Local News
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GRACE/GRACE-FO and NLDAS Data Make News
2025.05.27
An article in The Washington Post, entitled “The Colorado River is running low. The picture looks even worse underground, study says” concerned a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, entitled, “Declining Freshwater Availability in the Colorado River Basin Threatens Sustainability of Its Critical Groundwater Supplies.” This paper used Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and the Follow-On mission (GRACE-FO) data and North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) data. This paper received coverage in several media articles.
Water Insight Team Co-hosts Workshop on Drought Monitoring
2025.04.10
The NASA Water Insight team, led by Sujay Kumar (617), Chris Hain, and Kim Locke (617/SAIC), co-hosted a workshop with NOAA NIDIS and the National Drought Mitigation Center on drought monitoring using NLDAS-3 data. Over 70 people attended, and Karen St. Germain gave the opening presentation on NASA’s Earth Action strategy and the relevance of Earth observations for domestic agriculture and for addressing many pressing societal needs.
Earth Day Toolkit Available
2024.04.18
NASA’s fleet of satellites see the whole Earth, every day. This year, you can celebrate Earth Day with NASA wherever you are! Host your own Earth Day event—supported by NASA science—with activities, demonstrations, handouts, posters, videos, and more.
Notes From the Field Blog: Grounding Perspectives
2024.02.13
Scientists and disaster risk-reduction practitioners visited Nepal to view major landslide sites and better understand what satellite data reveal about the landscape.
Tabor/Fatoyinbo GEDI Research Featured in The New York TImes
2023.12.15
Karyn Tabor (617/SSAI) and Lola Fatoyinbo (618) co-authored a paper published earlier this year in Nature Communications that was featured online and in print in The New York Times. “How Much Can Forests Fight Climate Change? A Sensor in Space Has Answers.” The article highlights their research using GEDI to quantify the contribution of protected areas for climate mitigation.
2023 Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics (HBG) Awards Announced
2023.10.20
It is a pleasure to announce the selections for the 2023 Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics (HBG) Annual Peer Awards!
Administrative/Business Support
• Deborah Brasel – Code 610HBG
• Kitty Sanchez – Code 616
• Kathy Regul – Code 617
• Kishawn Sutton – Code 617
• Sandra Bussard – Code 618
• Barret Einfalt – Code 618
• Amy Scully – Code 618
• Shina Dave – Code 61A
Career Achievement
• Jan McGarry – Code 61A
Outreach
• Sara Blumberg – Code 616
• Ian Carroll – Code 616
• Genevieve de Messieres – Code 618
• Ayia Lindquist – Code 618
• Nyssa Rayne – Code 618
Scientific Achievement
• Rachel Tilling – Code 615
• Andrew Sayer – Code 616
• Weston Anderson – Code 617
• Augusto Getirana – Code 617
• Goutam Konapala – Code 617
• Timothy Lahmers – Code 617
• Bailing Li – Code 617
• Fadji Maina – Code 617
• Elijah Orland – Code 617
• Thomas Stanley – Code 617
• Carrie Vuyovich – Code 617
• Shane Coffield – Code 618
• Liz Hoy – Code 618
• Elisabeth Larson – Code 618
• Tempest McCabe – Code 618
Scientific/Technical Support
• Rodney Coleman – Code 610
• Charlie Seljos – Code 610
• Jeff Lee – Code 615
• LeeAnne Roberts – Code 615
• Christine Sadlik – Code 615
• Patricia Vornberger – Code 615
• Albert Wu – Code 615
• Sean Bailey – Code 616
• Ivona Cetinic – Code 616
• David Norris – Code 616
• Emerson Sirk – Code 616
• OCI Technical Leadership Team – Code 616
- Gerhard Meister (Team Lead), Joseph Knuble, Leland Chemerys, Ulrik Gliese
• PACE SDS Prelaunch Data Processing Team – Code 616
- John Wilding (Team Lead), Joel Gales, Liang Hong, Tommy Owens, Don Shea, Fred Patt
• Hiroko Beaudoing – Code 617
• Rajat Bindlish – Code 617
• Abheera Hazra – Code 617
• Thomas Holmes – Code 617
• Eric Kemp – Code 617
• Justin Pflug – Code 617
• Melissa Wrzesien – Code 617
• Emery Bacon – Code 618
• Boryana Efremova – Code 618
• Nathan Kelley – Code 618
• Jason Kraft – Code 618
• Aaron Pearlman – Code 618
• Timothy Shuman – Code 618
• Jennifer Beall – Code 61A
• Marshall Finch – Code 61A
• Evan Hoffman – Code 61A
• Joseph Nicholas – Code 61A
• Katherine Pazamickas – Code 61A
• Xu Yang – Code 61A
Best Publication – First Author Civil Servant
• Brooke Medley – Code 615 – for the October 2022 publication – “Simulations of firn processes over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets: 1980-2021”
Best Publication – First Author Non-Civil Servant
• Anthony Campbell – Code 618 – for the November 2022 publication – “Global hotspots of salt marsh change and carbon emissions”
SWESARR Arrives in Alaska for SnowEx Campaign
2023.10.20
Snow Water Equivalent SAR and Radiometer (SWESARR) arrived in Fairbanks, AK to take part in SnowEx led by Carrie Vuyovich (617). SWESARR flights will be supported by Martin Perrine (618/UMD), Elodie Macorps (618/UMD), Dylan Boyd (618/UMD), Batu Osmanoglu (618), Derek Hudson (555) and Rafael Rincon (555). This SnowEx campaign is expected to continue through October.
SLAP Supports FireSense
2023.09.21
Ed Kim (617), Albert Wu (617/SSAI), and Hessam Izadkhah (617/SSAI) deployed to California with the Scanning L-band Active Passive (SLAP) airborne sensor for the FireSense campaign. During both coast-to-coast transits, SLAP will also attempt to collect opportunistic data over selected soil moisture, forest fire, salinity, and radio frequency interference sites along the way.
Podcast Features Parker
2023.09.08
Patricia Parker (617/UMD) was interviewed on the ‘Fridays with a Scientist’ series of the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s Crop Watch podcast. The goal of the podcast is to produce interesting, thoughtful, and fun educational content for the general public as part of UNL’s Extension program.
GPM Outreach Team Focuses on Hurricane Hilary
2023.08.22
The GPM Outreach Team developed a visualization and web story about heavy rainfall in the Southwest U.S. from Hurricane Hilary, the first tropical storm to strike California since 1939. The animation was developed by Jason West (619/KBR), and the story was written by Stephen Lang (612/SSAI) with edits by Jacob Reed (617/Telophase). Jacob posted the story to the website and helped share the story on @NASAAtmosphere social media.
SLAP Joins SARP-East
2023.06.17
The Hydrological Sciences Lab’s SLAP (Scanning L-band Active Passive) airborne sensor and truck-mounted COMRAD sensor began participating in the first year of NASA’s Student Airborne Research Program-East (SARP-East). Participation included: Hessam Izadkhah (617/SSAI), Saji Abraham (617/SGT), Albert Wu (61A/SSAI), and Ed Kim (617) are working on SLAP. Alicia Joseph (617), John Bolten (617), (Min Huang (617/SSAI) are working on COMRAD. SLAP has completed 7 flights to date on NASA Langley’s B200, observing soil moisture and coastal salinity targets along the James River near Langley, as well as the river itself. 22 SARP-East students and faculty from academic institutions around the US have flown on the SLAP aircraft and the other SARP-East aircraft. They are also collecting soil moisture and coastal salinity truth data to compare with the remotely sensed retrievals, and are learning first-hand about remote sensing, retrieval algorithms, sensors, and field campaigns.
Goddard Monitors Smoke from Canada Wildfires
2023.06.07
An unusually intense start to Canada’s wildfire season filled skies with smoke in May 2023. Then, at the beginning of June, scores of new fires raged in the eastern Canadian province of Quebec. NASA’s Aqua satellite, operated at Goddard, has captured imagery of the smoke. The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) based at Goddard has computed models of where the smoke may travel in coming days.
Kumar Named a 2022 Arthur S. Fleming Award Recipient
2023.05.26
Congratulations to Dr. Sujay Kumar for his 2022 Arthur S. Fleming Award. Named in honor of Arthur S. Flemming, awardees are recognized for excellence in federal service. Dr. Kumar was recognized in the category of Applied Science and Engineering. Dr. Kumar researches Earth remote sensing measurement and modeling within NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Hydrological Sciences Lab. For the past 20 years, he has led the development of the Land Information System (LIS) modeling system, which is used worldwide in applications of water resources management, food security assessments, and flood and drought monitoring and prediction.
Liu Ground Water Paper is a 2022 Top 25 Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences Article
2023.04.07
Pang-Wei Liu’s (617/SSAI) publication is awarded as one of the Top 25 most downloaded papers for 2022 in Nature Communications in the category of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. The paper is titled “Groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley accelerates during megadrought.” Rajat Bindlish (617) and Matt Rodell (610) are co-authors. The paper uses GRACE and GRACE-FO data to estimate groundwater variations in Central Valley, California, during 2003-2021. The study quantified groundwater loss rates during the period and found that the groundwater depletion is accelerating.
Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop Dates Announced and Questions and Answers Posted
2023.04.03
NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop will be held virtually on May 23-25, 2023. Sessions will run daily from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time/10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Central Time/8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) has posted a questions and answers document on the Request for Information’s (RFI) Landing Page. When they become available following the close of the RFI, NSPIRES will post on the RFI’s landing page under “Other Documents” 1) a Workshop Agenda, 2) Registration link and 3) Webex Information. Agenda suggestions and additional questions or comments may be emailed to david.b.considine@nasa.gov; please include "NNH23ZDA010L" in the subject line. Request for Information: NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop Number: NNH23ZDA010L Release Date: March 1, 2023 Response Date: April 4, 2023 Short Direct URL to the RFI: https://go.nasa.gov/TAARFI4VCW
Lab Members Attend UN Water Conference
2023.03.24
Sujay Kumar (617) and Perry Oddo (617/SSAI) attended the UN water conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York as part of the NASA team within the US Government delegation. This is the first major international conference on water held by the UN in 46 years with more than 10,000 people attending.
Water Study in the News
2023.03.13
In their study published in Nature Water, Matt Rodell (610) and Bailing Li (617/UMD) examined 20 years of data from the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites to identify extreme wet and dry events. Articles highlighting this study appeared in many publications, including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN.
SnowEx 2023 Tundra and Boreal Forest Campaign
2023.03.04
Lab members are supporting the SnowEx airborne campaign taking place in the tundra and boreal forest regions of Alaska.
Peters-Lidard Elected Member of National Academy of Engineering
2023.02.07
Congratulations to Dr. Christa Peters-Lidard, Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate, for being named one of three NASA-affiliated newly-elected members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Dr. Peters-Lidard was honored for contributions to understanding land-atmosphere interactions, soil moisture monitoring and modeling, and leadership in Earth system modeling.
Global Reach of Water Research
2022.08.24
Perry Oddo (617/SSAI) is featured in an Applied Sciences profile for his work on the NASA International Water Strategy and his service to the U.S. Department of State and White House as a NASA representative.
NASA GLOBE Land Cover Challenge 2022: Land Cover in a Changing Climate
2022.07.26
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program invites you to take part in our upcoming Land Cover Challenge: “Land Cover in a Changing Climate.”
The photos you take using The GLOBE Program’s GLOBE Observer app document the current land cover and may also show evidence of land cover or land use change in the area. We especially encourage you to look for places you know have changed (or where you know change is coming), and put any information about the reasons or timing for that change in the field notes section. While existing land cover databases (such as the 50-year record from the Landsat satellite) may be able to indicate where change is happening, they don’t always include the reasons why those changes occurred, so any local, on-the-ground knowledge you share with us can be especially helpful.
Landslides Team Supports South Africa Flood Response
2022.06.06
The Goddard Landslides team assisted the UN World Food Programme by analyzing satellite imagery and developing maps of potential landslide locations for April/May 2022 flood events in South Africa.
Lab Members Participate in SMAPVEX22
2022.05.13
Abheera Hazra (617/UMD) and Brendan McAndrew (617/SSAI) participated in the SMAPVEX22 field campaign’s first intensive observing period (IOP) in western Massachusetts. During IOP #1, participants collected measurements of soil moisture, vegetation structure, and surface roughness to improve SMAP soil moisture and vegetation optical depth retrievals over forested areas. The field campaign was led by JPL in collaboration with USDA and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory. A second IOP is scheduled for July 2022.
Kirschbaum Named Earth Sciences Division Director
2022.04.25
Congratulations to Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum on her appointment as the Director of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Earth Sciences Division. Dalia currently serves as the Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory (Code 617), where she leads an interdisciplinary Earth system science lab at GSFC, conducting large-scale hydrological science research using data from NASA’s satellites, land surface models, and fieldwork.
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