Landsat's Role in Understanding Climate Change
Long-term weather patterns averaged over 30 years or more make up our climate. Human well-being—our infrastructure and agriculture—depend on a reliable climate. This reliability allows farmers to plant seeds in the spring with confidence that temperatures and rainfall will sustain crops in the coming months. It allows communities to build and maintain roads, buildings, and drainage systems best suited to local conditions. Earth’s climate is controlled by the amount of energy that flows through the atmosphere, oceans, and land. By adding heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere—primarily carbon dioxide—people are increasing the amount of energy in the Earth system that would otherwise escape to space. This increase in energy is changing Earth’s climate, and consequently, the weather patterns that people rely on are shifting. Changes in long-term weather patterns have wide-ranging impacts on ecosystems and peoples’ lives. Designed to observe land and coastal ecosystems, Landsat instruments provide an unparalleled space-based record of the impact of climate change on Earth’s landscapes, the growth and loss of carbon- storing.
Landsat Shows Shrinking Ponds in Alaska
A first-of-its kind analysis of fifty years of remotely sensed imagery from the 1950s to 2002 shows a dramatic reduction in the size and number of more than 10,000 ponds
Landsat and MODIS Data Help Assess the Health of Florida's Coral Reefs
Contributor: Mike Bettwy NASA satellite data was used to help monitor the health of Florida’s coral reef as part of a field research effort completed this August and September. The project
Conducting Mesoscale Atmospheric Modeling Studies
Investigating the Influence of Land Cover Changes on Regional Weather and Climate Variability Land cover datasets derived from 1992-93 Landsat TM played a key role in regional atmospheric modeling studies.
Assessing Carbon Stocks: The Australia National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS)
Carbon dioxide and methane are both greenhouse gases that trap solar energy within the Earth’s atmosphere. Increases in the concentration of these gases since the industrial revolution have been linked