Poster Abstracts for the 2008 NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Meeting

A Global Agriculture Information System

Zhong Liu, NASA Goddard GES DISC and George Mason University, zhong.liu-1@nasa.gov (Presenting)
William Teng, NASA Goddard GES DISC and RSIS, wteng@pop600.gsfc.nasa.gov
Steven Kempler, NASA Goddard GES DISC, steven.j.kempler@nasa.gov
Hualan Rui, NASA Goddard GES DISC and ADNET, hualan.rui-1@nasa.gov

Monitoring global agricultural conditions during growing season and estimating potential production are critically important for market development of U.S. agricultural products and for global food security.

An Agricultural Information System (AIS), developed by the NASA Goddard GES DISC, is based on the existing TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS). The AIS will provide environmental data and information to support agricultural activities; specifically, it will operationally provide access to NASA satellite and other data products (e.g., rainfall, crop model outputs) and services.

The AIS will enable the remote, interoperable access to distributed data. The subsetting capability allows users to retrieve a specified spatial region from a large data set, eliminating the need to first download everything. The analysis capability allows users to retrieve the results of an operation applied to one or more data sets on the server.

Two major operational users of AIS are the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), along with others, such as, meteorological consulting companies.

Monitoring Global Droughts from Space

Zhong Liu, NASA Goddard GES DISC and George Mason University, zhong.liu-1@nasa.gov (Presenting)
William Teng, NASA Goddard GES DISC and RSIS, wteng@pop600.gsfc.nasa.gov
Steven Kempler, NASA Goddard GES DISC, steven.j.kempler@nasa.gov
Hualan Rui, NASA Goddard GES DISC and ADNET, hualan.rui-1@nasa.gov

Drought events happen every year around the world. Severe and prolonged droughts could cause heavy damages on agriculture food production and affect people’s daily life. Dry conditions could create fuels for wild fires. Monitoring droughts can be a challenging task, especially in data sparse regions. Data from satellite observations provide additional information in those regions.

This poster will describe services provided by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) to support global drought monitoring activities. The services consist of two parts, maps and tools. All maps (http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/agriculture/ais_sup/current_conditions.shtml) are derived from the Experimental Near-Real-Time TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA or 3B42RT). There are three types of maps, accumulated rainfall, rainfall anomaly and percent of normal rainfall for past 3 hours, 24 hours, 10 days, 30 days, 60 days and 90 days, respectively (Note: no anomaly and percent of normal maps for 3 hours and 24 hours). There are 16 global and regional maps, updated daily, for each of the past conditions. The daily climatology was derived from the 3-hourly TRMM and Others Rainfall Estimate. These maps provide a convenient way to monitor global droughts, without data downloading, processing and maintenance.

The tools are provided by the TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (http://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/Giovanni/tovas/). Advanced users could use TOVAS to do customized rainfall analysis and visualization tasks including data outputs for other applications.

NASA Goddard Earth Observing Data in Google Earth

Aijun Chen, Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center, NASA GSFC, Code 610.2, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA, CSISS/GMU, aijun.chen@nasa.gov (Presenting)
Gregory Leptoukh, Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC),, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 610.2, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA, gregory.leptoukh@nasa.gov
Steven Kempler, Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC),, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 610.2, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA, steven.j.kempler@nasa.gov
Christopher Lynnes, Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC),, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 610.2, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA, chris.lynnes@nasa.gov

NASA Earth Observing System (EOS), a series of satellites gazing down on Earth from space, collets huge volumes of data of our planet daily. Those massive data are being used to observer and research the atmosphere, oceans, and land, and their influence on climate and weather. Google Earth, the representative of the Virtual Globes, is changing the way that general public recognize our planet and professional scientists discover, add, and share information. NASA Goddard Earth Science (GES) Data and Information Service Center (DISC) is doing some pioneer work integrating Earth Science imagery in Google Earth for facilitating scientific research and releasing of geospatial-related public information. Two-dimensional (2D) mapped data and three-dimensional vertical profiles are rendered and displayed in Google Earth. The 2D data are processed via OPeNDAP (Open Source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol) and standard Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)’s Web Map Service (WMS), and finally images are produced and displayed in Google Earth. 3D vertical profiles are first processed via Giovanni (GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) A-Train instance to produce the images. The images are put onto a generalized COLLADA (COLLAborative Design Activity) 3D model as the texture of the model. Based on the designed COLLADA models and satellite orbit coordinates, an orbit curtain model is designed and implemented in KML (Keyhole Markup Language) format. The resultant orbit curtain makes vertical data viewable, transparently or opaquely, in Google Earth. The processed 2D data includes: TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Mission Measurements), AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder)/Aqua, MODIS (Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer)/Terra & Aqua, etc. The processed 3D vertical profiles are from satellite CloudSat, CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation), and Aqua (mainly MODIS and AIRS products) to address cloud, aerosol, and H2O characteristics and atmospheric temperature profile in the form of curtain along the satellite orbit. Simultaneous visualization and efficient exploration of the relationships among quantitative geospatial data (e.g. comparing the vertical data profiles with MODIS, AIRS data and TRMM precipitation data) becomes possible.

Analysis of NASA Earth Science Data through Giovanni: Demonstration of System Features and Sample Applications

Suhung Shen, GMU/NASA, suhung.shen@nasa.gov (Presenting)
Gregory Leptoukh, NASA, gregory.leptoukh@nasa.gov
Stephen Berrick, NASA, stephen.w.berrick@nasa.gov
Hualan Rui, ADNET/NASA, hualan.rui@nasa.gov
Steve Kempler, NASA, steven.j.kempler@nasa.gov

Giovanni, the Goddard Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure, is a Web-based application that provides a simple way to visualize, analyze, and access vast amounts of Earth science data without having to download the data. The visualization function includes lat-lon map, animation, cross section, profile, time series, etc. It has basic statistical analysis methods, such as scatter plot, correlation coefficient, difference, and overlay. The system allows users to download data in several different formats, such as ASCII, hdf, and netCDF; and to download images and GoogleEarth KMZ. Currently, fifteen Giovanni instances are available to allow users to explore and analyze data from more than ten satellite instruments and models. This presentation will demonstrate Giovanni functions and features through sample applications, focusing on land processing, air quality and ocean color products.

Detailed NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems 2008 Meeting Agenda