A team of Nevada scientists and unmanned aircraft system (UAS) engineers successfully flight tested the first-ever autonomous cloud-seeding aircraft platform.
Atmospheric River Storms Can Reduce Sierra Snow
A new study by NASA and several partners found that in California's Sierra Nevada, atmospheric river storms are two-and-a-half times more likely than other types of winter storms to result in destructive rain-on-snow events, where rain falls on existing snowpack, causing it to melt.
GEO Launches Early Warning Crop Monitor to Fight Food Insecurity
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) introduced the Early Warning Crop Monitor (EWCM), a new tool that provides consensus reports on crop conditions in countries at risk of food insecurity in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and East Asia.
Despite Ban, Ozone-Eating Chemical Remains Prevalent
Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), once commonly used as a cleaning agent, is a known air toxin that eats away at the ozone layer. Its production has been banned for many years, but a new CIRES and NOAA study reports those rates are still 30-100 times higher than amounts reported to emission inventories.
Landsat Satellite Spots Sunken Ships
Using data from the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite, researchers have detected sediment plumes extending as far as four kilometers downstream from shallow shipwreck sites, demonstrating how satellites may be used to locate the watery graves of coastal shipwrecks.
Mediterranean Drought Worst in 900 Years
A new NASA study used remote-sensing and tree-ring data to conclude that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region (Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey) is likely the worst drought of the last nine centuries.
First Image Published from Sentinel Satellite
Two weeks after its successful launch on Feb. 16, 2016, the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite captured its first image, the transition from day to night over Svalbard, Norway.
Satellites Help Monitor Pakistani Groundwater
After decades of unchecked pumping from underground water reservoirs, the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources in January 2016 began using satellite data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission to create monthly updates on groundwater storage changes in the Indus River basin.
Penn State Offers Online Earth-Observation Education
The Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University continues to lead academically in geospatial sciences through its Remote Sensing and Earth Observation Program and its Online Geospatial Education Program Office.
NASA UAS Monitors Pacific Storms
Extreme weather predictions on the U.S. West Coast could become more accurate with help from NASA’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
