ECOSTRESS April/May Community Updates Digest
🎉 Mission Announcements
We have launched a thermal global community seminar series - please sign up here to receive notifications about this seminar series in the future: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVNUcNDSlLt3xnRv9_lKcZMCzj3wv6PrE4-518LLJtZVyQhQ/viewform
The ECOSTRESS science and applications team meeting dates are set! We will be gathering at Caltech August 18-20, 2026. Download the save the date and register here: https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/events/ecostress-science-and-application-team-meeting-summer-2026/
Writing a NASA Early Career or FINESST proposal and interested in using ECOSTRESS? Please reach out and let us know - we will do our best to offer feedback and connect you with other community members.
Early Career ROSES: The Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science (ECIP-ES; ROSES A.11)
FINESST (grad students) ROSES: F.5 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST)
Check out this ECOSTRESS call out in supporting wildfire hazard assessments:
Space to Ground: Spacewalk 273: Jan. 17, 2025 (Starting @ 2:15 minutes)
Other Mission Updates
620,000 scenes have been acquired since mission start! (after IOC) We average 230+ scenes per day.
The ECOSTRESS team prepared and presented the ECOSTRESS senior review proposal for mission extension and operations, in April 2026 and received positive feedback and support.
📚 Recent Publications and Updates from the Community
- AGU Eos Highlight: https://eos.org/research-spotlights/want-to-predict-wildfire-severity-look-to-the-state-of-vegetation
Ward‐Baranyay, M., Lee, C., Pascolini‐Campbell, M., Sousa, D., & Kinoshita, A. M. (2026). Pre‐fire fuel conditions are dominant drivers of burn severity in the 2025 Los Angeles County fires. AGU Advances, 7(2), e2025AV002179. - Kardani, D. B., Shah, D. B., Dave, J. A., Gujrati, A., Trivedi, H. J., & Pandya, M. R. (2026). A comparative analysis of Split Window Algorithms to retrieve Land Surface Temperature from ECOSTRESS data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 1-17.
- Pérez-Planells, L., Göttsche, F. M., & Cermak, J. (2026). Annual and diurnal temperature cycle modelling of a merged multi-annual ECOSTRESS and Landsat land surface temperature dataset. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 149, 105276.
- Marshall, M., Pepe, M., Tagliabue, G., Odongo, V., Timmermans, W., Vuolo, F., ... & Boschetti, M. (2026). Hyperspectral constraints reduce bias in ECOSTRESS evapotranspiration and drought indicators. Remote Sensing of Environment, 341, 115453.
- Rivera, M., Lowman, L. E., Mrad, A., Bar, S., & Banerjee, T. (2026). Characterizing wildfire behavior with ECOSTRESS land surface temperature across four California case studies. Ecological Informatics, 103777.
- Qi, Y., Zhong, L., Ma, Y., Wang, Z., & Liu, J. (2026). A Physically Informed Generalized Least Squares Fusion Framework for ECOSTRESS LST Validation Over Heterogeneous Landscapes. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 19, 11713-11729.
Throwback paper highlight: Got a paper you’d like highlighted? Please send me a note so that we can include it!
ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, and next-generation geostationary platforms are finally opening a window into how GPP, ET, and WUE shift hour by hour in response to heat and water stress.
Read about it here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00952-8
Xiao, J., Fisher, J. B., Hashimoto, H., Ichii, K., & Parazoo, N. C. (2021). Emerging satellite observations for diurnal cycling of ecosystem processes. Nature Plants, 7(7), 877-887.
Applications from the Community:
LA County leaders discuss safety as UCI study (using ECOSTRESS) shows heat disparities across county parks
Agatep, A., Fisher, J.B., Tacazon, K. et al. Thermal inequities in public parks and open spaces in Los Angeles determined by remote sensing. npj Urban Sustain 6, 61 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-026-00366-5
📢 Share Your Work!
We want to hear from you! If you have recent work using ECOSTRESS data, please share:
Recent publications or preprints
Conference presentations or posters
Applications work with practitioners and stakeholders
Field campaigns or validation studies
Student research or dissertations
Real-world implementations affecting policy or management decisions
🔗 Resources
ECOSTRESS Website: https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov
Data Access (AppEEARS): https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/
Collection 2 Code: https://github.com/ECOSTRESS-Collection-2
Tutorials: https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/tutorials
💼 Opportunities
Upcoming ARSET Training: NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) has opened a new open, online webinar series: Introduction to Thermal Remote Sensing and Applications in Urban Heat Island Mapping (click to sign up). This two-part intermediate level training introduces the fundamentals of Thermal Remote Sensing and its applications in urban planning along with highlighting its ability to quantify the effects of the urban heat island.
Upcoming events:
High Resolution Thermal Remote Sensing: Directional Effects and Applications in Cities and Croplands November 3 through 11, 2026, Space Park Leicester, UK: contact - agnieszka.soszynska@leicester.ac.uk
Workshop alert: Two Source Thermal Remote Sensing for the Management of Agricultural Systems - will take place in Portici, May 27-29, 2026, see website. Keynote speakers include John Norman, Radoslaw Guzinski, Hector Nieto, and Carmelo Cammalleri.
Special session on thermal at the EARSeL Spectroscopy workshop in Helsinki
Will take place June 2026 see website. It is still possible to register for the event!
Special session on thermal at the EARSeL Main Symposium in Athens
Will take place September 29-October 2, 2026, see website. Registration will open on May 11, 2026
Remote sensing of leaf traits, canopy structure, ecosystem function, and services (in honor of Dr. Jing Ming Chen) - Remote Sensing of Environment
Submission deadline: 01 January 2027
https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/331073/remote-sensing-of-leaf-traits-canopy-structure-ecosystem-function-and-services-in-honor-of-dr-jing-ming-chen
Geospatial Foundation Models for Advancing Remote Sensing of Environment - Remote Sensing of Environment
Submission deadline: 30 June 2026
https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/330054/geospatial-foundation-models-for-advancing-remote-sensing-of-environment
Geospatial data science and analysis - Nature Scientific Reports / Scientific Reviews
Submission deadline 22 January 2027
https://www.nature.com/collections/jcieacchei