COMEX science team convenes at Ames

The "CO2 and Methane Experiment" (COMEX) science team had its first meeting at Ames on Tuesday, May 14. COMEX is a joint NASA-ESA project (An ESA/NASA collaborative remote sensing study in support of future greenhouse gas satellite missions: HyspIRI and CarbonSAT) funded by SMD to evaluate the ability of imaging spectrometers to quantify methane emissions. The mission will leverage the planned HyspIRI flights of AVIRIS and MASTER by also flying the Aerospace Cooperation's Mako SW/LWIR imaging spectrometer, and ESA AMAMS imaging spectrometer. NASA Ames will contribute methane observations from Picarro gas analyzers flown on a CIRPAS Twin Otter and the H211 Alpha Jet to validate derived concentrations. Flights will take place from Ames, Marina, CA and DFRC in March/April 2014.

Attending the meeting were Ira Leifer (PI) and Michael Sushchikh (Bubbleology Research International/ University of California, Santa Barbara); Konstantin Gerilowski, Heinrich Bovensmann, Michael Buchwitz, Thomas Krings, and John Burrows (Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen, Germany); Chuanmin Hu (University of Southern Florida); Robert Green (JPL); Lary David (University of Texas) and Matthew Fladeland, Laura Iraci, and Liane Guild (NASA Ames)

Seagrass deployment underway in South Florida

A deployment of a very small UAV in the Florida Keys is obtaining hyperspectral images of seagrass as part of a NASA funded project to assess carbon dynamics in coastal biomes.  Randy Berthold (SGE) and Ric Kolyer (SGG) are on Sugarloaf Key this week assisting with the operation of a UAV rotorcraft equipped with a hyperspectral imager.  The data acquired during this “Seagrass” mission (High Resolution Assessment of Carbon Dynamics and Seagrass and Coral Reef Biomes) will also help evaluate the response of critical coastal environments to likely impacts of climate change, e.g. sea level rise and changes in sea water chemistry and temperature.  The Seagrass mission is led by Dr. Stan Herwitz of the UAV Collaborative at Ames and is funded under element A.40, “Airborne Science – UAS Enabled Earth Science,” in the ROSES 2010 solicitation by the Airborne Science Program at NASA HQ. 

New NPP post-doc joins research team

Dr. Tomaki Tanaka from Japan joined the research team led by Dr Laura Iraci to examine greenhouse house gas emissions using NASA airborne and spacebased instruments.  Dr. Tanaka was part of the team from the Japanese Space Agency that collected ground data in Railroad Valley Nevada to support calibration of the GOSAT total column CO2 observations.  His presence at Ames is supported by the NASA Post-doc Program. 

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