– Grassroots Mapping provides affordable “satellite” imagery that is being used in a wide range of scientific and environmental projects.
Keeping an Eye on Volcanic Ash
ESA and EUMETSAT recently organised a workshop in Frascati, Italy (May 2010) for more than 50 experts on volcanic ash from around the world to take stock of what has been learned about ash cloud detection, monitoring and prediction, and identify future opportunities. The workshop was convened following the recent ash clouds from Iceland’s EyjafjÌ_lla volcano that grounded hundreds of flights across Europe causing travel chaos and costing the European airline industry billions of Euros.
Airborne Radar to Study Quake Faults in Haiti
NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, aboard a modified NASA Gulfstream III aircraft, will study geologic processes in Hispaniola following the Haiti earthquake. NASA’s flights will help scientists better assess the geophysical processes associated with earthquakes along large faults and better understand the risks, said Paul Lundgren of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the principal investigator for the Hispaniola overflights.
GEO establishes Haiti supersite
The Group on Earth Observations GEO established a supersite in response to the fatal Haiti earthquake from January 12 (http://supersites.unavco.org/haiti.php). Satellite data from different sensors and various derivates are collected and provided on this website including SAR data, topography data, visible and infrared imagery, GPS data, surface deformation and seismic data. This effort has been made possible by the contribution of national space agencies and data providers worldwide such as NASA, ESA, JAXA, DLR, USGS and others.
Sharp Look from Orbit
The earthquake in Haiti, a human tragedy on the ground, has brought requests to remote sensing and geosciences experts from humanitarian relief agencies for help in mapping the disaster. This article, originally published 19 January 2010 by Der Standard, quotes Earthzine Deputy Editor Christoph Aubrecht, who is a remote sensing and geoinformation scientist at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology working on geospatial issues of disaster management. Aubrecht translated and adapted this article for Earthzine.
Group on Earth Observation Measures GEOSS Progress at GEO Plenary VI
The GEO Plenary VI in Washington, DC Nov. 17 and 18 drew an international and dedicated assembly of delegates from its 80 Member nations, the European Commission, and 56 affiliated organizations who reported their progress toward achieving the goals of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems by 2015. Read more here.
UK sat firm plans low cost mapper
A UK firm believes its latest satellite design can dramatically reduce the cost of high resolution space imagery.
Applications of SPOT for Disaster Response
SPOT Image has had a presence of over 20 years in the market for satellite-based geographic information, where it has played a driving role through the precursor series of SPOT satellites. Since the first SPOT data were released commercially in 1986, the company has done a great deal to develop this market.
Google, Microsoft and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
People can now easily visualize what their next trip or hike will look like; they can readily combine EO data with other kinds of geographic data ; and they can easily save the views they have constructed and send them to other users. However, geospatial technologies are more complex than most people realize.
Earth Observation – The French Connection to GEOSS
Whether for surface imagery, altimetry, studies of aerosols and clouds or recording the Earth’s magnetic field, satellites permit a global view of our Earth and in combination with more precise local in situ measurements offer enormous potential in understanding how the Earth system works from the planet’s core out to the stratosphere, helping us to manage our Earth.