Vegetation Essential for Limiting City Warming Effects

August 25, 2015

Cities are well known hot spots – literally. The urban heat island effect has long been observed to raise the temperature of big cities by 1 to 3°C (1.8 to 5.4°F), a rise that is due to the presence of asphalt, concrete, buildings, and other so-called impervious surfaces disrupting the natural cooling effect provided by vegetation. According to a new NASA study that makes the first assessment of urbanization impacts for the entire continental United States, the presence of vegetation is an essential factor in limiting urban heating.

Improved Forest Disturbance Monitoring via an Algorithm Ensemble

August 19, 2015

Forest resource managers, natural resource policy makers, and global change scientists need comprehensive, consistent, and up-to-date information on trends in forest cover and condition. This information is essential for understanding carbon budgets, predicting fire behavior, quantifying biodiversity, and hydrologic modeling.

A patchwork quilt of forest, farmland, and other land in the Mahantango Creek Watershed near Klingerstown, Pennsylvania

How Landsat Helps: New Agricultural Case Studies from USGS

August 18, 2015

The Social and Economic Analysis team at the Fort Collins Science Center recently added five new agriculture focused case studies to their “Landsat Imagery: A Unique Resource” website.

Lakes On A Glacier

August 17, 2015

How deep is that icy blue water on Greenland’s ice sheet? Dr. Allen Pope, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, is using data from the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite to find out. In this video, Dr. Pope shares what he sees when he looks at a Landsat image of the Greenland ice sheet just south of the Jakobshavn Glacier.

A Landsat-based Tool to Track Cheatgrass, Monitor Potential Wildfire Hazard

August 7, 2015

Landsat 8 imagery is being used to identify increased wildfire susceptibility due to the invasion of cheatgrass on rangelands.

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