Articles

Summer intern Jorel Torres, a graduate student from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, talks about snow research and the value of hard work, persistence, and passion. Snow awes and annoys, brings nostalgia or abhorrence. For Jorel Torres, snow makes him curious—so much that he studies it. For the past ten weeks, Torres compared various ground measurements of snow to data from NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement mission as an intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The snow, Torres said, is important to the Earth’s hydrological cycle as it is more unpredictable, thus...

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement, or GPM, mission recently completed a competitive process to select 25 teachers from around the world for its Master Teacher Program. The chosen educators will develop educational resources based on GPM's data – with a focus on the water cycle and related applications – to share with their students and school communities. "Our goal is to make teachers aware of the wealth of resources offered through NASA education and outreach. We also will receive feedback on how their students received the material," said Dorian Janney, education specialist and manager...

Pressure readings from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission's (TRMM) fuel tank on July 8 indicated that the satellite was nearly at the end of its fuel supply. As a result, NASA has ceased maneuvers to keep the satellite at its operating altitude of 402 kilometers (~250 miles). With its speed decreasing, TRMM has begun to drift downward. A small amount of fuel remains to conduct debris avoidance maneuvers to ensure the satellite remains safe. Artist's visualization of the TRMM satellite in space over a tropical cyclone. Image Credit: NASA TRMM's slow descent will continue over the next 2 to...

Three Radars are Better than One Putting three radars on a plane to measure rainfall may seem like overkill. But for the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment field campaign in North Carolina recently, more definitely was better. During the field campaign, NASA's ER-2 research aircraft flew out of Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. HIWRAP is under the wing in the black compartment; the Cloud Radar System is under the other wing and is not visible; and the EXRAD radar is in the extended nose cone. Image Credit: NASA / Gerry Heymsfield The three instruments, developed by the High...

An old adage about environmental stewardship goes, “Think Globally, Act Locally.” When it came to rainfall, however, Arthur Hou, project scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission from 2005 until his passing on November 20, 2013, took an approach of Think Globally, Act Globally. "We need virtually continuous observations everywhere to construct a complete picture of precipitation around the globe, and that requires a lot of resources. Fortunately, precipitation does not recognize national boundaries. It is in the best interest of every nation to pool resources together to make...