Articles

The William T. Pecora Award is presented annually to individuals or groups that make outstanding contributions toward understanding the Earth by means of remote sensing. The award is sponsored jointly by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The award was established in 1974 to honor the memory of Dr. William T. Pecora, former Director of the U.S. Geological Survey and Under Secretary, Department of the Interior. Dr. Pecora was a motivating force behind the establishment of a program for civil remote sensing of the Earth from space...

2018 GPM Applications Workshop Series GPM Disease Initiative Workshop Location: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20004 Date: May 17th, 2018 Agenda: forthcoming Register Here More Information 2017 GPM Applications Workshop Series GPM Agricultural Applications Workshop Co-hosted by GPM and the World Resources Institute Location: World Resources Institute, 10 G St NE #800, Washington, DC 20002 Date: August 1st, 2017 8:00am – 5:00pm Agenda: forthcoming Registration: opens May 1st More Information 2015 GPM Applications Workshop Tuesday, June...

As farmers in Nepal prepare for the benefits of monsoon season, Dalia Kirschbaum anticipates the dangers of those torrential rains—mainly, the loosening of earth on steep slopes that can lead to landslides. In this mountainous country, 60 to 80 percent of the annual precipitation falls during the monsoon (roughly June to August). That’s when roughly 90 percent of Nepal’s landslide fatalities also occur, according to a 2015 report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “We know a high number of landslides occur around this time, so documenting them is...

Credit: NASA/Goddard/Ryan Fitzgibbons This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio The monsoon is a seasonal rain and wind pattern that occurs over South Asia (among other places). Through NASA satellites and models we can see the monsoon patterns like never before. Monsoon rains provide important reservoirs of water that sustain human activities like agriculture and supports the natural environment through replenishment of aquifers. However, too much rainfall routinely causes disasters in the region...

Every day, scientists at NASA work on creating better hurricanes – on a computer screen. At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a team of scientists spends its days incorporating millions of atmospheric observations, sophisticated graphic tools and lines of computer code to create computer models simulating the weather and climate conditions responsible for hurricanes. Scientists use these models to study the complex environment and structure of tropical storms and hurricanes. Getting the simulations right has huge societal implications, which is why one Goddard...