News
Q&A with Oceans Melting Greenland scientist Josh Willis
The new NASA airborne mission Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) will pave the way for improved estimates of sea level rise by addressing the question: To what extent is the ocean melting Greenland’s ice from below? The mission will observe changing water temperatures and glaciers that reach the ocean around Greenland from 2015 to 2020. The OMG data set will complement earlier and ongoing observations of Greenland's melting ice sheet by satellite sensors such as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), which gives a precise measurement of the loss of mass from Greenland, and other airborne programs including NASA's Operation IceBridge, which measures bedrock topography and the depth of the overlying snow and ice.
NASA, Partner Space Agencies Measure Forests In Gabon
A contingent of NASA airborne instruments and scientists on the ground has joined colleagues from space agencies in Gabon and Europe this month to study the dense African tropical forests in Gabon.
NASA Partners on Air Quality Study in East Asia
NASA and the Republic of Korea are developing plans for a cooperative field study of air quality in May and June to advance the ability to monitor air pollution accurately from space. The Korea U.S.-Air Quality study (KORUS-AQ) will assess air quality across urban, rural and coastal areas of South Korea using the combined observations of aircraft, ground sites, ships and satellites. Findings will play a critical role in the development of observing systems of ground and space-based sensors and computer models to provide improved air quality assessments for decision makers.
NASA Global Hawk to Begin NOAA El Nino Storm Mission
NASA and NOAA are teaming up again to send NASA’s remotely piloted Global Hawk out over the Pacific to take a closer look at storms brewed by this year’s strong El Niño. The observation flights are part of an ongoing NOAA mission, called Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT).
NASA Radar Brings a New View of World Heritage Site
In just two 10-minute overflights, an airborne NASA synthetic aperture radar proved it could pinpoint areas of disturbance in Peru's Nasca lines World Heritage Site. The data collected on the two flights will help Peruvian authorities fully catalog the thousand-year-old designs drawn on the ground in and around the site for the first time, as well as giving them a new tool for protecting the fragile constructions from both careless humans and natural disturbances such as floods.
Methane Emissions in Arctic Cold Season Higher Than Expected
The amount of methane gas escaping from the ground during the long cold period in the Arctic each year and entering Earth’s atmosphere is likely much higher than estimated by current carbon cycle models, concludes a major new study led by San Diego State University and including scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
NASA Study to Look at the Immense Influence of Petite Plankton
The North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) is an interdisciplinary investigation resolving key processes controlling marine ecosystems and aerosols that are essential to our understanding of Earth system function and future change.
NASA Heads to Pacific Northwest for Field Campaign to Measure Rain and Snowfall
From Nov. 10 through Dec. 21, NASA and university scientists are taking to the field to study wet winter weather near Seattle, Washington. With weather radars, weather balloons, specialized ground instruments, and NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory, the science team will be verifying rain and snowfall observations made by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission.
NASA to Fly, Sail North to Study Plankton-Climate Change Connection
NASA begins a five-year study this month of the annual cycle of phytoplankton and the impact that small airborne particles emitted from the ocean have on the climate-sensitive North Atlantic.
NASA Study Improves Understanding of LA Quake Risks
A new NASA-led analysis of a moderate magnitude 5.1 earthquake that shook Greater Los Angeles in 2014 finds that the earthquake deformed Earth's crust across a broad region encompassing the northern Los Angeles Basin and northern Orange County.
Tour NASA's Extreme Weather Research Work
Social media users are invited to apply for media credentials to go inside NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory Nov. 11 at the University of Washington in Seattle and learn about the science behind NASA's stunning three-dimensional views of hurricanes, storms, falling rain and snow. Attendees also will get a close-up look at the OLYMPEX campaign, which focuses on tracking precipitation over mountainous terrain that is difficult to measure.
New Video Highlights 3 Years of NASA Hurricane Research
NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, mission investigated tropical cyclones in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Atlantic Basin hurricane seasons. Highlights of the mission can be seen in a new video.
NASA to Fly Parallel Science Campaigns at Both Poles
For the first time in its seven years of flights, NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne survey of changes in Earth’s polar ice, is conducting overlapping campaigns in Antarctica and the Arctic.
Greenland Campaign Takes Flight for Better Ice Sheet Measurements
A NASA instrument nestled in the belly of a small plane flew over Greenland’s ice sheet and the Arctic Ocean’s icy waters. Flying above creviced glaciers, chunks of ice floating in melt ponds, and the slushy edges of the ice sheets, the instrument used a rapidly firing laser to measure the elevation of the surface below.
NASA Global Hawk Studies Erika
NASA’s remotely piloted Global Hawk 872 departed the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 7 a.m., August 26, for a 24 hour flight to study Tropical Storm Erika, located just east of the Leeward Islands. The aircraft is carrying instruments to measure temperature, moisture, wind speed and direction as part of the NOAA- led mission Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT). The real-time data will go into the National Weather Service forecast models at the National Hurricane Center.
NASA's OMG Mission Maps Greenland's Coastline
NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) field campaign is gathering data that will help scientists both to understand how the oceans are joining with the atmosphere in melting the vast ice sheet and to predict the extent and timing of the resulting sea level rise.
NASA Aircraft to Begin NOAA Hurricane Mission
NASA’s remotely piloted Global Hawk aircraft will begin flights this week in support of a NOAA-led mission to improve hurricane track and intensity forecasts.
California Drought Causing Valley Land to Sink
The California Department of Water Resources today released a new NASA report showing land in the San Joaquin Valley is sinking faster than ever before, nearly 2 inches (5 centimeters) per month in some locations.
Flight Campaign Studies Radar Detection of Ice Crystal Icing
NASA researchers will be flying a DC-8 research plane, outfitted with state-of the-art radar and sophisticated meteorological probes to detect ice crystal icing conditions.
DC-8 Reaches Milestone
NASA's DC-8 Flying Laboratory recently reached its third decade of delivering groundbreaking science.
Alaska's Biggest (Ice) Losers are Inland
Airborne surveys of southern Alaska have helped scientists get a better handle on where ice is being lost from this heavily glaciated region.
NASA Takes to Kansas Skies to Study Nighttime Thunderstorms
NASA has joined a multi-agency field campaign studying summer storm systems in the U.S. Great Plains to find out why they often form after the sun goes down instead of during the heat of the day.
Students Study Earth from NASA Flying Laboratory
Thirty-two undergraduate students are participating in an eight-week NASA Airborne Science field experience designed to immerse them in the agency's Earth science research.
Operation IceBridge Concludes 2015 Arctic Campaign
Operation IceBridge wrapped up its seventh Arctic deployment on May 21, when NASA’s C-130 research aircraft with the mission’s researchers and instruments on board departed Thule Air Base in Greenland and headed to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
NASA Study Shows Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act
A new NASA study finds the last remaining section of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf, which partially collapsed in 2002, is quickly weakening and likely to disintegrate completely before the end of the decade.
NASA Airborne Mission to Study Polar Winds
NASA’s DC-8 aircraft began a series of science flights based out of Keflavik, Iceland, on May 11 aimed at studying Arctic polar winds.
New Mission to Provide Snapshot of ‘Average’ Atmosphere
A new NASA Earth Venture mission called the Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) aims to provide a snapshot of the average atmosphere. ATom will systematically measure reactive gases and aerosols over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, where the atmosphere is relatively clean and sensitive to change.
NASA ER-2 Completes Suomi-NPP Arctic Validation Mission
NASA’s high-altitude ER-2 aircraft completed a series of validation flights last month in support of the Earth-observing NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, or Suomi NPP. The campaign was jointly sponsored by NASA and NOAA and based out of Keflavik, Iceland conducting science flights between March 7 to 31, 2015.
IceBridge Overflies Norwegian Camp On Drifting Sea Ice
Operation IceBridge successfully overflew a drifting Norwegian research vessel locked into the sea ice in the Fram Strait during its first flight of the 2015 Arctic field season.
Operation IceBridge Debuts Its Seventh Arctic Campaign
NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne survey of polar ice, successfully completed its first Greenland research flight of 2015 on March 19, thus launching its seventh Arctic campaign. This year’s science flights over Arctic sea and land ice will continue until May 22.