News

Q&A with Oceans Melting Greenland scientist Josh Willis

NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland field campaign is gathering data to clarify how warm ocean water is speeding the loss of Greenland's glaciers. Credits: NordForsk

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

The two NASA AFriSAR research aircraft: the B-200 airplane (left) carries a laser altimeter, while the C-20A aircraft (right) transports a radar. Both instruments collect measurements of surface topography and vegetation structure, creating 3D maps of their targets.

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

A new field study this May and June seeks to advance NASA’s ability to monitor air quality from space. This 2007 NASA satellite image shows a swath of air pollution sweeping east across the Korean peninsula to Japan.

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's remotely piloted Global Hawk aircraft will complete a series of flights in February to support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign. The mission, called Sensing Hazards Operational Unmanned Technology or SHOUT, will focus on gathering El Niño storm data out over the Pacific Ocean. Credits: NASA / Jim Ross  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 br

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

The hummingbird glyph and its surroundings in the Nasca world heritage site as seen by standard photography, left, and by NASA's UAVSAR instrument, right. Dark areas in the UAVSAR image are where the site has been disturbed.

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 NASA C-23 Sherpa aircraft used in the CARVE field program, loading at dawn for one of the final flights. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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

NASA's C-130H Hercules airborne laboratory spins down it's engines in St. John's, Newfoundland, after a 10-hour flight over the North Atlantic. Credits: NASA/Rich Moore

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

NASA DC-8

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’s C-130H Hercules airborne laboratory begins research flights over the North Atlantic Nov. 12 from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, the agency's North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES).

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

Setting of the La Habra quake. Red dots show the magnitude 5.1 main shock, magnitude 4.1 aftershock and magnitude 5.4 Chino quake in 2008. Relocated aftershocks are green dots. Modeled faults are in brown, with the heavier reddish brown line denoting the bottom of the fault and labeled with italics. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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

NASA DC-8

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 Global Hawk

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

Operation IceBridge’s planned flight lines over Arctic and Antarctic land and sea ice in Sept-Nov. 2015.

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

The ICESat-2 mission flew a laser altimeter instrument aboard an aircraft over Greenland in August 2015, to determine how green laser light interacts with different types of snow and ice. (The peculiar appearance of the plane's propeller is an artifact of the way the digital camera records pixels, not all at once when an image is taken.) Credits: NASA/Mike Wusk

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 Global Hawk

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 field campaign is gathering data to clarify how warm ocean water is speeding the loss of Greenland's glaciers. Credits: NordForsk

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 arrived at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility early on Saturday, Aug. 22, where it will begin a NOAA-led mission seeking to improve hurricane forecasts.

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

Total subsidence in California's San Joaquin Valley for the period June 2007 to Dec. 2010

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

Understanding the capability of radar to detect high altitude icing is the goal of a NASA flight campaign about to begin in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  For the next three weeks, 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.

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 makes a low approach to Edwards Air Force Base. Credits: NASA Photo / Carla Thomas

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. Melting ice from Alaskan glaciers is estimated to be one of the main contributors to global sea level rise.

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 DC-8

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

Students learn about the MASTER remote sensing instrument onboard the NASA DC-8

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

View through the cockpit window during an IceBridge flight. Credits: NASA/IceBridge

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

Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs before the end of the decade, according to a new NASA study. Credits: NSIDC/Ted Scambos

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 takes off from its base operations in Palmdale, California on a mission aimed at studying polar winds in the Arctic region. Credits: NASA Photo / Carla Thomas

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

Goddard scientists Tom Hanisco (left) and Paul Newman (right) serve as science team co-investigators on NASA’s newest Earth Venture mission, the Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom). One of ATom’s instruments is a device (pictured here) that Hanisco developed to measure formaldehyde more efficiently.

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

The ER-2 crew makes final adjustments on the ground in Keflavik, Iceland as the pilot and aircraft prepare for take off. Credits: NASA Photo / Brian Hobbs

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

The Norwegian research vessel R/V Lance as captured by the Digital Mapping System during an Operation IceBridge flight on March 19, 2015. IceBridge flew over a survey field established by a science team aboard the Lance as part of the airborne mission's Arctic 2015 campaign.

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 C-130 aircraft getting readied for pressurization tests on March 16, 2015 at Wallops Flight Facility, during preparation for the Arctic 2015 Operation IceBridge field campaign. The mission¹s usual research aircraft in the Arctic, a P-3, is currently getting new wings.

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.