News
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.
UTexas-NASA Study Sees New Threat to East Antarctic Ice
Researchers have discovered two seafloor troughs that could allow warm ocean water to reach the base of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica's largest and most rapidly thinning glacier.
NASA and Partners begin 2015 CAST ATTREX Mission
NASA scientists will study the movement of water vapor and greenhouse gases in the tropical tropopause region during this year's CAST ATTREX Mission
NASA Brings the Spirit of Adventure into the Classroom
Across the United States and around the world, students now can participate in deployed NASA Airborne Science Missions.
NASA Aircraft, Spacecraft Aid Atmospheric River Study
NASA is part of a major field campaign studying intense atmospheric river storms from the ocean, land, air and space.
NASA Hurricane Mission Connects to K-12 Classrooms
The HS3 team shared the excitement of their scientific mission with K-12 students and teachers across the United States through summer teacher workshops, educator days at NASA Wallops, in-person classroom visits by mission personnel, live remote classroom chats and flight/hurricane tracking.
NASA Data Peers into Greenland’s Ice Sheet
Scientists using ice-penetrating radar data collected by NASA’s Operation IceBridge and earlier airborne campaigns have built the first-ever comprehensive map of layers deep inside the Greenland Ice Sheet.
NASA Airborne Science Aircraft Monitoring the Environment
Climate scientists are using NASA's flying assets to gather information about how the global Earth system is changing and how it is predicted it may change in the future.