{ "count": 133, "next": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/api/search/?limit=100&offset=100&people=James+W.+Williams", "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 4149, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4149/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2014-03-05T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Hyperwall Show: CMIP5 - 21st Century Temperature and Precipitation Scenarios", "description": "These data visualizations from the NASA Center for Climate Simulation and NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., show how climate models used in the new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate possible temperature and precipitation pattern changes throughout the 21st century. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes a report on the consensus view of climate change science about every five to seven years. The first findings of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) were released on Sept. 27, 2013, in the form of the Summary for Policymakers report and a draft of IPCC Working Group 1's Physical Science Basis. The IPCC does not perform new science but instead authors a report that establishes the established understanding of the world's climate science community.The report not only includes observations of the real world but also the results of climate model projections of how the Earth will respond as a system to rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The IPCC's AR5 relies on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) effort, an international effort among the climate modeling community to coordinate climate change experiments. These visualizations represent the mean output of how certain groups of CMIP5 models responded to four different scenarios defined by the IPCC called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These four RCPs – 2.6, 4.5, 6 and 8.5 – represent a wide range of potential worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration scenarios for the coming century. The pathways are numbered based on the expected Watts per square meter – essentially a measure of how much heat energy is being trapped by the climate system – each scenario would produce. The pathways are partly based on the ultimate concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The current carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is around 400 parts per million, up from less than 300 parts per million at the end of the 19th century.The carbon dioxide concentrations in the year 2100 for each RCP are:RCP 2.6: 421 ppmRCP 4.5: 538 ppmRCP 6: 670 ppmRCP 8.5: 936 ppmEach visualization represents the mean output of a different number of models for each RCP, because data from all models in the CMIP5 project was not available in the same format for visualization for each RCP. All of the models compare a projection of temperatures and precipitation from 2006-2099 to a baseline historical average from 1971-2000. Thus, the values shown for each year represent the departure for that year compared to the observed average global surface temperature from 1971-2000. The IPCC report used 1986-2005 as a baseline period, making its reported anomalies slightly different from those shown in the visualizations. || ", "hits": 50 }, { "id": 3885, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3885/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-11-29T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Components of the Cryosphere", "description": "This high resolution image, designed for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shows the extent of the regions affected by components of the cryosphere around the world. Over land, continuous permafrost is shown in a dark pink while discontinuous permafrost is shown in a lighter shade of pink. Over much of the northern hemisphere's land area, a semi-transparent white veil depicts the regions that are affected by snowfall at least one day during the perion 2000-2012. The bright green line along the southern border of this region shows the maximum snow extent while a black line across the North America, Europe and Asia shows the 50% snow extent line. Glaciers are shown as small golden dots in mountainous areas and in the far northern and southern latitudes. Over the water, ice shelves are shown around Antarctica along with sea ice surrounding the ice shelves. Sea ice is also shown at the North Pole, where the 30 year average sea ice extent is shown by a yellow outline. In addition, the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are clearly visible. || ", "hits": 55 }, { "id": 3877, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3877/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-10-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Dynamic Earth Dome Show - Biosphere", "description": "This visualization was a prototype affiliated with the 'Dynamic Earth', an Earth science planetarium show. The visualization shows the global biosphere and NDVI from the SeaWiFS instrument with MODIS ice and snow overlayed.The images were rendered using a fish eye technique so that they would project properly onto a planetarium dome.Earth scientists are able to measure many of the Earth's 'vital signs', and just like a doctor measures our vital signs to see how healthy we are. Scientists will use these measurements of the Earth to better understand how the Earth functions, how the different systems on Earth interact and how those interactions have set the stage upon which life flourishes. The visualization shows a timeseries of images of SeaWiFS Global Biosphere - the ocean's long-term average phytoplankton chlorophyll concentration acquired between September 1997 and September 2007 combined with the SeaWiFS-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index over land. On land, the dark greens show where there is abundant vegetation and tans show relatively sparse plant cover. In the oceans, red, yellow, and green pixels show dense phytoplankton blooms, those regions of the ocean that are the most productive over time, while blues and purples show where there is very little of the microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. Remote sensing, especially using satellite-mounted colour scanners (SeaWiFS and similar platforms), is advocated for broad-based monitoring of chlorophyll once appropriate algorithms have been developed and proved. The concentration of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll a (referred to as chlorophyll) in marine waters is a proven indicator of the biomass of phytoplankton, the organisms that constitute the base of the marine food web. Fluorometry provides an estimate of chlorophyll levels in sea water and thus an estimate of primary productivity in the upper part of the water column.For more information on monitoring the Earth from Space with SeaWIFS see http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/. || ", "hits": 61 }, { "id": 3813, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3813/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-03-01T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice for the Dynamic Earth Dome Show", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover. This animation first shows the advance and retreat of the Arctic sea ice followed by same for the Antarctic sea ice. The sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day average sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running miniimum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. The animation ends by flying over the Antarctic Peninsula.This was created for a planetarium dome show called Dynamic Earth and is produced in 'domemaster format'. The domemaster format was created by rendering 7 separate 2048x2048 camera tiles. The tiles were then stitched together to form final domemaster at 4096x4096 resolution. Both the tiles and the domemaster were rendered with 16 bits per channel with no gamma correction. Two domemaster layers were generated for this animation: the Earth showing sea ice advancing or retreating rendered with transparency and the star background without transparency.This visualization was shown in the \"VR Village\" at SIGGRAPH 2015. || ", "hits": 54 }, { "id": 11125, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11125/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-11-13T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Surrounded", "description": "The massive apron of sea ice that encircles Antarctica at the end of each winter has been steadily expanding. From 1978 to 2010, Antarctic sea ice has grown on average each year by an area about equal to the size of Connecticut. In October 2012 Antarctic sea ice covered a record 7.5 million square miles, more than twice the land area of the contiguous U.S. The sea ice around Antarctica melts almost completely each summer and then grows rapidly each winter. Scientists think a change in atmospheric circulation could be contributing to the ice growth. The continent's unsheltered coastline allows harsh winds to push the ice out into the ocean, and as these winds have strengthened in recent years sea ice has expanded. The visualization uses NASA satellite data to show how winter sea ice completely engulfs Antarctica. || ", "hits": 67 }, { "id": 10975, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10975/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-05-22T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Up, Up And Away", "description": "In the late 18th century, Count Rumford discovered the phenomenon of heat transfer in fluids—a process called convection—as he examined why some English desserts, such as apple pie, stay warm for so long. Convection as it pertains to atmospheric phenomena, however, is no pie-in-the-sky concept. Many clouds, including the puffy cumulus or more threatening cumulonimbus, get their start thanks to the rise of sun-warmed air and water vapor. Fortunately, scientists today have more tools at their disposal than in Rumford's day with which to study the characteristics of cloud evolution. The visualization below uses data from the NASA Goddard Cumulus Ensemble Model to simulate a thunderstorm that formed on February 23, 1999 in Rondonia, Brazil. Watch as clouds grow, rise, merge and give way to rain. The entire evolution typically lasts a few hours, but is accelerated in the video to be viewed in just under a minute. || ", "hits": 25 }, { "id": 10952, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10952/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-04-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "The Biggest Losers", "description": "Giant ice sheets cover Antarctica and Greenland, holding 99 percent of the world's freshwater ice. But the ice sheets are giving up this water, as glaciers accelerate their journey to the sea and warmer air and ocean currents melt the ice. Orbiting 300 miles above Earth, NASA's twin GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites measure precisely how much these ice reservoirs are contributing to sea level rise. Measurements show Antarctica and Greenland are shedding roughly 385 billion tons of ice each year—that's more than 10 times the annual ice losses from Himalayan glaciers. This is causing global ocean waters to rise by about 0.04 inches each year. Watch the visualization below to see how the ice masses covering Greenland and Antarctica changed from 2003 to 2010. || ", "hits": 142 }, { "id": 10920, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10920/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-03-08T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Retreating Glaciers And Groundwater", "description": "The glacier-covered Himalayas are among the most hostile places on Earth, yet just south of the mountains, India's rapidly growing cities bustle with activity. Despite this contrast, human impact has altered the water and ice inventory of both regions, as measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. Driven by climate change, Himalayan glaciers are losing about 4 billion tons of ice each year—a large volume, but nowhere near previous higher estimates. Meanwhile, a burst of economic and population growth has drastically depleted groundwater reserves in northern India by an average of 35 billion tons annually. The visualization below provides a detailed look at the change in groundwater levels and ice-capped glaciers from 2003 to 2010 on a map of the region, where yellow dots mark the location of individual glaciers. || ", "hits": 48 }, { "id": 10919, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10919/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-03-06T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Long Thaw", "description": "As sea ice in the Arctic swells in winter and shrinks in summer, it gets pushed and pulled by winds, dynamic ocean currents and changing temperatures that continually morph its shape and size. But when scientists observe the Arctic on a longer time scale, the floating, frozen landscape in flux reveals a clear trend: The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing even faster than younger and thinner ice at the fringe of the polar ice cap. According to a new NASA study, the total area covered by hardened Arctic sea ice that has survived multiple summers is now declining at a rate of 17.2 percent per decade. What was once a sizable circular mass on top of the planet now looks more like a diminishing crescent, clinging to the coastline of Greenland and northern Canada. Watch the visualization below to witness how the Arctic's thickest sea ice has declined from 1980 to 2012. || ", "hits": 79 }, { "id": 3915, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3915/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-02-24T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multi-year Arctic Sea Ice", "description": "The most visible change in the Arctic region in recent years has been the rapid decline of the perennial ice cover. The perennial ice is the portion of the sea ice floating on the surface of the ocean that survives the summer. This ice that spans multiple years represents the thickest component of the sea ice cover.This visualization shows the perennial Arctic sea ice from 1980 to 2012. This is not the sea ice minimum, which occurs in September each year. This measures the perennial sea ice that survives the summer and thus exists for longer than a one-year time span. The measurement for this sea ice was taken during the months of November, December and January each year. The date assigned to the data point is the year of the last measurement (January). The grey disk at the North Pole indicates the region where no satellite data is collected. A graph overlay shows the area's size measured in million square kilometers for each year. The '1980','2008', and '2012' data points are highlighted on the graph. || ", "hits": 219 }, { "id": 3916, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3916/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-02-23T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multi-year Arctic Sea Ice", "description": "The most visible change in the Arctic region in recent years has been the rapid decline of the perennial ice cover. The perennial ice is the portion of the sea ice floating on the surface of the ocean that survives the summer. This ice that spans multiple years represents the thickest component of the sea ice cover.These still images show a comparison of the perennial Arctic sea ice and the first-year sea ice in 1980, 2008 and 2012. The bright white central mass shows the perennial sea ice while the larger light blue area shows the full extent of the winter sea ice including the average annual sea ice during the months of November, December and January. || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 10892, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10892/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-02-23T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Goodbye, Glaciers", "description": "While previous studies have focused on Antarctica's and Greenland's massive ice sheets, this year scientists offered the first detailed estimate of how much all the world's ice deposits are melting and contributing to sea level rise. Using data from NASA's twin GRACE satellites, researchers concluded that Earth has lost a total of 4.3 trillion tons of ice between 2003 and 2010. Greenland and Antarctica lost the bulk of the ice, but nearly a quarter of the losses came from glaciers in Alaska, Canada and Patagonia. The total melting during this period added about half an inch to global sea levels—enough to cover the United States with a layer of water one-and-a-half feet thick. GRACE's inventory of North and South America is shown on a rotating globe in the visualization below, where yellow dots mark the location of individual glaciers and areas with greatest ice loss are shaded purple and blue. || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 3906, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3906/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-02-07T12:40:00-05:00", "title": "Global Mass Balance from GRACE", "description": "In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica. The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and all Earth's glaciers and ice caps over the period studied was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (about 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles), while ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged roughly 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study are published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.\"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change,\" said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study.\"The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution isn't high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier,\" said Wahr, also a fellow at the University of Colorado-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Traditional estimates of Earth's ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all the world's unmonitored glaciers were doing. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for longer than a decade.One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually, Wahr said.\"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise,\" said Wahr. \"One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, most of the high glaciers are located in very cold environments, and require greater amounts of atmospheric warming before local temperatures rise enough to cause significant melting. This makes it difficult to use low-elevation, ground-based measurements to estimate results from the entire system.\"\"This study finds that the world's small glaciers and ice caps in places like Alaska, South America and the Himalayas contribute about 0.4 millimeters (.02 inches) per year to sea level rise,\" said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. \"While this is lower than previous estimates, it confirms that ice is being lost from around the globe, with just a few areas in precarious balance. The results sharpen our view of land ice melting, which poses the biggest, most threatening factor in future sea level rise.\"Launched in 2002, the twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically due to movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair. The spacecraft, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are in the same orbit approximately 220 kilometers (137 miles) apart. || ", "hits": 125 }, { "id": 3910, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3910/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-02-07T12:40:00-05:00", "title": "Ice Sheet Mass Balance from GRACE", "description": "In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica. The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and all Earth's glaciers and ice caps over the period studied was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep. About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (about 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles), while ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged roughly 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study are published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.\"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change,\" said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. \"The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution isn't high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier,\" said Wahr, also a fellow at the University of Colorado-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Traditional estimates of Earth's ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all the world's unmonitored glaciers were doing. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for longer than a decade. One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually, Wahr said. \"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise,\" said Wahr. \"One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, most of the high glaciers are located in very cold environments, and require greater amounts of atmospheric warming before local temperatures rise enough to cause significant melting. This makes it difficult to use low-elevation, ground-based measurements to estimate results from the entire system.\" \"This study finds that the world's small glaciers and ice caps in places like Alaska, South America and the Himalayas contribute about 0.4 millimeters (.02 inches) per year to sea level rise,\" said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. \"While this is lower than previous estimates, it confirms that ice is being lost from around the globe, with just a few areas in precarious balance. The results sharpen our view of land ice melting, which poses the biggest, most threatening factor in future sea level rise.\" Launched in 2002, the twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically due to movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair. The spacecraft, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are in the same orbit approximately 220 kilometers (137 miles) apart. || ", "hits": 187 }, { "id": 3911, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3911/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-02-07T12:40:00-05:00", "title": "Mass Balance Change over India from GRACE", "description": "In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica. The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and all Earth's glaciers and ice caps over the period studied was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep. About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (about 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles), while ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged roughly 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study are published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.\"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change,\" said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. \"The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution isn't high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier,\" said Wahr, also a fellow at the University of Colorado-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Traditional estimates of Earth's ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all the world's unmonitored glaciers were doing. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for longer than a decade. One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually, Wahr said. \"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise,\" said Wahr. \"One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, most of the high glaciers are located in very cold environments, and require greater amounts of atmospheric warming before local temperatures rise enough to cause significant melting. This makes it difficult to use low-elevation, ground-based measurements to estimate results from the entire system.\" \"This study finds that the world's small glaciers and ice caps in places like Alaska, South America and the Himalayas contribute about 0.4 millimeters (.02 inches) per year to sea level rise,\" said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. \"While this is lower than previous estimates, it confirms that ice is being lost from around the globe, with just a few areas in precarious balance. The results sharpen our view of land ice melting, which poses the biggest, most threatening factor in future sea level rise.\" Launched in 2002, the twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically due to movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair. The spacecraft, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are in the same orbit approximately 220 kilometers (137 miles) apart. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 3893, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3893/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-12-02T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Sea Ice Yearly Minimum 1979-2011 (SSMI data)", "description": "The continued significant reduction in the area covered by the summer sea ice is a dramatic illustration of the pronounced impact increased global temperatures are having on the Arctic regions. There has also been a significant reduction in the relative amount of older, thicker ice. Satellite-based passive microwave images of the sea ice cover have provided a reliable tool for continuously monitoring changes in the Arctic ice cover since 1979. The ice parameters derived from satellite ice concentration data that are most relevant to climate change studies are sea ice extent and ice area. This visualization shows the annual September minimum sea ice area in the background and a graph of the ice area values foreground. The ice area provides the total area actually covered by sea ice which is useful for estimating the total volume and therefore mass, given the average ice thickness. For more information about these ice datasets, see The Journal of Geophysical Research VOL. 113, C02S07, doi:10.1029/2007JC004257, 2008This visualization shows the annual Arctic sea ice minimum from 1979 to 2011. A graph is overlaid that shows the area in million square kilometers for each year's minimum day. The '1979','2007', and '2011' data points are highlighted on the graph. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 3889, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3889/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-11-28T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Pine Island Glacier Ice Flows and Elevation Change", "description": "This animation shows glacier changes detected by ATM, ICESat and ice bridge data in the highly dynamic Pine Island Glacier. We know that ice speeds in this area have increased dramatically from the late 1990s to the present as the ice shelves in this area have thinned and the bottom of the ice has lost contact with the bed beneath. As the ice has accelerated, ice upstream of the coast must be stretched more vigorously, causing it to thin. NASA-sponsored aircraft missions first measured the ice surface height in this region in 2002, followed by ICESat data between 2002 and 2009. Ice Bridge aircraft have measured further surface heights in 2009 and 2010, and these measurements continue today. Integrating these altimetry sources allows us to estimate surface height changes throughout the drainage regions of the most important glaciers in the region. We see large and accelerating elevation changes extending inland from the coast on Pine Island glacier shown centered here. The changes on Pine Island mark these as potential continuing sources of ice to the sea, and has been surveyed in 2011 by Ice Bridge aircraft and targeted for repeat measurements in coming years. || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 10827, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10827/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-08T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "West Antarctica's Weak Spot", "description": "Pine Island Glacier was first called the \"weak underbelly\" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet almost 30 years ago. The nickname stuck in glaciology circles because scientists still fear it is true. Pine Island, or PIG, as it's often called, drains about 10 percent of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet. In 2006, the glacier began losing ice mass at an even faster rate than it had before. For scientists concerned with how much PIG could contribute to sea level rise if it lives up to its moniker, there are two key questions. First, why is it changing? Scientists are investigating, among other causes, how the circulation of warming waters under the ice shelf could lead to thinning. Second, how much is it changing? Following the end of the laser altimetry mission ICESat in 2009, NASA launched an airborne campaign called Operation IceBridge to measure critical polar regions. A laser altimeter onboard NASA's DC-8 research airplane has observed PIG continuing the rapid ice loss—measured as a change in elevation—that began to accelerate in 2006. Watch in the visualization below, an analysis partly based on satellite and aircraft data, how NASA has charted PIG's increasing changes. || ", "hits": 54 }, { "id": 3875, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3875/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-11-02T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "West Antarctic Glacier Ice Flows and Elevation Change", "description": "This animation shows glacier changes detected by ATM, ICESat and ice bridge data in the highly dynamic Amundsen Embayment of West Antarctica. We know that ice speeds in this area have increased dramatically from the late 1990s to the present as the ice shelves in this area have thinned and the bottom of the ice has lost contact with the bed beneath. As the ice has accelerated, ice upstream of the coast must be stretched more vigorously, causing it to thin. NASA-sponsored aircraft missions first measured the ice surface height in this region in 2002, followed by ICESat data between 2002 and 2009. Ice Bridge aircraft have measured further surface heights in 2009 and 2010, and these measurements continue today. Integrating these altimetry sources allows us to estimate surface height changes throughout the drainage regions of the most important glaciers in the region. We see large elevation changes at the coast on Thwaites glacier, at the center of the images, and large and accelerating elevation changes extending inland from the coast on Pine Island and Smith glaciers, to the left and right of the images, respectively. The changes on Pine Island and Smith glaciers mark these as potential continuing sources of ice to the sea, and they have been surveyed in 2011 by Ice Bridge aircraft and targeted for repeat measurements in coming years. || ", "hits": 91 }, { "id": 3853, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3853/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-10-24T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "AMSR-E Arctic Sea Ice", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.In this animation, the Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress through time, from September 4, 2009 through January 30, 2011. Over the water, Arctic sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day average sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running miniimum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 3854, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3854/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-10-24T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "AMSR-E Antarctic Sea Ice", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.In this animation, the Antarctic sea ice progresses through time from May 26, 2009 through July 31, 2010. Over the water, Arctic sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day average sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running minimum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the Antarctic continent, the LIMA data shown here uses the pan-chromatic band and has a resolution of 240 meters per pixel. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is a data product funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and jointly produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 10840, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10840/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-10-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Tour Of The Cryosphere", "description": "Water doesn't flow here; it freezes. Snow falls often, and if it melts it is likely to freeze again and add to the accumulation of ice that can date back thousands of millennia. If you can see the ground, it is frozen. If you cannot see the ground, it could be sitting under ice miles thick, like in Antarctica. This is the cryosphere, those regions of Earth from the North and South poles to mountain ranges near the Equator where water is found in solid form. The cryosphere covers many landscapes, but remains dominated by the polar regions. A cover of floating sea ice cracks, shrinks and expands constantly over the Arctic. Sheets of ice cover the bases of mountain ranges and cling to craggy bedrock in Antarctica and Greenland—the two ice sheets alone account for 90 percent of the fresh water on the planet. These regions of the cryosphere are important to scientists because they regulate global climate and are seeing more dramatic climate-driven changes than other regions. The Arctic is warming faster than any spot on Earth while receding and accelerating glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland raise the concern of sea level rise. Watch in the narrated tour below how NASA uses its satellite fleet to observe the remote reaches of the cryosphere. || ", "hits": 35 }, { "id": 10829, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10829/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-10-06T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "27 Storms: Arlene To Zeta", "description": "By the numbers the 2005 Atlantic tropical storm season was unlike any other: A total 27 tropical storms, including 15 hurricanes, made it a record-breaking year. The season also gave rise to Katrina, one of the most intense and costliest hurricanes that resulted in 1,200 deaths and more than $100 billion in damages. The unusually high frequency and strength of these tropical storms were linked to favorable development conditions observed in the ocean and atmosphere between the Caribbean Sea and west coast of Africa where they form. Easterly winds blowing off the African continent seeded the Atlantic with a large number of proto-hurricanes—swirling air masses that grow over tropical waters. Ideal open ocean wind patterns on the surface and high above permitted storm clouds to easily mature into vigorous convective cells—the building blocks of hurricanes. Warmer ocean surface waters slightly above their 80 degrees Fahrenheit average further strengthened the storms and sent the spinning hurricanes into overdrive. The visualization below tracks the paths of all 27 tropical storms that made up this historical year. || ", "hits": 80 }, { "id": 10771, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10771/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-08-23T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "A Pinch Of Salt From Space", "description": "NASA gave the command last week to power on its newest Earth-observing satellite, Aquarius. It may seem a somewhat peculiar measurement to make, but Aquarius, which launched in June 2011, will measure salinity across all the oceans every week. The data will undoubtedly help answer some of our most pressing questions about climate change. Why measure ocean salinity? The density of ocean water is determined by salinity and water temperature. Density drives the pattern of deep ocean currents, and ocean currents drive global climate. In recent decades, scientists have seen ocean salinity shift in ways that only climate change seems able to explain. Until now, salinity data came from slow-moving ships and a network of floating sensors that could only provide a limited global picture. Satellite technology changes that: From 400 miles (644 km) above Earth Aquarius' hypersensitive microwave radiometer can detect differences in ocean salinity to within a pinch of salt in a gallon of water. Let the science begin. || ", "hits": 44 }, { "id": 3837, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3837/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-06-13T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Components of the Water Cycle on a Flat Map for Science On a Sphere", "description": "Water regulates climate, predominately storing heat during the day and releasing it at night. Water in the ocean and atmosphere carry heat from the tropics to the poles. The process by which water moves around the earth, from the ocean, to the atmosphere, to the land and back to the ocean is called the water cycle. The animations below each portray a component of the water cycle. These animations of the components of the water cycle were created for the Science On a Sphere production \"Loop\" using data from the GEOS-5 atmospheric model on the cubed-sphere, run at 14-km global resolution for 25-days. Variables animated here include hourly clouds, precipitation, evaporation and water vapor. For more information on GEOS-5 see https://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/systems/geos5. Some of these visualizations are an orthographic view of the data used in Components of the Water Cycle. || ", "hits": 59 }, { "id": 3830, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3830/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-05-05T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Aquarius Satellite & Data Pre-launch Beauty Shot", "description": "Aquarius is a focused satellite mission to measure global Sea Surface Salinity. After its planned 09-Jun-11 launch, it will provide the global view of salinity variability needed for climate studies. The Aquarius / SAC-D mission is being developed by NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina (Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, CONAE). The satellite model depicted in this animation is an artist rendition and intentionally exaggerated so as to remain visible as it flies around the globe. Had the satellite model been rendered true-to-scale, it would not be visible when we pull out to see the full earth. || ", "hits": 32 }, { "id": 3824, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3824/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-03-29T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "AMSR-E Arctic Sea Ice: September 2010 to March 2011", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.In this animation, the Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress through time, from the 2010 minimum which occurred on September 17 through March 16, 2011. Over the water, Arctic sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day maximum sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running maximum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month. || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 3806, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3806/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-12-09T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Orthographic View of Jakobshavn Calving Front: 1851 to 2010", "description": "The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, also known as Sermeq Kujalleq, is located on the west coast of Greenland at Latitude 69 degrees N. The ice front, where the glacier calves into the sea, receded more than 40 km between 1850 and 2010. Between 1850 and 1964 the ice front retreated at a steady rate of about 0.3 km/yr, after which it occupied approximately the same location until 2001, receding 10km in three years. After 2005 the single icefront had retreated enough to split into distinct fronts for the smaller, northern tributary and the main southern trunk. The icestream flows in a deep trough which ends near the current glacier terminus. The bedrock topography is expected to stabilize the location of the icefront for the near future as the glacier continues to drawn ice from Greenland's interior. The movement of ice from glaciers on land into the ocean contributes to a rise in sea level. Jakobshavn Isbrae is Greenland's largest outlet glacier, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area. This image is generated with an orthographic camera set to view the range from 51.372 W longitude to 49.212 W and from 68.94 N latitude to 69.39 N. The Landsat image shown in the background is a false color image of data collected on July 29, 2009. || ", "hits": 97 }, { "id": 3784, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3784/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-10-12T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "2009 El Niño & 2010 La Niña (3D-Stereoscopic Version)", "description": "Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) are differences above and below normally observed sea surface heights. Large sustained above average areas (shown in orange and red) off the western coast of South America are an indicator of an El Niño event. In contrast, large sustained below average areas (shown in blue and violet) off the western South American coast are indicators of a La Niña event. This visualization shows the formation of an El Niño event towards the end of 2009 followed by a 2010 La Niña event. || ", "hits": 36 }, { "id": 3780, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3780/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-10-06T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "2009 El Niño & 2010 La Niña (Science On a Sphere Version)", "description": "Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) are differences above and below normally observed sea surface heights. Large sustained above average areas (shown in orange and red) off the western coast of South America are an indicator of an El Niño event. In contrast, large sustained below average areas (shown in blue and violet) off the western South American coast are indicators of a La Niña event. This visualization shows the formation of an El Niño event towards the end of 2009 followed by a 2010 La Niña event. || ", "hits": 41 }, { "id": 3767, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3767/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-09-29T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent for 2010", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.In this animation, the Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress through time, from March 31, 2010 when sea ice in the Arctic was at its maximum extent, through September 19, 2010, when it was at its minimum. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running maximum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month. || ", "hits": 20 }, { "id": 3773, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3773/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-07-28T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Towers In The Tempest", "description": "Massive accumulations of heat pulled from the top layers of tropical ocean water and set spinning due to planetary rotation form a hurricane's spiraling vortex. But powering the inside of these storms we find one of nature's most astounding natural engines: hot towers. Scientists discovered hot towers in recent years by observing storms from space and creating advanced supercomputer models to decipher how a hurricane sustains its winding movement. The models show that when air spirals inward toward the eye of a hurricane it collides with an unstable region of air at the eyewall, where the strongest winds are found, and suddenly deflects upwards. This rush of warm, moist air is accelerated by surrounding patches of convective clouds, called hot towers, which strengthen and propel the hurricane by keeping the vertical ring of clouds in motion. Watch the first video below as NASA researchers look under the hood of these cloud super-engines to reveal exciting findings about a hurricane's internal motor. || ", "hits": 79 }, { "id": 3745, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3745/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-07-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricane Katrina 3D Stereoscopic Viewfinder Image", "description": "NASA's TRMM spacecraft observed this view of Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005. At the time the data was collected, Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane, the most destructive and deadly. The cloud cover data was taken by TRMM's Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS), with additional data from the GOES spacecraft. The rain structure data was taken by TRMM's Tropical Microwave Imager (TMI). This view looks underneath the storm's clouds to reveal the underlying rain structure. This stereoscopic still image was created from a previous visualization and is intended for viewing through a special NASA Earth Science Viewfinder available through NASA Headquarters. Below, we include an anaglyph version, a printable viewfinder version, and the individual left eye and right eye views. || ", "hits": 40 }, { "id": 3736, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3736/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-06-24T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Aura/OMI 3D Stereoscopic Viewfinder Image", "description": "The Aura satellite launched on July 15, 2004 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California and is still operating successfully today. One of several instruments onboard is the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). OMI is a contribution of the Netherland's Agency for Aerospace Programs (NIVR) along with the Finnish Meteorlogical Institute (FMI). OMI monitors the Earth's atmosphere for total ozone and other atmospheric parameters related to ozone chemistry and climate. This stereoscopic artistic rendition was created from a previous animation and is intended for viewing through a special NASA Earth Science Viewfinder available through NASA Headquarters. We include an anaglyph version here in addition to a printable viewfinder version, as well as the individual left eye and right eye views. || ", "hits": 40 }, { "id": 3698, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3698/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-03-29T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "AMSR-E Arctic Sea Ice: September 2009 to March 2010", "description": "Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.In this animation, the Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress through time, from September 1, 2009 when sea ice in the Arctic was near its minimum extent, through March 30, 2010. The animation plays at a rate of six frames per day or ten days per second. Over the water, Arctic sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day maximum sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running maximum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month. || ", "hits": 38 }, { "id": 3687, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3687/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-03-24T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from NASA GSFC GRACE Mascon Solutions with Banded Color Scale", "description": "Luthcke, S.B., D.D. Rowlands, J.J. McCarthy, A. Arendt, T. Sabaka, J.P. Boy, F.G. Lemoine, \"Recent Changes of the Earth's Land Ice from GRACE, \" presented at 2009 Fall AGU, H13G-02 (693337), Dec. 14, 2009.The mass changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) are computed from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) inter-satellite range-rate observations for the period April 5, 2003 - July 25, 2009. The mass of the GIS has been computed at 10-day intervals and 200km spatial resolution from a regional high-resolution mascon solution (Luthcke and others, 2008 and 2006). The animation shows the change in mass referenced from April 5, 2003. The spatial variation in surface mass is shown in centimeters equivalent height of water. The time variation of the GIS mass is shown in the x-y plot insert with units of Gigatons.Corresponding author:Scott B. LuthckeNASA GSFCPlanetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Code 698Scott.B.Luthcke@nasa.gov || ", "hits": 27 }, { "id": 3686, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3686/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-03-15T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "LRO/LOLA Lunar South Pole Flyover", "description": "The Lunar Reconnaissance Oribiter (LRO) was launched on June 18, 2009. Its mission is to map the moon's surface, find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. One of the instruments on board is the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) which measures landing site slopes, lunar surface roughness, and has begun generation of a high resolution 3D map of the Moon.This visualization uses Clementine data for the global view of the moon, but then transitions to using only LRO/LOLA DEM with a neutral gray texture when flying around the lunar south pole. The DEM by itself creates an amazingly realistic view of the lunar southpole. As better maps are created from the other instruments aboard LRO, an even clearer picture of the moon will emerge.Please note that this visualization is match-frame rendered to The Moon's South Pole in 3D via LRO/LOLA First Light Data (#3633). || ", "hits": 224 }, { "id": 3681, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3681/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2010-02-11T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "2009 El Niño & 2010 La Niña", "description": "Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) are differences above and below normally observed sea surface heights. Large sustained above average areas (shown in orange and red) off the western coast of South America are an indicator of an El Niño event. In contrast, large sustained below average areas (shown in blue and violet) off the western South American coast are indicators of a La Niña event. This visualization shows the formation of an El Niño event towards the end of 2009 followed by a 2010 La Niña event. || ", "hits": 37 }, { "id": 3634, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3634/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2009-09-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Shackleton's Rim Through the Eyes of LRO/LROC", "description": "During the Lunar Reconnaissance Oribiter's (LRO) Commissioning Phase, the high resolution Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on the LRO Camera (LROC) instrument captured this 0.8-meter per pixel scale (angular resolution) two-image mosaic of Shackleton Crater on the moon's south pole. Many more images of this area will be obtained by the NAC over the coming months as the lunar south pole emerges from the shadows of winter. At meter scales, the geology of this region reminds us that the polar regions of the Moon are still waiting to be explored. The rim of Shackleton crater is a prime candidate for future human exploration due to its proximity to permanently shadowed regions and nearby peaks that are illuminated for much of the year.Last year, Japan's Selene and India's Chandrayaan spacecraft gave us our first high resolution look at the lunar south pole, which includes Shackleton crater. For its size, Shackleton has an exceptionally deep and rugged interior. Usually craters fill in with time as their walls slump and material from afar is thrown in by distant impacts. Much of Shackleton's rim appears rounded and is peppered with smaller craters, indications of a relatively ancient age. Right now it is not clear if Shackleton crater is relatively old or young. This NAC image reveals a shelf on the southeast flank of the crater that is more than two kilometers across and perfectly suitable for a future landing. The extreme Sun angle exaggerates the apparent roughness, however if you look closely at this scale any area that is between small craters could be good candidates for a potential landing site. || ", "hits": 129 }, { "id": 3633, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3633/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2009-09-16T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "The Moon's South Pole in 3D via LRO/LOLA First Light Data", "description": "The Lunar Reconnaissance Oribiter (LRO) was launched on June 18, 2009. Its mission is to map the moon's surface, find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. One of the instruments on board is the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) which measures landing site slopes, lunar surface roughness, and has begun generation of a high resolution 3D map of the Moon. The animation depicted here is the beginning of LOLA's mapping project and shows the lunar south pole through digital elevation map data collected by the LOLA instrument during the spacecraft commissioning phase. During the commissioning phase, LRO was in a highly elliptical orbit coming closer to the lunar south pole than the north pole. Furthermore, since LOLA uses laser pulses to measure the surface, the accuracy of its measurements are greatly affected by the instrument's distance to the surface. This is why there is virtually no data of the lunar north pole, and much better coverage of the south pole. The topographic data shown here is currently processed to show at approximately 30 meters per pixel.The colors in this animation depict the relative heights of the lunar surface with respect to the surface mean. Warm colors (brown, red, magenta, and tan) indicate areas above the mean. Cooler colors (green, cyan, blue, and violet) are areas below the mean. || ", "hits": 126 }, { "id": 10477, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10477/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-09-04T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "LARGEST: A Spherical Movie About Jupiter", "description": "NASA's home for spherical films on Magic Planet. Download the Magic Planet-ready movie file here.Three hundred and eighty million miles from Earth, the solar system's largest planet spins like a sizzling top in the night, massive and powerful beyond all comparison short of the sun itself. It's therefore only fitting—and certainly about time—that the fifth planet receive its proper cinematic due, set naturally on the most appropriate cinematic platform. With the movie LARGEST, Jupiter comes to Science On a Sphere.LARGEST examines the gas giant like a work of art, like a destination of celestial wonder. Starting with the basics, the movie examines the gross anatomy of the immense planet. From swirling winds to astounding rotational velocity to unimaginable size, Jupiter demands nothing less than a list of superlatives. But where general description sets the stage, LARGEST parts the curtains on humanity's experience with the fifth planet. The movie takes us on a journey to this immense sphere via dramatic fly-bys with some of the most astounding robotic probes ever designed. Then, with NASA instruments trained on the striped behemoth, the drama really begins.NASA released LARGEST on September 15, 2009. It is one in a series of spherical movies created entirely by staff at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. But while the process to create a fully spherical movie is something of an in-house Goddard creation, the Science On a Sphere projection system itself is an invention of the space agency's sibling NOAA.This film has been prepared exclusively for playback on spherical projections systems. It will not play properly on a traditional computer or television screen. If you are interested in downloading the complete final movie file for spherical playback, please visit ftp://public.sos.noaa.gov/extras/.For more information about the movie itself, visit the main website at www.nasa.gov/largest. || ", "hits": 36 }, { "id": 3619, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3619/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2009-09-01T18:00:00-04:00", "title": "A Tour of the Cryosphere 2009", "description": "The cryosphere consists of those parts of the Earth's surface where water is found in solid form, including areas of snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs. In these regions, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year. Since ice and snow exist relatively close to their melting point, they frequently change from solid to liquid and back again due to fluctuations in surface temperature. Although direct measurements of the cryosphere can be difficult to obtain due to the remote locations of many of these areas, using satellite observations scientists monitor changes in the global and regional climate by observing how regions of the Earth's cryosphere shrink and expand.This animation portrays fluctuations in the cryosphere through observations collected from a variety of satellite-based sensors. The animation begins in Antarctica, showing some unique features of the Antarctic landscape found nowhere else on earth. Ice shelves, ice streams, glaciers, and the formation of massive icebergs can be seen clearly in the flyover of the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. A time series shows the movement of iceberg B15A, an iceberg 295 kilometers in length which broke off of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. Moving farther along the coastline, a time series of the Larsen ice shelf shows the collapse of over 3,200 square kilometers ice since January 2002. As we depart from the Antarctic, we see the seasonal change of sea ice and how it nearly doubles the apparent area of the continent during the winter.From Antarctica, the animation travels over South America showing glacier locations on this mostly tropical continent. We then move further north to observe daily changes in snow cover over the North American continent. The clouds show winter storms moving across the United States and Canada, leaving trails of snow cover behind. In a close-up view of the western US, we compare the difference in land cover between two years: 2003 when the region received a normal amount of snow and 2002 when little snow was accumulated. The difference in the surrounding vegetation due to the lack of spring melt water from the mountain snow pack is evident.As the animation moves from the western US to the Arctic region, the areas affected by permafrost are visible. As time marches forward from March to September, the daily snow and sea ice recede and reveal the vast areas of permafrost surrounding the Arctic Ocean.The animation shows a one-year cycle of Arctic sea ice followed by the mean September minimum sea ice for each year from 1979 through 2008. The superimposed graph of the area of Arctic sea ice at this minimum clearly shows the dramatic decrease in Artic sea ice over the last few years.While moving from the Arctic to Greenland, the animation shows the constant motion of the Arctic polar ice using daily measures of sea ice activity. Sea ice flows from the Arctic into Baffin Bay as the seasonal ice expands southward. As we draw close to the Greenland coast, the animation shows the recent changes in the Jakobshavn glacier. Although Jakobshavn receded only slightly from 1964 to 2001, the animation shows significant recession from 2001 through 2009. As the animation pulls out from Jakobshavn, the effect of the increased flow rate of Greenland costal glaciers is shown by the thinning ice shelf regions near the Greenland coast.This animation shows a wealth of data collected from satellite observations of the cryosphere and the impact that recent cryospheric changes are making on our planet.For more information on the data sets used in this visualization, visit NASA's EOS DAAC website.Note: This animation is an update of the animation 'A Short Tour of the Cryosphere', which is itself an abridged version of the animation 'A Tour of the Cryosphere'. The popularity of the earlier animations and their continuing relevance prompted us to update the datasets in parts of the animation and to remake it in high definition. In certain cases, our experiences in using the earlier work have led us to tweak the presentation of some of the material to make it clearer. Our thanks to Dr. Robert Bindschadler for suggesting and supporting this remake. || ", "hits": 50 }, { "id": 3577, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3577/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2009-05-12T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Permanent Shadows on the Moon", "description": "As the Earth and Moon orbit around the Sun, there are places on the Moon that never receive direct sunlight. Most of these permanently shadowed regions are at the lunar poles. This animation approximates the permanently shadowned regions pertaining to the Moon's south pole by maintaining a maximum sun angle to the surface of 1.5 degrees. These permanently shadowed areas are of interest because they could hold water ice. (NOTE: South Pole Digital Elevation Maps [DEM] based on publically released JAXA/Selene data.) || ", "hits": 315 }, { "id": 3413, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3413/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-05-10T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Towers in the Tempest", "description": "This visualization won Honorable Mention in the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge in September 2007. It was also shown during the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival in Los Angeles, CA. 'Towers in the Tempest' is a 4.5 minute narrated animation that explains recent scientific insights into how hurricanes intensify. This intensification can be caused by a phenomenon called a 'hot tower'. For the first time, research meteorologists have run complex simulations using a very fine temporal resolution of 3 minutes. Combining this simulation data with satellite observations enables detailed study of 'hot towers'. The science of 'hot towers' is described using: observed hurricane data from a satellite, descriptive illustrations, and volumetric visualizations of simulation data. The first section of the animation shows actual data from Hurricane Bonnie observed by NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft. Three dimensional precipitation radar data reveal a strong 'hot tower' in Hurricane Bonnie's internal structure. The second section uses illustrations to show the dynamics of a hurricane and the formation of 'hot towers'. 'Hot towers' are formed as air spirals inward towards the eye and is forced rapidly upwards, accelerating the movement of energy into high altitude clouds. The third section shows these processes using volumetric cloud, wind, and vorticity data from a supercomputer simulation of Hurricane Bonnie. Vertical wind speed data highlights a 'hot tower'. Arrows representing the wind field move rapidly up into the 'hot tower, boosting the energy and intensifying the hurricane. Combining satellite observations with super-computer simulations provides a powerful tool for studying Earth's complex systems. The complete script is available here . The storyboard is available here . There is also a movie of storyboard drawings with narration below. || ", "hits": 52 }, { "id": 3377, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3377/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-05-09T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "A Hurricane Model", "description": "NASA scientists use the computer modeling field including the NCAR Mesoscale Model Version 5 (MM5) model to study the winds and updrafts near the hurricane's eye. An updraft is the vertical upward movement of air inside of a storm. This research focuses on the processes that impact the formation, intensification, movement, structure, and precipitation organization of hurricanes. An MM5 simulation of Hurricane Bonnie (1998) suggests that the timing and location of individual updrafts that produce the rainfall (often concentrated on very small-scales) are controlled by intense, small-scale regions of rapidly swirling flow in the eyewall.The winds in hurricanes are often described in terms of radial (in toward the center or out away from it) and tangential (the swirling flow around a hurricane) winds. By looking at the urad field, one can see where the main inflow and outflow regions of the storm are, which can be important for a variety of reasons. Eyewall mesovortices are small scale rotational features found in the eyewalls of intense tropical cyclones. In these vortices, wind speed can be up to 10% higher than in the rest of the eyewall. Eyewall mesovortices are a significant factor in the formation of tornadoes after tropical cyclone landfall. Mesovortices can spawn rotation in individual thunderstorms (a mesocyclone), which leads to tornadic activity. At landfall, friction is generated between the circulation of the tropical cyclone and land. This can allow the mesovortices to descend to the surface, causing large outbreaks of tornadoes. || ", "hits": 99 }, { "id": 3393, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3393/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-01-01T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Convective System Simulation using the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble", "description": "This animation depicts a three-dimensional high-resolution simulation of a convective system over South America, using the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble Model. Cloud water and ice are depicted in white and rain is shown in blue-gray. || ", "hits": 25 }, { "id": 3354, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3354/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2006-05-31T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta", "description": "Many records were broken during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season including the most hurricanes ever, the most category 5 hurricanes, and the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic as measured by atmospheric pressure. This visualization shows all 27 named storms that formed in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and examines some of the conditions that made hurricane formation so favorable.The animation begins by showing the regions of warm water that are favorable for storm development advancing northward through the peak of hurricane season and then receding as the waters cool. The thermal energy in these warm waters powers the hurricanes. Strong shearing winds in the troposphere can disrupt developing young storms, but measurements indicate that there was very little shearing wind activity in 2005 to impede storm formation.Sea surface temperatures, clouds, storm tracks, and hurricane category labels are shown as the hurricane season progresses.This visualization shows some of the actual data that NASA and NOAA satellites measured in 2005 — data used to predict the paths and intensities of hurricanes. Satellite data play a vital role in helping us understand the land, ocean, and atmosphere systems that have such dramatic effects on our lives.NOTE: This animation shows the named storms from the 2005 hurricane season. During a re-analysis of 2005, NOAA's Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center determined that a short-lived subtropcial storm developed near the Azores Islands in late September, increasing the 2005 tropical storm count from 27 to 28. This storm was not named and is not shown in this animation.'27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta' played in the SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival in August 2007. It was also a finalist in the 2006 NSF Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. || ", "hits": 67 }, { "id": 3266, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3266/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-09-27T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Sea Ice Minimum Concentration for 1979-2005", "description": "This animation shows the annual minimum sea ice extent and concentration for 25 years, from 1979 to 2005. Average climatology from 1979 to 2004 which is shown as a yellow outline is also included.Three year moving average are shown from 1979-1981 through 2003-2005. || ", "hits": 16 }, { "id": 3267, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3267/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-09-27T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Sea Ice Minimum Concentration 3-year moving averages for 1979-1981 to 2003-2005", "description": "This animation shows a 3-year moving average of minimum sea ice concentration for from 1979-1981 through 2003-2005. Average climatology from 1979 to 2004 which is shown as a yellow outline is also included. This line represents the average location of the edge of perennial sea ice cover. || ", "hits": 14 }, { "id": 3228, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3228/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-09-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricanes", "description": "Hurricanes are the most powerful accumulations of energy on Earth. Nothing else even comes close. They are fearsome tropical storms that spring to life roughly the same time every year, churning up oceans and shredding the nerves of residents who live along coastal zones.But hurricanes are really just manifestations of natural processes interacting. As such, they provide unusual opportunities for scientific research, and if recent history is any guide, the beginning of the twenty-first century augurs a new era in hurricane understanding.Using NASA's extraordinary fleet of Earth observing instruments, scientists have recently made discoveries about the behavior and nature of these gigantic storms. It turns out that they often begin in unexpected, distant places around the globe; they can alter the course of other storms trailing behind; they can stretch their arms hundreds of miles in all directions. Observations from space have enabled NASA and other research institutions to develop sophisticated computer models, too. These models allow scientists to simulate and test hypothesizes about hurricanes, which in turn facilitate development of new, more accurate predictive tools. || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 3220, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3220/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-08-31T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Behold, A Whirlwind Came: The Science of Tracking Hurricanes", "description": "This documentary-style video shows how NASA computer modeling research is contributing to an improved understanding and forecasts of hurricanes. It weaves interviews of three Goddard Space Flight Center scientists with scientific visualizations and live-action footage of hurricanes and the scientists studying them. The video focuses on application of the NASA finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) to the 2004 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season. Over the last 20 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service have produced enormous improvements in hurricane forecasting. However, by running at ~25-kilometer resolution (twice that of current operational forecasts), the NASA fvGCM has shown in some cases an accuracy of landfall prediction on the order of 100 kilometers up to 5 days in advance. Initial evaluation suggests that the potential exists for dramatic improvements in warning time and intensity forecasts for tropical cyclones around the globe. NASA has begun collaborating with the National Weather Service and other agencies worldwide to improve forecasts so that, among other advantages, local authorities can narrow areas for evacuation. The video was produced for the TerraLink exhibit at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.Winner of the 2005 Video Competition Crystal Award of Excellence. || ", "hits": 209 }, { "id": 3048, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3048/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-15T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Earth's Radiation Belts Tremble Under Impact of Solar Storm", "description": "Under the wave of energetic particles from the Halloween 2003 solar storm events, the Earth's radiation belts underwent significant changes in structure. This visualization is constructed using daily-averaged particle flux data from the SAMPEX satellite installed in a simple dipole model for the Earth's magnetic field. The toroidal structure of the belts corresponds to regions with electron fluxes in excess of 100 electrons/s/cm^2/steradian with energies of 2-6 MeV. The color-scale on the cross section is violet for low flux and white for high flux. The translucent gray arcs represent the fields lines of the Earth's dipole field. The 3-dimensional structure was built from the SAMPEX measurement by propagating the particle flux values along field lines of a simple magnetic dipole.NOTE: This visualization shows the Earth's magnetic dipole field lines rotating rigidly with the Earth. Technically, this is inaccurate. Ions and electrons in the lower atmosphere can create currents which can make these lines 'drag' with Earth's rotation, but this will occur mostly near the Earth and not higher up. More details on this process can be found in the FAQ at the The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere web site, Does the Earth's magnetic field rotate?. || ", "hits": 45 }, { "id": 3049, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3049/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-15T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Radiation Belts and Plasmapause Fluctuate Under Solar Storm", "description": "In this visualization, we see the interaction of the radiation belts (violet/white), the plasmapause (green surface) and magnetopause (gray surface).NOTE: This visualization shows the Earth's magnetic dipole field lines rotating rigidly with the Earth. Technically, this is inaccurate. Ions and electrons in the lower atmosphere can create currents which can make these lines 'drag' with Earth's rotation, but this will occur mostly near the Earth and not higher up. More details on this process can be found in the FAQ at the The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere web site, Does the Earth's magnetic field rotate?. || ", "hits": 40 }, { "id": 3050, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3050/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-15T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Tour of the Plasmasphere and Plasmapause", "description": "The plasmasphere is a region of ionospheric plasma which co-rotates with the Earth, carried by the magnetic field lines. This plasma tends to be colder (i.e. the ions have lower average energy) than the outer region of the magnetosphere. The plasmapause marks the outer boundary of this region. This visualization is a simple fly-around tour of the plasmapause (green) in a relatively quiescent state. For this visualization, the 3-dimensional structure was constructed from the equatorial profile of the plasmapause (as measured by IMAGE/EUV data) by extending the region along field lines of a simple dipole field. || ", "hits": 57 }, { "id": 3051, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3051/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-15T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Plasmapause Convects to the Magnetopause During Halloween Solar Storm", "description": "The plasmasphere is a region of ionospheric plasma which co-rotates with the Earth, carried by the magnetic field lines. The plasmapause marks the outer boundary of this region. This colder plasma is more easily moved by the electric fields created by strong solar storms. In the Halloween 2003 event, these fields convected some of the cold plasma out to the magnetopause (gray, semi-transparent surface) and reduced the size of the cold plasma region near the Earth. For this visualization, the 3-dimensional structure was constructed from the equatorial profile of the plasmapause (as measured by IMAGE/EUV data) by extending the region along field lines of a simple dipole field.NOTE: This visualization shows the Earth's magnetic dipole field lines rotating rigidly with the Earth. Technically, this is inaccurate. Ions and electrons in the lower atmosphere can create currents which can make these lines 'drag' with Earth's rotation, but this will occur mostly near the Earth and not higher up. More details on this process can be found in the FAQ at the The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere web site, Does the Earth's magnetic field rotate?. || ", "hits": 26 }, { "id": 3052, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3052/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-15T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Earth's Radiation Belts with Safe Zone Orbit", "description": "Spacecraft orbiting in the 'Safe Zone', between two and three Earth radii, can be subjected to high levels of harmful radiation as the radiation belts fluctuate in response to space weather events.NOTE: This visualization shows the Earth's magnetic dipole field lines rotating rigidly with the Earth. Technically, this is inaccurate. Ions and electrons in the lower atmosphere can create currents which can make these lines 'drag' with Earth's rotation, but this will occur mostly near the Earth and not higher up. More details on this process can be found in the FAQ at the The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere web site, Does the Earth's magnetic field rotate?. || ", "hits": 48 }, { "id": 3063, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3063/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-06T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "fvGCM Climate Model of Hurricane Ivan (hourly/closeup view)", "description": "This animation illustrates the output of NASA's finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) during the five day period just prior to the landfall of hurricane Ivan.The data used for this animation was computed for each hour. The visible structure of the hurricane is defined by areas of high wind. The color represents the amount of total precipitable water (blue is low, red is high). || ", "hits": 18 }, { "id": 3064, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3064/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-06T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "fvGCM Climate Model of Hurricane Frances and other storms", "description": "This animation illustrates the output of NASA's finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) which is a global, 1/4 degree atmospheric model. Three dimensional volumetric representations of tropical cyclones are shown around the world including: Hurricane Francis in the Western Atlantic, Tropical Depression Ivan in the Eastern Atlantic, Tropical Cyclone Pheobe in the Indian Ocean, and Super Typhoon Songda in the Western North Pacific. The structures are defined by areas of high wind speeds. The colors represent total precipitable water (blue is low, red is high). || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 3065, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3065/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-12-06T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Sea Ice Minimum Extent for 1979-2004", "description": "This animation shows the annual minimum sea ice extent and concentration for 25 years, from 1979 to 2004. The year 2002 showed lowest level of sea ice on record. This visualization was created in support of the December 2004 American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting. NOTE: this version has a slightly different camera angle than the 2003 version, animation ID 2850 (the original camera angle was lost). || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 3045, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3045/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-11-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "fvGCM Climate Model and Hurricane Ivan Track", "description": "This animation shows the track of hurricane Ivan, in yellow, and a track in green showing the path of Ivan as predicted by the fvGCM model. The animation follows Ivan from far out in the eastern Atlantic, all the way to land fall in southern Alabama. The white cloud-like features show the cloud cover and total moisture calculated by the model and help to illustrate wind motion. || ", "hits": 24 }, { "id": 3046, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3046/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-11-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "fvGCM Climate Model and Hurricane Ivan Global View", "description": "This animation illustrates the output of the fvGCM atmospheric model, during the five day period just prior to the landfall of hurricane Ivan. The white cloud-like features show the cloud cover and total moisture calculated by the model and help to illustrate wind motion. || ", "hits": 12 }, { "id": 3000, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3000/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-09-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricane Isabel Model: Clouds", "description": "The NASA finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) was used to predict the path of hurricane Isabel, starting from a known initial state. The predicted path is compared to the actual path taken by the hurricane. || ", "hits": 13 }, { "id": 3001, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3001/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-09-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricane Isabel Model: Precipitable Water", "description": "The NASA finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) was used to predict the path of hurricane Isabel, starting from a known initial state. The predicted path is compared to the actual path taken by the hurricane. || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 3002, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3002/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-09-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricane Isabel Model: Clouds and Precipitable Water", "description": "The NASA finite-volume General Circulation Model (fvGCM) was used to predict the path of hurricane Isabel, starting from a known initial state. The predicted path is compared to the actual path taken by the hurricane. || ", "hits": 9 }, { "id": 2900, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2900/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-02-12T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Global Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide in 2000 (WMS)", "description": "This visualization shows global carbon monoxide concentrations at the 500 millibar altitude in the atmosphere from March 1, 2000 through December 31, 2000. Areas in red have 200 parts per billion of carbon monoxide or more at that altitude (around 5,500 meters), while areas in blue are 50 parts per billion or less. Carbon monoxide is an atmospheric pollutant and the highest concentrations come from grassland and forest fires in Africa and South America, although there is evidence that industrial sources may also be a factor. Atmospheric circulation rapidly moves the carbon monoxide to other parts of the world once it has reached this altitude. This data was measured by the MOPITT instrument on the Terra satellite. || ", "hits": 34 }, { "id": 2853, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2853/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-01-31T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multisensor Fire Observations with Labels (HD Version)", "description": "From space, we can understand fires in ways that are impossible from the ground. New Earth-observing satellites capture the significant impact of fires on our planet. In this animation of fires around the globe in 2002, each red dot marks a new fire. Dots change color to yellow after a few days and to black when fires burn out. From brush fires in Africa to forest fires in North America, satellites are locating every significant fire on Earth to within one kilometer. In the summer and fall burning seasons, particularly destructive fires occurred in Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon. This version of the visualization displays descriptive text labels and color bars. There is a standard definition version available as well. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 2854, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2854/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-01-31T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multisensor Fire Observations without Labels (HD Version)", "description": "From space, we can understand fires in ways that are impossible from the ground. New Earth-observing satellites capture the significant impact of fires on our planet. In this animation of fires around the globe in 2002, each red dot marks a new fire. Dots change color to yellow after a few days and to black when fires burn out. From brush fires in Africa to forest fires in North America, satellites are locating every significant fire on Earth to within one kilometer. In the summer and fall burning seasons, particularly destructive fires occurred in Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon. This version of the animation displays a minimal set of labels. For a closed captioned version of this animation, see the standard definition version at animation ID 2806. || ", "hits": 25 }, { "id": 2851, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2851/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-12-30T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Mapping Invasive Species Using MODIS Time Series Data", "description": "This video shows how remote sensing coupled with time series analysis can be used to make predictive maps for various parameters, including invasive species. || nvsv.0158_print.jpg (640x480) [34.7 KB] || a002851_pre.jpg (320x240) [4.3 KB] || a002851.webmhd.webm (960x540) [10.0 MB] || 640x480_4x3_30p (640x480) [256.0 KB] || a002851.mpg (640x480) [40.6 MB] || invasive_species.mov (480x640) [37.9 MB] || a002851_320.m1v (320x240) [11.6 MB] || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 2848, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2848/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-11-07T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Arctic Sea Ice Context Shot", "description": "This is a contextual setup animation intended to be shown before the visualization of several cryosphere data sets. The cryosphere data sets are rendered with the same final camera position. This visualization was created in support of the October 2003 Cryosphere Earth Science Update (ESU). || ", "hits": 7 }, { "id": 2849, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2849/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-11-07T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Arctic Sea Ice Four Year Moving Average", "description": "This visualization was created in support of the October 2003 Cryosphere Earth Science Update (ESU). || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 2850, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2850/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-11-07T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Sea Ice Minimum Extent for 1979-2003", "description": "This visualization was created in support of the October 2003 Cryosphere Earth Science Update (ESU). || ", "hits": 18 }, { "id": 2707, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2707/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-11-03T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multisensor Fire Observations", "description": "From space, we can understand fires in ways that are impossible from the ground. New Earth-observing satellites capture the significant impact of fires on our planet. In this animation of fires around the globe in 2002, each red dot marks a new fire. Dots change color to yellow after a few days and to black when fires burn out. From brush fires in Africa to forest fires in North America, satellites are locating every significant fire on Earth to within one kilometer. In the summer and fall burning seasons, particularly destructive fires occurred in Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon. || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 2806, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2806/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2003-11-03T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Multisensor Fire Observations without Labels", "description": "From space, we can understand fires in ways that are impossible from the ground. New Earth-observing satellites capture the significant impact of fires on our planet. In this animation of fires around the globe in 2002, each red dot marks a new fire. Dots change color to yellow after a few days and to black when fires burn out. From brush fires in Africa to forest fires in North America, satellites are locating every significant fire on Earth to within one kilometer. In the summer and fall burning seasons, particularly destructive fires occurred in Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon. This animation of remote sensing observations of fires and other related data was chosen as part of the SIGGRAPH 2003 Computer Animation Theater. (The only difference was that the SIGGRAPH version had shorter credits.) || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 2567, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2567/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-10-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Land Surface Temperature", "description": "The average temperature of the land is one component of a model used to predict the areas where mosquitos will flourish and where they will not. Satellite remote sensing can help construct maps of the average land surface temperature. These images were created in support of a story describing how NASA is assisting the CDC and EPA in tracking the spread of West Nile Virus. || ", "hits": 26 }, { "id": 2568, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2568/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-10-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "NDVI Animation over Continental United States", "description": "The Normalized Differential Vegetation Index, NDVI, is one component of a model that is used to predict mosquito where mosquitos will flourish and where they will not. These images were created in support of a story describing how NASA is assisting the CDC and EPA in tracking the spread of West Nile Virus. || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 2569, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2569/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-10-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Sample Risk Map: Northeastern United States", "description": "The colors on this map represent relative levels of risk for West Nile Virus in 2001, as determined by scientists with NASA's International Research Partnership for Infectious Diseases (INTREPID). The black dots on this map represent infected crows reported in 2001. Larger dots reflect a higher concentration of infected crows in one area.Credit data source: International Research Partnership for Infectious Diseases, INTREPID || ", "hits": 15 }, { "id": 2570, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2570/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-10-09T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Sample Risk Map: Continental United States", "description": "A Risk Map depicts which geographic regions are at greater or lesser risk for some specific event or condition. This image represents a sample risk map for the West Nile Virus in North America. This image was created in support of a story describing how NASA is assisting the CDC and EPA in tracking the spread of West Nile Virus. || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 2554, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2554/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Salt Lake City, Utah Area Flyover During Spring (NASM2002)", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area. This image was taken in the Spring of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. This visualization was created for the NASM2002 presentation and is based on a earlier visualizations created for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 2555, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2555/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Salt Lake City, Utah Area Flyover During Summer (NASM2002)", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area. This image was taken in the Summer of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. This visualization was created for the NASM2002 presentation and is based on a earlier visualizations created for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. || ", "hits": 15 }, { "id": 2556, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2556/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Salt Lake City, Utah Area Flyover During Fall (NASM2002)", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area. This image was taken in the Fall of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. This visualization was created for the NASM2002 presentation and is based on a earlier visualizations created for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. || ", "hits": 13 }, { "id": 2557, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2557/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Salt Lake City, Utah Area Flyover During Winter (NASM2002)", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area. This image was taken in the Winter of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. This visualization was created for the NASM2002 presentation and is based on a earlier visualizations created for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. || ", "hits": 10 }, { "id": 2737, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2737/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-12T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Chesapeake Bay Watershed Tour", "description": "A tour up the Chesapeake Bay watershed || cbay.0360.jpg (1280x720) [127.4 KB] || hd002737_720p_pre.jpg (320x240) [8.2 KB] || a002737_pre.jpg (320x240) [8.2 KB] || 1280x720_16x9_30 (1280x720) [256.0 KB] || hd002737_720p.mpg (1280x720) [195.5 MB] || hd002737_720p.webmhd.webm (960x540) [21.9 MB] || a002737.mpg (320x240) [12.4 MB] || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 2738, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2738/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-09-12T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Polar Sea Ice in the 1990s", "description": "Polar Sea Ice in the 1990s || pole.0070.jpg (1280x720) [99.6 KB] || hd002738_720p_pre.jpg (320x240) [7.3 KB] || a002738_pre.jpg (320x240) [7.3 KB] || 1280x720_16x9_30 (1280x720) [256.0 KB] || hd002738_720p.mpg (1280x720) [262.3 MB] || hd002738_720p.webmhd.webm (960x540) [24.8 MB] || a002738.mpg (320x240) [16.8 MB] || ", "hits": 38 }, { "id": 2767, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2767/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-08-25T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Smoke from Oregon Fires - Aug 2002", "description": "At the Oregon-California state line, an immense wildfire that resulted from the combination of two separate blazes has now burned over 375,000 acres and is still growing. The Biscuit Fire, Formerly the Florence Fire and the Sour Biscuit Fire, was sparked by lightning in the Klamath Mountains in Oregon and has burned over the state line into California. The columns of smoke billowing from the fire reach far south down the Pacific Coast. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 2768, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2768/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-08-25T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Smoke from Oregon Fires - Aug 2002", "description": "At the Oregon-California state line, an immense wildfire that resulted from the combination of two separate blazes, has now burned over 375,000 acres and is still growing. The Biscuit Fire, formerly the Florence Fire and the Sour Biscuit Fire, was sparked by lightning in the Klamath Mountains in Oregon and has burned over the state line into California. The columns of smoke billowing from the fire reach far south down the Pacific Coast. || ", "hits": 102 }, { "id": 2769, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2769/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-06-25T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Smoke from Colorado Fires - Jun 2002", "description": "Zoom in to fires in Colorado || a002769.00005_print.png (720x480) [635.5 KB] || a002769_640_pre.jpg (320x243) [13.0 KB] || a002769_pre.jpg (320x243) [14.6 KB] || a002769.webmhd.webm (960x540) [1.1 MB] || a002769_640.mpg (640x480) [3.6 MB] || a002769.dv (720x480) [23.7 MB] || a002769.mpg (320x240) [994.8 KB] || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 2770, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2770/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-06-25T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Smoke from Colorado Fires - Jun 2002", "description": "Zoom in to fires in Colorado || a002770.00005_print.png (720x480) [634.5 KB] || a002770_640_pre.jpg (320x243) [13.0 KB] || a002770_pre.jpg (320x243) [14.4 KB] || a002770.webmhd.webm (960x540) [1.1 MB] || a002770_640.mpg (640x480) [3.6 MB] || a002770.dv (720x480) [23.7 MB] || a002770.mpg (320x240) [995.0 KB] || ", "hits": 56 }, { "id": 2465, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2465/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-06-18T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Urban Modifications of Rainfall, Texas", "description": "Using the world's first space-based rain radar aboard NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, NASA scientists found that mean monthly rainfall rates within 30-60 kilometers (18 to 36 miles) downwind of some cities were, on average, about 28 percent greater than the upwind region. In some cities, the downwind area exhibited increases as high as 51 percent. || ", "hits": 14 }, { "id": 2466, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2466/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-06-18T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Urban Modifications of Rainfall, Alabama and Georgia", "description": "Using the world's first space-based rain radar aboard NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, NASA scientists found that mean monthly rainfall rates within 30-60 kilometers (18 to 36 miles) downwind of some cities were, on average, about 28 percent greater than the upwind region. In some cities, the downwind area exhibited increases as high as 51 percent. || ", "hits": 13 }, { "id": 2467, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2467/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-06-18T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Urban Modifications of Rainfall, Georgia", "description": "Using the world's first space-based rain radar aboard NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, NASA scientists found that mean monthly rainfall rates within 30-60 kilometers (18 to 36 miles) downwind of some cities were, on average, about 28 percent greater than the upwind region. In some cities, the downwind area exhibited increases as high as 51 percent. || ", "hits": 10 }, { "id": 2433, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2433/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-04-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "North Pole Sea Ice 1990-1999", "description": "Animation of ten years of sea ice data, from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI). || Sea Ice, North Pole, 1990 - 1999. NOTE! This is a large animation! || a002433.00100_print.png (720x480) [568.3 KB] || northice_pre.jpg (320x240) [14.1 KB] || a002433.webmhd.webm (960x540) [32.3 MB] || a002433.dv (720x480) [443.8 MB] || northice.mpg (320x240) [16.4 MB] || ", "hits": 135 }, { "id": 2434, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2434/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-04-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "South Pole Sea Ice 1990-1999", "description": "Animation of ten years of sea ice data, from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI). || Sea Ice, South Pole, 1990 - 1999. NOTE! This is a large animation! || a002434.00100_print.png (720x480) [422.7 KB] || southice_pre.jpg (320x240) [10.4 KB] || a002434.webmhd.webm (960x540) [32.3 MB] || a002434.dv (720x480) [446.2 MB] || southice.mpg (320x240) [16.4 MB] || ", "hits": 13 }, { "id": 2395, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2395/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-03-05T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Pulse of the Planet", "description": "Akin to a living creature, Earth's land, air, oceans, ice, and life fit together into a complex, interlocking system. Space affords a unique vantage point from which to observe the daily, seasonal, and annual changes in Earth's systems. Using data from advanced satellites, NASA visualizations portray a majestic, and sometimes violent, natural world and also capture the influences humans have on the planet.Over 80 NASA-related earth science animations created over the past 8 years implementing realtime and non-realtime techniques have been used on this visual journey. Tools used included IDL, Lightwave3D, Final Cut Pro, Performer, Vis5D, and custom software. || ", "hits": 47 }, { "id": 2381, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2381/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-02-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Seasonal Change around Salt Lake City: Spring", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area, looking towards the West. This image was taken in the spring of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. || ", "hits": 18 }, { "id": 2382, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2382/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-02-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Seasonal Change around Salt Lake City: Summer", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area, looking towards the West. This image was taken in the summer of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. || ", "hits": 10 }, { "id": 2383, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2383/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-02-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Seasonal Change around Salt Lake City: Fall", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area, looking towards the West. This image was taken in the fall of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. || ", "hits": 8 }, { "id": 2384, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2384/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-02-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Seasonal Change around Salt Lake City: Winter", "description": "Landsat 7 imagery is combined here with terrain elevation data to create a view of the Salt Lake City area, looking towards the West. This image was taken in the winter of 2001 and can be compared to identical animations using images taken at other times of the year. || ", "hits": 11 }, { "id": 2385, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2385/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-02-08T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Olympic Venue Tour", "description": "An animated flyover of the Salt Lake City region. Pushpins highlight the Winter 2002 Olympic venues. || ", "hits": 15 }, { "id": 2319, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2319/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2001-12-14T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Temperature Response, Flat Earth Map", "description": "Animation of Temperature Response over Flat Earth, 1500 - 1998 C.E. || a002319.00035_print.png (720x480) [346.1 KB] || a002319_thm.png (80x40) [5.2 KB] || a002319_pre.jpg (320x240) [9.0 KB] || a002319_pre_searchweb.jpg (320x180) [71.0 KB] || a002319.webmhd.webm (960x540) [3.5 MB] || a002319.dv (720x480) [61.8 MB] || 640x480_4x3_29.97p (640x480) [32.0 KB] || a002319.mpg (320x240) [2.3 MB] || ", "hits": 36 }, { "id": 2320, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2320/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2001-12-14T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Solar Radiance Graph", "description": "Animation of Temperature Response Graph, 1500 - 1998 C.E. || a002320.00100_print.png (720x480) [94.7 KB] || a002320_pre.jpg (320x240) [3.3 KB] || a002320.webmhd.webm (960x540) [2.2 MB] || a002320.dv (720x480) [84.5 MB] || a002320.mpg (320x240) [1.6 MB] || Temperature Response Graph, 1500 - 1998 C.E. || a002320.jpg (1264x960) [47.7 KB] || a002320_web.jpg (320x243) [3.9 KB] || a002320_thm.png (80x40) [1.1 KB] || a002320_web_searchweb.jpg (320x180) [8.0 KB] || a002320.tif (1264x960) [14.2 KB] || ", "hits": 234 } ] }