For the benefit of all, NASA released a summary Thursday of the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, in partnership with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State Office of Space Affairs, convened the tabletop exercise to inform and assess...
All the data collected by GEDI during its first epoch (i.e., before its hibernation) have been processed and released to the appropriate Distributed Active Archives Centers (DAACs) as Version 2 (V2) products. (To learn more about the DAACs and other aspects of Earth Science data collection and processing, see Earth Science Data Operations: Acquiring, Distributing...
Kai Yang [UMD] presented the algorithm for retrieving tropospheric O3 from EPIC by estimating the stratosphere–troposphere separation of retrieved O3 profiles. This approach contrasts with the traditional residual method, which relies on the stratospheric O3 fields from independent sources. Validated against the near-coincident O3 sonde measurements, EPIC data biased...
As discussed in Will McCarty’s remarks, AOS is a key component of the Earth System Observatory that was recommended in the 2017 Decadal Survey. The mission will deliver transformative observations fundamental to understanding coupled aerosol– and cloud–precipitation processes that profoundly impact weather, climate, and air quality. Two AOS projects are in the...
The year-to-year circulation changes along the coast of the western U.S. can have significant impact on the transport of nutrients that affect fisheries. A 2021 article published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography described a study that used ocean currents derived from satellite altimetry to understand the trajectory of water masses from the southern coast of...
The topic of terrestrial water storage variations in California came up in several presentations, focusing on the see-saw swings between very wet and very dry years and the early impacts on groundwater recharge after the record-breaking snow accumulation during the 2022/2023 winter. The process of groundwater recharge – an important objective in the 2017 Earth...
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Science Team (ST) organized a three-day workshop that took place September 11–13, 2023, at the offices of Japan Space Systems (JSS) in Tokyo. Over 40 people from Japan and the U.S. participated in the in-person meeting—some of whom are shown in the Photo below. U.S. participants included...
SAS Policy Summary 12/27/03 As for SAS's current view of things, here, briefly, it is: - Radically cheaper space access (ten to a hundred times less than current costs) would be a massive public good, enhancing existing space markets and opening up potentially huge new ones, creating new opportunities for research, exploration, commerce, and defense. - Such access is...
Space Access Society Policy Summary 2/15/06 SAS's View Of Things, As Of 2/15/06 What Do We Believe? We believe radically cheaper space access (ten to a hundred times less than current costs) would be a massive public good. It would enhance existing space markets and open up potentially huge new ones...