NASA Demonstration of Remote Sensing Capabilities and Perspective on Earth Science Applications
Movie: Exploring Earth From Space: New Windows on a Changing Planet
The NASA film provided a visual background for the attendees on the history and capabilities of satellite technology for earth science applications. Satellites have been monitoring changes in the earth’s surface since 1972. The film began with a powerful visualization of the satellite capabilities, moving from a close-up view of the Washington Monument (IKONOS), expanding outward to regional view beyond the metro area (Landsat 7), to a global view (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)).
NASA explained some of the many earth science applications for these technologies. For example, satellites can obtain three-dimensional views of terrain that enhance our ability to assess land changes. Satellites can monitor ocean productivity and seasonal fluctuations, land and water temperatures, show the extent of natural disasters, detect the outbreak of disease, and monitor global climate change. All of this information may be brought together in a computer model to forecast the earth's climate system. In combination with other data sets, such as soil moisture and temperatures, scientists are able better understand climate change.
Dr. Jeff de la Beaujardiere: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. de la Beaujardiere’s presentation described the US Government's Digital Earth program. Digital Earth is a collaboration of local, state, and federal organizations with the purpose of establishing a standardized format for accessing earth science information over the World Wide Web. NASA's satellites retrieve a terrabyte of information daily, and have been doing so for 20 years. With the advent with the mainstream use of computers capable of processing large amounts of data has come the need to create a system to catalogue and share this data, so that it can be used by the private sector, as well as by governmental agencies. Dr. de la Beaujardiere stressed the idea that there must be a set of standards and that Digital Earth will not be a free database of information, but rather a simple way to access information. He presented the framework for Digital Earth to be a distributed web of services and clients that should focus primarily on the access to data, the end-user needs, and the required technology.
The most effective way to create this framework is to establish a Digital Earth system that behaves analogously to the World Wide Web. Users can search and access the data with their own viewers, as long as the data is catalogued in a standardized format. There should be map servers and data servers as well as desktop GIS. Standards are listed in the Digital Earth Reference Model (DERM). The main goal is the interoperability among clients and servers. They will not require providers to convert their data, but only to describe the information they offer. The user decides what they want to use.
Future Digital Earth projects include further refining the standards. The standards will soon include access to real data values and time dependent information. The data, now accessible in map form, will soon include metadata information. A more comprehensive and more easily searchable catalogue will be built. Other improvements will include geoparsing, which allows place names to be searchable, and a gazetteer, which will allow the client to determine place locations. Also, a location organizer folder, basically a digital manila folder, will be created, to organize the users maps and data file.
Dr. de la Beaujardiere concluded his presentation by demonstrating the Digital Earth Workbench, a fully interactive virtual reality earth science tool. It is planned that the workbench appear in museums in the next few years, but until then, go visit NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and try it out.