Aviation Safety - To compete in the global economy of the 21st Century, America needs a healthy, vibrant aviation industry. The health and vibrancy of aviation depend on improved levels of safety, security and modernization. Safety issues related to the atmosphere and near Earth environment are important to in-flight operations and landing of aircraft. Airspace situation awareness during in-flight operations includes air traffic spacing and altitude, wind speeds and directions, turbulence and temperatures. Special in-flight considerations can include trajectory and dispersion of volcanic ash, severe and weather events Landing operations require awareness of wind directions and speed, potential wind shear forces, temperatures, precipitation and icing conditions, landscapes and terrain features. Earth science-based solutions serving aviation involve partnerships with other agencies and national/international organizations.
[keywords: aviation safety, air travel](Added: 5-May-2003 Hits: 464)
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Homeland Security - Federal, State, and local governments are cooperating to prevent and reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, minimize possible damage, and recover from attacks that do occur. Agencies are strengthening aviation and border security, preparing the defense against bioterrorism, improving information sharing, and deploying more resources to protect our critical infrastructure. NASA’s measurements, observations, and modeling can provide data and information to Homeland Security networks to support risk assessments, vulnerability assessments, and mitigation assessments. Data and information can support decision making to ensure the adequacy of preparing for, preventing against, responding to and recovering from terrorist threats or attacks. Earth science-based solutions can serve this application by drawing on developments in several other applications, such as air quality, water management, public health, and disaster management. This application will focus especially on providing NASA data, information, and models to support governmental decision tools that identify, track, and forecast agents from anthropogenic disasters and terrorism introduced into the air and water. Prediction of events, hazardous situations, and impacts with increasing accuracy and longer lead times is a significant part of this application.
[keywords: terrorism](Added: 5-May-2003 Hits: 560)
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Public Health - Public health issues such as vector borne infectious diseases, respiratory illness, skin and eye diseases are related to the conditions in the environment. Vector borne diseases are almost always tied to weather parameters such as humidity and temperature either directly or in relation to the impact these parameters have on forests and wetlands that are crucial habitats for such organisms. Climate variability in rainfall and temperature may have an influence on the changes, distribution and quantity of vectors and therefore an influence on these diseases. Respiratory diseases in combination with elevated temperatures provide increased stress on the human circulatory systems. Increasing temperatures also impact cities with high ozone levels because pollutant levels tend to be reached earlier in the day and maintained at high levels for longer durations. Skin and eye diseases are believed to have a strong link to prolonged exposure to sunlight and particularly ultra violet (UV) wavelengths of radiation. Air quality and greenhouse gases contributing to atmospheric variations of ozone in the tropospheric layer cause noxious pollutants, in the stratosphere ozone depletion is allowing increased levels of UV radiation to reach the Earth’s surface. Decision support systems for public health will draw upon the output from other national applications including air and water quality, invasive species, and coastal zone management.
[keywords: Vector borne diseases](Added: 5-May-2003 Hits: 447)
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TOMS: Erythemal UV Exposure - This web page presents an example of TOMS global image of daily erythemal UV exposure.
Ultraviolet radiation exists to the left of the visible spectrum and is divided into three
components (UV-A, UV-B and UV-C). UV-B (290-320 wavelengths) is the most
dangerous form of UV radiation that can reach ground level. Atmospheric ozone
shields life at the surface from most of the harmful components of solar radiation.
Chemical processes in the atmosphere can effect the level of protection provided by
the ozone in the upper atmosphere. This thinning of the atmospheric ozone in the
stratosphere leads to elevated levels of UV-B at ground level and increases the risks
of DNA damage in living organisms.
[keywords: Ultraviolet, radiation exposure, DNA damage, ozone](Added: 24-Jun-1999 Hits: 1081)
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USGS: Remote Mineral Mapping Using AVIRIS Data at Summitville, Colorado and the Adjacent San Juan Mountains - The USGS analyzed AVIRIS data for the Summitville mining district and the adjacent San Luis Valley, in Colorado. The data were acquired on September 3, 1993. A combined
method of radiative transfer modeling and empirical ground calibration site reflectance were used to correct the flight data to surface reflectance. This method
corrects for variable water vapor in the atmosphere and produces smooth spectra with spectral channel to channel noise approaching the signal to noise of the raw data. Thus, the data
can be compared to standard laboratory measurements.
[keywords: remote mineral mapping, AVIRIS, imaging spectrometer data, tricorder analysis](Added: 22-Jun-1999 Hits: 1044)
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