Much of the precipitation along the U.S. West Coast is delivered by phenomena known as “atmospheric rivers”—narrow bands of moist air that may extend for thousands of miles across regions outside of the tropics, and play a critical role in regional water supply and storm activity. Atmospheric-river events play a beneficial role in building up Western water supply and snowpack but are also the source of a large majority of floods in the region. Many uncertainties about key processes that affect storm development...
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Highlights
Since 1989, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has submitted annual reports to Congress called Our Changing Planet. The reports describe the status of USGCRP research activities, provide progress updates, and document recent accomplishments
In particular, Our Changing Planet highlights progress and accomplishments in interagency activities. These highlights represent the broad spectrum of USGCRP activities that extend from Earth system observations, modeling, and fundamental research through synthesis and assessment, decision support, education, and public engagement.
On February 11, 2016, workers in California ended the largest reported natural gas leak in U.S. history. The Aliso Canyon leak released methane and other gases into the atmosphere from an underground-storage facility for over three months, causing the evacuation of more than 5,000 households. Researchers from NOAA, NASA, Scientific Aviation, the University of California, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the California Air Resources Board, and South Coast Air Quality Management District mobilized rapidly to assess the environmental impacts of the leak,...
The Arctic tundra is a cold, desert-like biome, with a layer of permanently frozen soil and organic matter below the surface containing vast stocks of carbon. As Arctic tundra soils warm in response to climate change, methane emissions from decomposing organic material could increase dramatically, representing a potentially significant positive feedback on climate warming. However, seasonal and climatic influences on methane emissions from these systems are not well understood outside of the summer months, representing a major uncertainty for the Arctic methane budget. To help address a...
Civil Earth observations support key public services, long-term research, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. The Federal Government makes significant investments each year in civil Earth observations and data across multiple agencies, in addition to utilizing investments made by academia, industry, and state, local, and tribal governments. Planning and evaluation are critical to ensure that these investments lead to Earth observations that are streamlined, effective, and immediately useful.
![The NASA CARVE and DOE NGEE-Arctic projects are combining airborne and ground-based campaigns to understand the importance of natural emissions from the Alaskan tundra. (Source: J. B. Curtis, LBNL [main photo and left inset]; S. Wullschleger, ORNL [right](https://www.globalchange.gov/sites/globalchange/files/styles/landing_feature_image/public/HL33_Arctic-quantifying-emissions-NASA-CARVE-DOE-NGEE.png?itok=vTJGy7to)
In addition to emissions from human activities, natural emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane can affect the climate system, and vice versa. Quantifying these natural fluxes, especially in Arctic ecosystems, is critical to understanding how they may interact with human-driven changes to affect future climate. Some research has shown increased emissions of greenhouse gases from tundra and boreal forests during warming in the spring, but little is known about what causes this or whether its occurrence is widespread enough to influence
The severe, sustained drought affecting the Central Valley of California has caused a shortage of water for irrigation and crop production. The effect of this shortage is most immediately evident as an increase in the extent of fallowed farmland (or land taken out of agricultural production), which in turn serves as a proxy for socioeconomic impacts. Decision makers can use information about fallowed land to better understand the severity of drought impacts and to support requests for USDA drought disaster designations or emergency proclamations. USDA
In 2014, NASA launched two new satellite missions that will enable fundamental advancements in our understanding of climate and global change. The Global Precipitation Measurement satellite, launched in February in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), carries state-of-the-art instrumentation that will collect unparalleled observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours. Such high-resolution data will improve forecasts of extreme weather and climate events, lead to a better understanding of the global water and energy
Predicting climate conditions anywhere from two weeks to a season in advance is critical for making informed decisions and safeguarding infrastructure across various sectors of the U.S. economy, including water resources, energy supply, public safety, and agriculture, among many others.
USGCRP agencies are supporting improved climate forecasts on these relatively short timescales through field campaigns coupled with model development and analysis efforts. DOE, NASA, NOAA, NSF, and DOD’
...In March 2014, USGCRP helped support the launch of the Climate Data Initiative, a key component of the President’s Climate Action Plan. The Climate Data Initiative brings together open government data with commitments from the private and philanthropic sectors to develop data-driven tools that communities and businesses across America need to plan for the impacts of climate change.
With the launch of the Climate Data Initiative, data from USGCRP agencies—including NOAA, NASA, USGS, and DOD—and other Federal entities are
Overview
The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), also known as Landsat 8, is the latest satellite in the joint NASA-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS; DOI) program that has been continuously tracking Earth surface