Landsat

[Christopher K.]

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission is a joint effort of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. The mission is planned to generate measurements of the Earth's terrestrial and polar regions in the visible, near-infrared, short-wave infrared, and thermal-infrared wavelengths. The data can and will be used for land use planning, support of responses to disasters, and water use monitoring. NASA will use the data related to climate, the carbon cycle, ecosystems, the water cycle, and surface and interior of the Earth. Landsat started in 1972 and is the longest continuous record of changes in Earth’s surface (measured from space, that is).

There is a planned pre-launch news conference on Friday, 8 February at 2pm CST. Following, at 3:45pm CST, there is a mission science briefing concerning LDCM. Both events will take place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base outside of Lompoc, California; both will air live on NASA-TV.

More information: http://ldcm.nasa.gov/
Vandenberg Air Force Base: http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/

[Christopher K.]

Since at least the early 1970s the Landsat mission has been imaging the Saudi Arabian desert. A series of pictures from 1987 to 2012 show the spread of center-pivot irrigation circles as the people there use underground sources of water to grow crops. Hydrologists believe this process will be economical only for about a half-century. Collectively the images look like the progress of a massive Othello game, with the opposing pieces light green and dark green.

The images:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/featur ... green.html

These images were used as "October" in the 2013 NASA Science calendar. The calendar's images are cropped and magnified to show more detail.

[Christopher K.]

Landsat 8 has a fairly comprehensive wealth of news on its site, like the July story concerning Landsat's contribution to monitoring lake algae.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/tak ... the-beach/

In the fall of 2010, Professor Brad Schaefer gave a talk at the Highland Road Park Observatory entitled "Global Warming". On Friday, 3 October at 7:30pm WAFB Chief Meteorologist Jay Grymes will be at HRPO for a talk entitled "Perspective on Climate Change". The talk is free admission and for ages fourteen and older.

About Jay Grymes:
http://www.wafb.com/story/469794/jay-grymes