Category: Data

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SeaHawk begins routine operations

It is our great pleasure to announce that after 2 ½ years of intensive and at times, quite challenging commissioning efforts, our little SeaHawk Cubesat with the HawkEye ocean color instrument onboard entered its routine operations phase on Monday, 21 June 2021.  As with all things that are being attempted for the first time, there were many unforeseen hurdles to overcome and problems to solve but to quote William Shakespeare from Henry VIII – “To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first”.  

Well, we have climbed a very steep hill but the view from the top is magnificent as you can see by taking a look at just a few example images that have been acquired by HawkEye. Full details including links about the mission, its history, data products, operations and data access can be found at: https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/hawkeye/

Over the course of the commissioning phase of the mission (3 December 2018 – 21 June 2021), a number of different instrument configurations were tested to try and maximize the scientific quality of the images finally settling on a configuration on 16 April 2021 that was decided would be the default as we moved into nominal operations. The current calibration configuration that is used in our production system and that is provided in new version of SeaDAS that will fully support HawkEye data and is being released today, is optimized for data collected after that date.

With the transition to operations, all HawkEye data starting with the very first image taken on March 21st, 2019 through today are now available for browse, download and ordering on the OceanColor Web Browser.

It is anticipated that within the next few weeks, we will start providing the opportunity to the international research community with the ability to schedule the HawkEye instrument to acquire images anywhere in the world and will be sending out all the details on how to do that soon.

Source: Gene Carl Feldman, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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In-situ optical data of Southeast Asia Region for NASA SeaBASS

Invitation from NASA GSFC to voluntarily submit in-situ optical data of Southeast Asia Region

“Congratulations on the concise, informative portal for ocean color in Southeast Asia. I work in coastal and global ocean color algorithm development at NASA GSFC, and have found certain regions of the world – including Southeast Asia – somewhat underrepresented in terms of accessible in situ optical data. These data are critical to ocean color characterization and algorithm calibration and validation. For this reason, I hope you will consider encouraging principal investigators visiting your site to voluntarily (if not NASA funded) submit field data to ongoing collections such as NASA’s SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System (SeaBASS;http://seabass.gsfc.nasa.gov/seabasscgi/news.cgi). Thanks, and good luck with the future of the portal.”

By Dirk Aurin, NASA

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Learn Earth Observation! Lesson development competition for Bilko

The European Space Agency (ESA) funded LearnEO! project (http://www.learn-eo.org/) has launched a lesson writing competition. With prizes of €5000, €3000 and €2000 we’re looking for the best remote sensing lessons from individuals or teams.

Lessons will provide examples of how satellite data from ESA missions can contribute to better understanding of the world we live in and the challenges we face.

Register to participate in the competition at http://www.learn-eo.org/compreg.php. This will give you access to resources and support for participating lesson authors and allows us to send you updates.

WHO CAN TAKE PART?

Anyone who uses satellite data can participate as an individual or as part of a team. Teams must nominate a first author to act on their behalf.  First authors must be over 18 on 1 January 2014.

WHAT TOPICS ARE INCLUDED?

Any application of Earth Observation is a potential lesson topic. For example

* in archaeological research or to support the management/monitoring of cultural heritage sites;

* as a management tool for reducing risks or impacts from natural or man-made hazards;

* to support the monitoring and management of terrestrial, coastal or marine ecosystems and sustainable use of living resources;

* in monitoring or research to support climate change adaptation or the management of mitigation schemes.

Geophysical, environmental or social science themes are all welcome – as long as the lesson shows how Earth Observation can contribute.

NEXT STEPS

Find a good case study and think about how to present it.  Who is your target audience? What are the key points you want to make.  What processing steps are involved?

Lessons must follow the LearnEO! format, described in our author guidelines (http://www.learn-eo.org/authors.php).

SPECIAL CONDITIONS

The lessons must include data from ESA missions on their own or in combination with data from other sources (including other satellites, model output or in situ data). Satellite data may be in the original format or pre-processed. Hands-on activities must use the Bilko software.

Detailed rules for the competition may be found in Terms and Conditions of the Competition (http://www.learn-eo.org/comp/LearnEO_Competition_Rules_201309.pdf)

Visit the competition page (http://www.learn-eo.org/competition.php) and register to participate in the competition. This will give you access to resources and support for participating lesson authors and allows us to send you updates.

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All MERIS full resolution (300meter) data now available on NASA

New Announcement from NASA Ocean Color Group

“We are happy to announce that as part of the nasa-esa data sharing collaboration, we have now completed the ingest and preliminary processing of the complete mission long meris full-resolution (frs, 300 meter) data set which covers the period of envisat operations from april 2002 – april 2012.  this data set along with the corresponding level-2 products that have been produced using the standard nasa processing methodologies along with the already available reduced resolution (rr) data set is available via the multi-mission browse/order/distribution web browser at:
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/browse.pl?sen=me&typ=FRS
it should be noted that the level-1b full-resolution data that esa provided was produced using an earlier version of the calibration than was used for the full resolution data set.  we are working on a method of updating the calibration as part of our anticipated reprocessing of all the data sets that we support early next year.

attached is a coverage map showing the annual distribution of the meris full resolution data that are now available.

with our very best regards,
the ocean color group”

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NASA Resumption of Ocean Color Services

Message from NASA Ocean Color Remote Sensing Services

“we are happy to announce that we have resumed full web/data/distribution/access services on the ocean color web and all data orders/subscriptions that had been suspended due to the government shutdown are now in the processing queue and should start to be available for download via the usual methods shortly.
it’s nice to be back.
best regards,
gene and the entire ocean color group”

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The Coastal Ocean from a Hyperspectral Perspective

Folks,
Just wanted to let everyone know that there is a new feature on the Ocean Color Web homepage ( http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ) that Norman Kuring has just put together using some of the HICO data that in collaboration with our colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory and Oregon State University, we are now making available to the broader ocean color community.  It is a wonderfully clear and creative depiction of the kind of information that is contained within the hyperspectral data from HICO.  You can access the feature directly at:

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/FEATURE/H2013229192426.html

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Modis Aqua Reprocessing

MODIS Ocean Color Data Users:

Within the next few days the OBPG plans to initiate a partial reprocessing of MODIS-Aqua ocean color products spanning approximately the last year of the mission (August 2012 to present).  As indicated in a previous message (sent 2 August 2013), this reprocessing is just an update to the instrument calibration to reduce some mirror-side striping artifacts.  The impact to the global mean time-series is small.  For details, see:

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/WIKI/OCReproc2013%282e%291MA.html

We expect the reprocessing to be completed within a few days of initiation. If you have any questions or wish to track the status of the reprocessing, please refer to the topic on the ocean color forum.

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/forum/oceancolor/topic_show.pl?tid=5179