Phenology
Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors. In the scientific literature on ecology, the term is used generally to indicate the time frame for any seasonal biological phenomena. For example, viticultural records of grape harvests in Europe have been used to reconstruct a record of growing season temperatures going back more than 500 years. In addition to providing a longer baseline than instrumental measurements. Observations of phenological events have provided indications of the progress of the calendar since ancient agricultural times. If ash before oak, youre in for a soak, though, these are not mutually exclusive, as one forecasts immediate conditions and one forecasts future conditions. This program, originally started by Wells W. Cooke, involved over 3,000 observers including many notable naturalists of the time, the program ran for 90 years and came to a close in 1970 when other programs starting up at PWRC took precedence.
The data, reported in Whites Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne are reported as the earliest and latest dates for each event over 25 years, so annual changes cannot therefore be determined. In Japan and China the time of blossoming of cherry and peach trees is associated with ancient festivals, such historical records may, in principle, be capable of providing estimates of climate at dates before instrumental records became available.75. Robert Marsham is the father of modern phenological recording. Marsham was a landowner who kept systematic records of Indications of spring on his estate at Stratton Strawless, Norfolk. These were in the form of dates of the first occurrence of such as flowering, bud burst. The data show significant variation in dates which correspond with warm. Between 1850 and 1950 a long-term trend of gradual climate warming is observable, after 1960 the rate of warming accelerated, and this is mirrored by increasing earliness of oak leafing, recorded in the data collected by Jean Combes in Surrey.
Over the past 250 years, the first leafing date of oak appears to have advanced by about 8 days, up to 600 observers submitted returns in some years, with numbers averaging a few hundred. During this period 11 main plant phenophases were recorded over the 58 years from 1891–1948. The returns were summarised each year in the Quarterly Journal of the RMS as The Phenological Reports, in all 25 species, the timings of all phenological events are significantly related to temperature, indicating that phenological events are likely to get earlier as climate warms. The Phenological Reports ended suddenly in 1948 after 58 years, and Britain was without a recording scheme for almost 50 years
Aqua (satellite)
Aqua is a multi-national NASA scientific research satellite in orbit around the Earth, studying the precipitation and cycling of water. It is the major component of the Earth Observing System preceded by Terra. The name Aqua comes from the Latin word for water, the satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 4,2002, aboard a Delta II rocket. Aqua is on a Sun-synchronous orbit and it flies as the second in the satellite formation called the A Train with several other satellites. Furnished by the National Space Development Agency of Japan, MODIS — Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, measures cloud properties and radiative energy flux, aerosol properties, land cover and land use change and volcanoes. This instrument is aboard Terra, aMSU-A — Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit — measures atmospheric temperature and humidity. AIRS — Atmospheric Infrared Sounder — measures atmospheric temperature and humidity, land, HSB — Humidity Sounder for Brazil — VHF band equipment measuring atmospheric humidity.
Furnished by Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais of Brazil, the HSB instrument has been in survival mode since 2/5/2003. CERES — Clouds and the Earths Radiant Energy System, Flying Models 3 and 4, the Aqua spacecraft has a mass of about 2,850 kilograms, plus propellant of about 230 kilograms. Stowed, the satellite is 2.68 m x 2.49 m x 6.49 m. Deployed, Aqua is 4.81 m x 16.70 m x 8.04 m. Terra Aura NASA Aqua site Aqua Mission Profile by NASAs Solar System Exploration Mission Control Tunes Up Aquas Orbit, August 20,2009
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission was a joint space mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall. The term refers to both the mission itself and the satellite that the used to collect data. TRMM was part of NASAs Mission to Planet Earth, a long-term, the satellite was launched on November 27,1997 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, Japan. As of July 2014, fuel to maintain orbital altitude was insufficient and NASA ceased station-keeping maneuvers for TRMM, re-entry was originally expected sometime between May 2016 and November 2017. The probe was turned off on April 9,2015 after its orbital decay accelerated, re-entry occurred on June 16,2015 at 06,54 UTC. Tropical precipitation is a parameter to measure, due to large spatial and temporal variations. However, understanding tropical precipitation is important for weather and climate prediction, prior to TRMM, the distribution of rainfall worldwide was known to only a 50% degree of uncertainty.
The concept for TRMM was first proposed in 1984, the science objectives, as first proposed, were, To advance understanding of the global energy and water cycles by providing distributions of rainfall and latent heating over the global Tropics. To provide rain and latent heating distributions to improve the initialization of models ranging from 24-hour forecasts to short-range climate variations. To help to understand, to diagnose, and to predict the onset and development of the El Niño, Southern Oscillation, to help to understand the effect that rainfall has on the ocean thermohaline circulations and the structure of the upper ocean. To allow cross calibration between TRMM and other sensors with life expectancies beyond that of TRMM itself, to evaluate the diurnal variability of tropical rainfall globally. To evaluate a system for rainfall measurements. Japan joined the study for the TRMM mission in 1986. The project received support from the U. S. congress in 1991. TRMM launched from Tanegashima Space Center on 27 November 1997, the Precipitation Radar was the first space-borne instrument designed to provide three-dimensional maps of storm structure.
The measurements yielded information on the intensity and distribution of the rain, on the type, on the storm depth. The estimates of the heat released into the atmosphere at different heights based on these measurements can be used to improve models of the atmospheric circulation. The PR operated at 13.8 GHz and measured the 3-d rainfall distribution over land and it defined a layer depth of perception and hence measured rainfall that actually reached the latent heat of atmosphere
New Millennium Program
New Millennium Program was a NASA project with focus on engineering validation of new technologies for space applications. Funding for the program was eliminated from the FY2009 budget by the 110th United States Congress, the spacecraft in the New Millennium Program were originally named Deep Space and Earth Observing. With a refocussing of the program in 2000, the Deep Space series was renamed Space Technology, Deep Space 1 – standalone spacecraft testing solar electric propulsion, autonomous operation etc. New Millennium Program site at Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Suomi NPP
Originally intended as a pathfinder for the NPOESS programme, which was to have replaced NOAAs Polar Operational Environmental Satellites and the U. S. Its instruments provide climate measurements that continue prior observations by NASAs Earth Observing System, the satellite is named after Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The name was announced on January 24,2012, three months after the satellites launch, the satellite was launched from Space Launch Complex 2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7920-10C on October 28,2011. The satellite was placed into a sun-synchronous orbit 824 km above the Earth, NPOESS Preparatory Project is intended to bridge the gap between old and new systems by flying new instruments, on a new satellite bus, using a new ground data network. The spacecraft was launched 28 October 2011 from Vandenberg Air Force Base via a Delta II in the 7920-10 configuration, the rocket deployed four CubeSats as a part of NASA ELaNa III manifest.
The VIIRS sensor on board the spacecraft acquired its first measurements of Earth on November 21,2011 and that date was chosen because it was a fairly sunny day in most of North America. The Suomi NPP is the first in a new generation of satellites intended to replace the Earth Observing System satellites, the satellite orbits the Earth about 14 times each day
Joint Polar Satellite System
Joint Polar Satellite System is the latest generation of U. S. polar-orbiting, non-geosynchronous, environmental satellites. JPSS will provide the global environmental data used in weather prediction models for forecasts. JPSS will aid in fulfilling the mission of the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the JPSS is developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who is responsible for operation of JPSS. Two satellites are planned for the JPSS constellation of satellites, JPSS satellites will be flown and the scientific data from JPSS will be processed by the JPSS - Common Ground System. JPSS was created by the White House in February 2010 following the dissolution of the National Polar-orbiting Environmental Satellite System program. DWSS was cancelled in April 2012, until a long term replacement plan is put in place, the military will continue to rely on the Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program constellation of satellites.
Information about our planet helps the nation plan, respond, JPSS will replace the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites, managed by NOAA and the ground processing component of both POES and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Operational environmental requirements from polar-orbit are met by the NPOESS Preparatory Project, the JPSS-1 spacecraft is based upon the design of the NPP satellite, with a different communications design for downlinking the raw, unprocessed data back to Earth. PSS Sensors/Instruments, The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite takes global visible and infrared observations of land, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder will produce high-resolution, three-dimensional temperature and moisture profiles. These profiles will be used to weather forecasting models. Over longer timescales, they help improve understanding of climate phenomena such as El Niño. Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite an advanced suite of three instruments, extends the 25-plus year total-ozone and ozone-profile records.
These records are used by ozone-assessment researchers and policy makers to track the health of the ozone layer, the improved vertical resolution of OMPS data products allows for better testing and monitoring of the complex chemistry involved in ozone destruction near the troposphere. OMPS products, when combined with cloud predictions, produce better ultraviolet index forecasts. Clouds and Earths Radiant Energy System senses both solar-reflected and Earth-emitted radiation from the top of the atmosphere to the Earths surface, both are developed by Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems. The IDPS will process JPSS satellite data to provide environmental data products to NOAA, the IDPS will process EDRs beginning with the NPOESS Preparatory Project, slated to launch in October 2011 and continue through the lifetime of the JPSS and DWSS systems. In addition, the C3S provides the globally distributed ground assets necessary to collect and transport mission, suomi NPP was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on 28 October 2011 at 09,48 GMT.
The first Joint Polar Satellite System satellite - JPSS1 will be launched in 2017 aboard a Delta II rocket, ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, CO is the spacecraft contractor for both the JPSS-1 satellite and the Ozone instrument on the JPSS program and NPP
Imaging spectroscopy
In Imaging spectroscopy each pixel of an image acquires many bands of light intensity data from the spectrum, instead of just the three bands of the RGB color model. More precisely, it is the acquisition of spatially coregistered images in many spectrally contiguous bands. Some spectral images contain only a few planes of a spectral data cube. The multispectral images collected by the Opportunity rover, in contrast, have only four wavelength bands, to be scientifically useful, such measurement should be done using an internationally recognized system of units. One application is spectral geophysical imaging, which allows quantitative and qualitative characterization of the surface and of the atmosphere, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on Chandrayaan-1 was a geophysical imaging spectrometer. In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that light could be split up into component colours. The subsequent history of spectroscopy led to measurements and provided the empirical foundations for atomic. Significant achievements in imaging spectroscopy are attributed to airborne instruments, particularly arising in the early 1980s and 1990s, however, it was not until 1999 that the first imaging spectrometer was launched in space.
Terminology and definitions evolve over time, the term hyperspectral imaging is sometimes used interchangeably with imaging spectroscopy. Due to its use in military related applications, the civil world has established a slight preference for using the term imaging spectroscopy. Hyperspectral data is used to determine what materials are present in a scene. Materials of interest could include roadways and specific targets, each pixel of a hyperspectral image could be compared to a material database to determine the type of material making up the pixel. However, many hyperspectral imaging platforms have low resolution causing each pixel to be a mixture of several materials, the process of unmixing one of these mixed pixels is called hyperspectral image unmixing or simply hyperspectral unmixing. A solution to hyperspectral unmixing is to reverse the mixing process, two models of mixing are assumed and nonlinear. Linear mixing models the ground as being flat and incident sunlight on the causes the materials to radiate some amount of the incident energy back to the sensor.
Each pixel then, is modeled as a sum of all the radiated energy curves of materials making up the pixel. Therefore, each contributes to the sensors observation in a positive linear fashion. Additionally, a conservation of energy constraint is often observed thereby forcing the weights of the mixture to sum to one in addition to being positive
Electromagnetic radiation
In physics, electromagnetic radiation refers to the waves of the electromagnetic field, propagating through space carrying electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-, electromagnetic radiation consists of electromagnetic waves, which are synchronized oscillations of electric and magnetic fields that propagate at the speed of light through a vacuum. The oscillations of the two fields are perpendicular to other and perpendicular to the direction of energy and wave propagation. The wavefront of electromagnetic waves emitted from a point source is a sphere, the position of an electromagnetic wave within the electromagnetic spectrum can be characterized by either its frequency of oscillation or its wavelength. Electromagnetic waves are produced whenever charged particles are accelerated, and these waves can interact with other charged particles. EM waves carry energy and angular momentum away from their source particle, quanta of EM waves are called photons, whose rest mass is zero, but whose energy, or equivalent total mass, is not zero so they are still affected by gravity.
Thus, EMR is sometimes referred to as the far field, in this language, the near field refers to EM fields near the charges and current that directly produced them, electromagnetic induction and electrostatic induction phenomena. In the quantum theory of electromagnetism, EMR consists of photons, quantum effects provide additional sources of EMR, such as the transition of electrons to lower energy levels in an atom and black-body radiation. The energy of a photon is quantized and is greater for photons of higher frequency. This relationship is given by Plancks equation E = hν, where E is the energy per photon, ν is the frequency of the photon, a single gamma ray photon, for example, might carry ~100,000 times the energy of a single photon of visible light. The effects of EMR upon chemical compounds and biological organisms depend both upon the power and its frequency. EMR of visible or lower frequencies is called non-ionizing radiation, because its photons do not individually have enough energy to ionize atoms or molecules, the effects of these radiations on chemical systems and living tissue are caused primarily by heating effects from the combined energy transfer of many photons.
In contrast, high ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays are called ionizing radiation since individual photons of high frequency have enough energy to ionize molecules or break chemical bonds. These radiations have the ability to cause chemical reactions and damage living cells beyond that resulting from simple heating, Maxwell derived a wave form of the electric and magnetic equations, thus uncovering the wave-like nature of electric and magnetic fields and their symmetry. Because the speed of EM waves predicted by the wave equation coincided with the speed of light. Maxwell’s equations were confirmed by Heinrich Hertz through experiments with radio waves, according to Maxwells equations, a spatially varying electric field is always associated with a magnetic field that changes over time. Likewise, a varying magnetic field is associated with specific changes over time in the electric field. In an electromagnetic wave, the changes in the field are always accompanied by a wave in the magnetic field in one direction
Earth's energy budget
Earths energy budget accounts for the energy Earth receives from the Sun. Much of this energy is lost when the earth re-radiates it back into space. This system is made up of water, atmosphere, rocky crust. Quantifying changes in these amounts is required to model the Earths climate. Received radiation is distributed over the planet, because the Sun heats equatorial regions more than polar regions. When the incoming energy is balanced by an equal flow of heat to space. Disturbances of Earths radiative equilibrium, such as an increase of greenhouse gases, Earths energy balance and heat fluxes depend on many factors, such as atmospheric composition, the albedo of surface properties, cloud cover and vegetation and land use patterns. Changes in surface temperature due to Earths energy budget do not occur instantaneously, due to the inertia of the oceans and the cryosphere. The net heat flux is buffered primarily by becoming part of the heat content. To quantify Earths heat budget or heat balance, let the insolation received at the top of the atmosphere be 100 units, as shown in the accompanying illustration.
Called the albedo of Earth, around 35 units are reflected back to space,27 from the top of clouds,2 from snow and ice-covered areas, the 65 remaining units are absorbed,14 within the atmosphere and 51 by the Earth’s surface. These 51 units are radiated to space in the form of radiation,17 directly radiated to space and 34 absorbed by the atmosphere. The 48 units absorbed by the atmosphere are finally radiated back to space and these 65 units balance the 65 units absorbed from the sun, thereby demonstrating no net gain of energy by the Earth. The total amount of energy received per second at the top of Earths atmosphere is measured in watts and is given by the solar constant times the area of the Earth. Because the surface area of a sphere is four times the surface area of a sphere. Since the absorption varies with location as well as with diurnal and annual variations and this gives the earth a mean net albedo of 0.29. The geothermal heat flux from the Earths interior is estimated to be 47 terawatts and this comes to 0.087 watt/square metre, which represents only 0.
027% of Earths total energy budget at the surface, which is dominated by 173,000 terawatts of incoming solar radiation. Earlier, Joseph Fourier had claimed that deep space radiation was significant in an often cited as the first on the greenhouse effect
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry.
Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System and Private Forestry and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
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