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Table of Contents
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Principal Areas of Focus
The mission of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise is to understand and
protect our home planet by using our view from space to study the Earth system
and improve prediction of Earth system change. NASA programs are aimed at understanding
the Earth system and applying Earth system science to improve prediction of
climate, weather and natural hazards in partnership with other Federal agencies
and international space and research programs. NASA’s Research Strategy
orchestrates observing and modeling programs to address these essential questions:
- How is the Earth changing, and what are the consequences for life on Earth?
- How is the global Earth system changing?
- What are the primary causes of change in the Earth system?
- How does the Earth system respond to natural and human-induced change?
- What are the consequences of change in the Earth system for human civilization?
- How well can we predict future changes in the Earth system?
NASA’s portfolio includes observations, research, analysis, modeling,
and advanced technology development, in order to answer selected science questions,
and benchmarking decision support resources to ensure society receives the
benefits of this research.
NASA pioneered the interdisciplinary field of Earth System Science which explores
the interaction among land, oceans, atmosphere, ice, and life. To study these
interactions, NASA has developed and deployed the Earth
Observing System (EOS) and
related satellites, suborbital and surface-based sensors, collecting, processing,
archiving and distributing these data through the Earth
Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). Distributing more than 25 million data products
in response to more than 2.3 million users each year, EOSDIS is the largest “e-science” system
in the world. Following the Earth System Science construct, NASA has organized
its research into six science focus areas. The table below identifies these
six focus areas and how they align with the CCSP research areas.
CCSP Research Elements
Earth Science Enterprise Science Focus Areas
Climate Variability and Change
Global Water Cycle
Global Water and Energy Cycle
Land-Use / Land-Cover Change
Global Carbon Cycle
Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems
Human Contributions and Responses
Earth Surface and Interior
- Produced the most accurate map yet of the Earth’s gravity field from
the twin Gravity Recovery And
Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, improving
from 10 to 100 times the accuracy of previously existing assessments. Ultimately,
GRACE will help determine the distribution of mass under the Earth’s
surface, including the change in volume of large aquifers.
- Instruments on the Aqua satellite are generating the most accurate, highest
resolution measurements ever taken from space of the infrared brightness
of Earth’s atmosphere, yielding a global, three-dimensional map of
atmospheric temperature and humidity.
- The Eurasian and South American continents are the latest for which detailed
topographic data have been processed and released from the Shuttle
Radar Topography Mission, for use in a wide variety of scientific investigations
and practical applications.
- NASA satellite observations have provided the first evidence that the rate
of ozone depletion in the Earth’s upper atmosphere is decreasing. This
decrease is consistent with the decline in abundance of man-made chlorine
and bromine-containing chemical previously documented by satellite, airborne,
and ground-based sensors.
- The USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] Forest Service is using data
from NASA satellites to understand how fires behave before, during, and
after their damage has been done. After a fire is contained, imagery from
space helps classify the burn area into levels of severity for prioritization
of rehabilitation work. These satellites also keep daily track of the carbon
monoxide plumes from fire and the scope of pollution produced regionally
- Recent research has found perennial, or year-round, sea ice in the Arctic
is declining at a rate of nine percent per decade and that in 2002 summer
sea ice was at record low levels. Early results indicate this persisted in
2003. The Arctic warming study, appearing in the November 1 issue of the
American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, shows that,
compared to the 1980s, most of the Arctic warmed significantly over the last
decade, with the biggest temperature increases occurring over North America.
Program Highlights for FY 2004 and FY 2005
- Complete deployment of the first phase of the Earth Observing System with
the launch of the Aura satellite. Aura will make a variety of measurements
of atmospheric composition, including the first measurements of global tropospheric
ozone and precursors.
- Use satellite observations to provide daily and seasonal global atmospheric
water vapor, rainfall, snowfall, sea-ice, and ice sheet maps, and use these
observations to improve the scientific understanding and models of the global
cycling of water through the Earth system.
- Use satellite-derived localized temperature and moisture profiles of unprecedented
accuracy and global coverage to improve predictive capabilities of regional
- Assimilate satellite and in situ observations into a variety of
ocean, atmosphere, and ice models for the purpose of estimating Earth’s
seasonal and decadal climate.
- Demonstrate the benefits of formation-flying multiple satellites in a constellation
for the first time (i.e., creating a supersatellite) to enable generation
of integrated science information products, (e.g., aerosol distribution, optical
thickness, and properties to assess their total effect on climate).
- Launch the Cloudsat and Calipso satellites to obtain the first global three-dimensional
measurements of cloud structure and aerosol distribution, to reduce key uncertainties
in climate forcing.
- Continue development of missions to measure ocean topography, ocean surface
winds, global precipitation, sea surface salinity, atmospheric carbon dioxide,
and aerosol properties, as well as development of the preparatory mission
for the next generation converged polar-orbiting operational environmental
- Select new missions under the fourth Earth
System Science Pathfinder Announcement of Opportunity.
- Integrate satellite, suborbital, and ground-based observations to assess
the potential for future ozone depletion in the Arctic.
- Improve predictive capabilities of regional models for hurricane tracks
and landfall using satellite-derived localized temperature and moisture profiles
and ensemble modeling.
- Assimilate satellite and in situ observations into a variety of
ocean, atmosphere, and ice models for improved state estimation and experimental
prediction on a variety of climatological time scales, and determine plausibility
of predictions through validation strategies.
Outside the scope of the CCSP, NASA's Earth Science
Enterprise also conducts research and observing missions to study the solid
Earth and related natural hazards. ESE also manages an Earth
Science Applications program in partnership with other Federal agencies, state and local governments,
academia, and industry to test new uses of remote-sensing data to solve practical
societal problems in twelve applications of national priority:
||Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
EPA, DOE, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Agency for International
||Department of Transportation (DOT) / Federal
of Homeland Security, National Governors Association, USDA, USGS, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense (DOD)
||USGS, USDA, USAID
| Disaster Preparedness
||Federal Emergency Management Agency, USGS, NOAA, USDA
||Centers for Disease Control (CDC), DOD, National Institutes of Health
(NIH), EPA, USGS, NOAA
| Coastal Management
||Bureau of Reclamation, USGS, EPA, USDA
NOAA, USDA, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)