Water Use Efficiency and Evaporative Stress Index) data products for basic and applied research of importance to Earth system science. However, the solicitation will likely also be open to the production of alternative data products to those produced by funding to the ECOSTRESS Principal Investigator team. In addition, it will likely support proposals for enhanced calibration/validation activities that may be important for some classes of mission products.

Nature manuscript (June 22, 2017, Vol 1/0194): ISS observations offer insights into plant function

In 2018 technologies on the International Space Station will provide ∼1 year of synchronous observations of ecosystem composition, structure and function. We discuss these instruments and how they can be used to constrain global models and improve our understanding of the current state of terrestrial ecosystems.

Instruments discussed include ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, GEDI, HISUI.  

Link to manuscript

Paper Published: New ECOSTRESS and MODIS Land Surface Temperature Data Reveal Fine-Scale Heat Vulnerability in Cities: A Case Study for Los Angeles County, California

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91109, USA
Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. 
Received: 17 July 2019 / Accepted: 10 September 2019 / Published: 13 September 2019

 

Abstract

Rapid 21st century urbanization combined with anthropogenic climate warming are significantly increasing heat-related health threats in cities worldwide. In Los Angeles (LA), increasing trends in extreme heat are expected to intensify and exacerbate the urban heat island effect, leading to greater health risks for vulnerable populations. Partnerships between city policymakers and scientists are becoming more important as the need to provide data-driven recommendations for sustainability and mitigation efforts becomes critical. Here we present a model to produce heat vulnerability index (HVI) maps driven by surface temperature data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) new Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) thermal infrared sensor. ECOSTRESS was launched in June 2018 with the capability to image fine-scale urban temperatures at a 70 m resolution throughout different times of the day and night. The HVI model further includes information on socio-demographic data, green vegetation abundance, and historical heatwave temperatures from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor onboard the Aqua spacecraft since 2002. During a period of high heat in July 2018, we identified the five most vulnerable communities at a sub-city block scale in the LA region. The persistence of high HVI throughout the day and night in these areas indicates a clear and urgent need for implementing cooling technologies and green infrastructure to curb future warming.

IGARSS 2017: ECOSTRESS - a NASA instrument studying links between water cycle and plant health

Presenter:  Glynn Hulley
Authors: Glynn Hulley, Simon Hook, Joshua Fisher, Christine Lee
Paper 2981: ECOSTRESS, A NASA EARTH-VENTURES INSTRUMENT FOR STUDYING LINKS BETWEEN THE WATER CYCLE AND PLANT HEALTH OVER THE DIURNAL CYCLE
Paper Identifier: FR1.L6.1
Session: FR1.L6 - Advances in Remote Sensing and Geospatial Technology for Sustainable Water Resource Management I
Presentation Type: Oral
Session Location: Room 202 CD
Session Time: Friday, July 28, 08:00 - 09:40
Paper Presentation Time: Friday, July 28, 08:00 - 08:20
Session Chair: Yufang Jin, yujin@ucdavis.edu

Water Resources Research article April 2017: The future of ET

Fisher et al. 2017

The fate of the terrestrial biosphere is highly uncertain given recent and projected changes in climate. This is especially acute for impacts associated with changes in drought frequency and intensity on the distribution and timing of water availability. The development of effective adaptation strategies for these emerging threats to food and water security are compromised by limitations in our understanding of how natural and managed ecosystems are responding to changing hydrological and climatological regimes. This information gap is exacerbated by insufficient monitoring capabilities from local to global scales. Here, we describe how evapotranspiration (ET) represents the key variable in linking ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and water resources, and highlight both the outstanding science and applications questions and the actions, especially from a space-based perspective, necessary to advance them.

 

Link to manuscript

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