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NASA’s HyspIRI Sees the Forest for the Trees and More

By Guest PostApril 28, 2013Environment, Scienceairborne campaign, algal blooms, aviris, california, droughts, dryden aircraft, dynamics, ecosystems, environmental changes, er 2, forest, high altitude aircraft, hyperspectral infrared imager, hyspiri, imaging spectroscopy, methane emissions, NASA, operations facility, palmdale, petya campbell, quantitative assessments, robert green, season, simon hook, stephen ungar, surface of earth, surface phenomena, tree, volcanoes, wildfires

To Robert Green, light contains more than meets the eye: it contains fingerprints of materials that can be detected by sensors that capture the unique set of reflected wavelengths. Scientists have used the technique, called imaging spectroscopy, to learn about water on the moon, minerals on Mars and the composition of exoplanets. Green’s favorite place to apply the technique, however, is right here on the chemically rich Earth, which is just what he and colleagues achieved this spring during NASA’s Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) airborne campaign.

“We have ideas about what makes up Earth’s ecosystems and how they function,” said Green, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is principal investigator of the campaign’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument. “But a comprehensive understanding requires us to directly measure these things and how they change over landscapes and from season to season.” (more…)

UMD-Led Research Yields Key to Better Predictions of El Nino

By Guest PostJune 28, 2012Environmentbangalore, climate change, climate factors, cyclical climate event, divecha centre, droughts, economic impacts, el niño, el nino prediction, enso, forecasting models, global warming, India, indian student, la niña, massive flooding, michael mcphaden, nandini ramesh, pacific ocean, raghu murtugudde, university of maryland, weather impacts

COLLEGE PARK, Md. –– A University of Maryland scientist and an undergraduate Indian student he mentored in India have uncovered a major new finding about El Nino — the cyclical climate event that appears every 2-7 years, sometimes with major global weather impacts such as massive flooding in some regions and severe droughts in others and resulting major economic impacts.

Just published in Nature Climate Change, their research reveals a previously unrecognized sign of a looming El Nino that can be detected up to 18 months in advance, nine months earlier than current forecasting models allow. Raghu Murtugudde, a UMD professor of atmospheric and oceanic science, and Nandini Ramesh, who was an undergraduate student at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore India when this research was performed, say their new clue to the beginning of an El Nino lies in the discharge of massive volumes of sub-surface warm water from the equatorial western Pacific Ocean north of Australia. (more…)

University of Missouri Completes First Drought Simulator

By Guest PostAugust 21, 2011Environment, Scienceactual drought conditions, and soil types, bob sharp, bradford research and extension center, cafnr, college of agriculture, commercial crops, crop species, delta research center, drought simulators, droughts, east of columbia, effects of water deficiency on crops, effects on agriculture, famine, farmers, felix fritschi, food and natural resources, food costs, genetics, plant breeding, plant insect and plant disease interaction, plant responses to drought, plant root biology, portageville, real world, real world application of scientific research, soil biology, soil physics, university of missouri, variety of environments, water quality

*Drought simulator will enable in-depth testing under real-world conditions*

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Historically, droughts have had devastating effects on agriculture, causing famine and increasing consumer food costs. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) have completed two drought simulators designed to test the effects of water deficiency on crops. The simulators are located at the University of Missouri’s Bradford Research and Extension Center east of Columbia.

The simulators, part of a $1.5 million Missouri Life Sciences Research Board grant, are essentially mobile greenhouses measuring 50 feet by 100 feet. To simulate drought, researchers move the greenhouses over plants when it is raining and move them away from plants when it is sunny. A test plot of the same plants will be kept next to the simulator to provide a comparison. The drought simulators will increase the real-world application of scientific research, as they allow researchers to more closely mimic actual drought conditions. (more…)

Tag Archives: droughts

NASA’s HyspIRI Sees the Forest for the Trees and More

UMD-Led Research Yields Key to Better Predictions of El Nino

University of Missouri Completes First Drought Simulator