Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. A new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30min. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January. Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.govThe Global Landslide Catalog is currently available here: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/global-landslide-catalog-export ||

A close-up view of the potential landslide activity during July in Southeast Asia as evaluated by NASA's Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness. In the Download tab to the right, a set of 12 still images provides high-resolution (9,600x5,400) global maps to allow for close-up views in any location around the world. The images showcase the landslide climatology by month overload with the distribution of reported landslide fatalities for the period 2007-2017. || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_print.jpg (1024x576) [188.1 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_searchweb.png (320x180) [84.5 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_thm.png (80x40) [7.7 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp.tif (1920x1080) [7.9 MB] || MonthlyClimatologyFatalities (9600x5400) [0 Item(s)] ||

Landslides are among the most common and dramatic natural hazards, reshaping landscapes -- and anything in their path. Tracking when and where landslides occur worldwide has historically been difficult, because of the lack of a centralized database across all nations. But NASA researchers have updated the first publicly available Global Landslide Catalog, based on media reports and online databases that bring together many sources of information on landslides that have occurred since 2007. The catalog, originally released in 2010, is still the only one of its kind.Around 6000 landslides are noted in the catalog. This wealth of data gives scientists a starting point to analyze where, how and why landslides are likely to occur. In particular, NASA researchers have begun to compare landslide occurrence with global rainfall data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.The catalog is currently available at: http://ojo-streamer.herokuapp.com/.Research: Spatial and temporal analysis of a global landslide catalog.Journal: Geomorphology, March 21, 2015.Link to paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X15001579.Here is the YouTube video. ||

LEAD: A new website now totals up landslide occurrences and resulting deaths across the U.S. and the world.1. NASA and other researchers have tracked global news and web reports of rain-caused landslides since 2007.2. Between 2007 and 2013, more than 20,000 people have died in 6,000 landslides - an average of 2,500 per year.3. An interactive website will help researchers match future news reports of landslides with the data of heavy rain from a new satellite-based network covering Earth.TAG: Early warning for potential landslides is the long-term goal. || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180_print.jpg (1024x576) [110.9 KB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180_searchweb.png (320x180) [73.9 KB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180_web.png (320x180) [73.9 KB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180_thm.png (80x40) [6.1 KB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_WEA_CEN.wmv (1280x720) [14.6 MB] || WC_Landslides_converted.avi (1280x720) [16.2 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_baron.mp4 (1920x1080) [15.4 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_960x540.m4v (960x540) [46.4 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1280x720.m4v (1280x720) [84.5 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180.webm (1920x1080) [2.8 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_iPad_1920x0180.m4v (1920x1080) [182.7 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_NBC_Today.mov (1920x1080) [198.6 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_prores.mov (1920x1080) [421.7 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_1920x1080.mov (1920x1080) [742.6 MB] || WC_Landslides-1920-MASTER_1280x720.mov (1280x720) [915.8 MB] ||

A new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30 minutes. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January. Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog(GLC) that was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.gov. Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides.For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/new-from-nasa-tracking-landslide-hazards-new-nasa-model-finds-landslide-threats-in-near-real ||

Plant life converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass through photosynthesis, a process called 'fixing'. This is one of the main ways in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and is a major part of the carbon cycle. The amount of carbon removed is called the gross primary productivity (GPP), and the change in GPP due to rising global temperatures is very important factor in the response of the Earth to climate change.Data from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite has been recently used to calculate the GPP for the whole world for the last 10 years. This animation shows a time sequence of GPP on land as measured by MODIS during the years 2000 through 2009. Two things to note are the year-long productivity of the tropical regions and the large seasonal productivity in the northern hemisphere. A close look at the animation also reveals major urban areas for which the productivity is negligible.For a look at why the decade from 2000 through 2009 meant lower productivity, see the page 'How has the Atmospheric Carbon Uptake from Plants Changed in the Last Decade?' ||

Plant life converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass through photosynthesis. This process, called fixing, is one of the main ways in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and is a major part of the carbon cycle. Plants release a fraction of this fixed carbon by respiration in order to get energy to live and to move carbon to other organs. The amount of carbon removed minus the amount of carbon respired is called the net primary productivity (NPP) and is the amount of carbon turned into biomass.The change in NPP due to rising global temperatures is a very important factor in the response of the Earth to climate change. Measurements of radiation and leaf area from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite have recently been used to calculate the change in NPP for the whole world for the last 10 years. This animation shows a time sequence of annual NPP deviation from normal (or 'anomaly') on land as measured by MODIS during the years 2000 through 2009. Annual NPP, especially its departures from a long-term mean condition, will demonstrate the effects of environmental drivers such as ENSO (El Niño) events, climate change, droughts, pollution episodes, land degradation, and agricultural expansion.Earlier studies of productivity between 1982 and 1999 showed that prouctivity went up as global temperatures rose, because longer, warmer growing seasons were better for plant growth. This new study indicates that this is still true in the northern hemisphere, but that increased temperatures have meant increased drought and dryness in the tropics and the southern hemisphere. As a result, the global net productivity has actually decreased in the period from 2000 through 2009.Regionally, negative annual NPP anomalies were mainly caused by large-scale droughts. In 2000, droughts reduced NPP in North America and China; in 2002, droughts reduced NPP in North America and Australia; in 2003, drought caused by a major heat wave reduced NPP in Europe; in 2005, severe droughts in the Amazon, Africa, and Australia greatly reduced both regional and global NPP; from 2007 through 2009 over large parts of Australia, continuous droughts reduced continental NPP.For an animation of daily productivity, see the page How Much Carbon do Plants Take from the Atmosphere?. ||

Animation of precipitation rates across India and surrounding countries. Notice the heavy rains throughout the Ghats Mountain range which resulted in devastating landslides along India's west coast. || ghats_w_dates.0140_print.jpg (1024x576) [169.8 KB] || ghats_w_dates.0140_print_thm.png (80x40) [7.5 KB] || ghats_w_dates.0140_searchweb.png (320x180) [99.4 KB] || ghats_dated_1080p30.mp4 (1920x1080) [20.9 MB] || Ghats_with_dates (1920x1080) [0 Item(s)] || ghats2.mp4 (1920x1080) [21.0 MB] || Ghats_without_dates (1920x1080) [0 Item(s)] || ghats_dated_1080p30.webm (1920x1080) [2.8 MB] || date_overlay (350x80) [0 Item(s)] ||

A view of the potential landslide activity during January in the Americas, as evaluated by NASA's Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA). This still image is provided in 300dpi (print resolution) and in separate layers (water, data, land, outlines). || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_print.jpg (1024x1024) [125.1 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview.png (2550x2550) [2.5 MB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_searchweb.png (320x180) [34.2 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_thm.png (80x40) [3.4 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_300dpi.tif (2550x2550) [16.4 MB] ||

Tour Hurricane Maria in a whole new way! Late on September 17, 2017 (10:08 p.m. EDT) Category 1 Hurricane Maria was strengthening in the Atlantic Ocean when the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over it. The Dual Frequency Precipitation Radar, measuring in a narrow band over the storm center, shows 3-D estimates of rain, with snow at higher altitudes. The tall "hot towers" characteristic of deepening hurricanes are actually topped by snow! Surface rainfall rates estimated by the GPM Microwave Imager paint the surface over a wider swath. During the tour, you'll see the radar-observed rain intensities displayed three different ways in various parts of the storm. Then, for the first time you'll see estimates of the precipitation particle sizes, which the GPM DPR is uniquely capable of showing, and which provide important insights into storm processes.GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. ||