ALBERT

Description: This three-volume document, based on the draft document located on the website given on page 6, presents the findings of a NASA-led capabilities assessment of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for civil (defined as non-DoD) use in Earth observations. Volume 1 is the report that presents the overall assessment and summarizes the data. The second volume contains the appendices and references to address the technologies and capabilities required for viable UAV missions. The third volume is the living portion of this effort and contains the outputs from each of the Technology Working Groups (TWGs) along with the reviews conducted by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). The focus of this report, intended to complement the Office of the Secretary of Defense UAV Roadmap, is four-fold: 1) To determine and document desired future Earth observation missions for all UAVs based on user-defined needs; 2) To determine and document the technologies necessary to support those missions; 3) To discuss the present state of the art platform capabilities and required technologies, including identifying those in progress, those planned, and those for which no current plans exist; 4) Provide the foundations for development of a comprehensive civil UAV roadmap. It is expected that the content of this report will be updated periodically and used to assess the feasibility of future missions. In addition, this report will provide the foundation to help influence funding decisions to develop those technologies that are considered enabling or necessary but are not contained within approved funding plans. This document is written such that each section will be supported by an Appendix that will give the reader a more detailed discussion of that section's topical materials.

Description: Recent studies have shown that the presence of elevated ducts in the lower atmosphere has an adverse effect on the inversion of GPS radio occultation data. The problem arises because the microwave refractivity within and below an elevated duct is no longer uniquely determined by the bending angle profile. Applying Abel inversion without a priori knowledge of the duct will introduce a negative bias in the retrieved refractivity profile within and below the duct. In this work, high vertical resolution radiosonde data are used to give a quantitative assessment of the characteristics and effects of ducts, including their frequency of occurrences, heights, and thicknesses at different latitudes and seasons. The negative bias from the Abel-retrieved refractivity profiles resulting from these ducts is also computed. The results give a strong indication that ducting in the lower troposphere is a frequent phenomenon over the tropics and midlatitudes. The ducts are shown to be predominantly caused by sharp changes in the vertical structure of water vapor. The majority of the ducts are found to be below 2 km, with a median duct layer thickness of about 100 m. The negative refractivity bias is shown to be largest below 2 km, with a median value of about 0.5-1% in the tropics and 0.2-0.5% in midlatitudes. The bias is about a factor of 2-3 smaller between 2 to 3 km and is negligible above 4 km.

Description: This paper evaluates the absolute accuracy and stability of the radiometric calibration of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) by analyzing the difference between the brightness temperatures measured at 2616 cm(exp -1) and those calculated at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), using the Real-Time Global Sea Surface Temperature (RTGSST) for cloud-free night tropical oceans between +/- 30 degrees latitude. The TOA correction is based on radiative transfer. The analysis of the first 3 years of AIRS radiances verifies the absolute calibration at 2616 cm(exp -1) to better than 200 mK, with better than 16 mK/yr stability. The AIRS radiometric calibration uses an internal full aperture wedge blackbody with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) traceable prelaunch calibration coefficients. The calibration coefficients have been unchanged since launch. The analysis uses very tight cloud filtering, which selects about 7000 cloud-free tropical ocean spectra per day, about 0.5% of the data. The absolute accuracy and stability of the radiometry demonstrated at 2616 cm(sup -1) are direct consequences of the implementation of AIRS as a thermally controlled, cooled grating-array spectrometer and meticulous attention to details. Comparable radiometric performance is inferred from the AIRS design for all 2378 channels. AIRS performance sets the benchmark for what can be achieved with a state-of-the-art hyperspectral radiometer from polar orbit and what is expected from future hyperspectral sounders. AIRS was launched into a 705 km altitude polar orbit on NASA's Earth Observation System (EOS) Aqua spacecraft on 4 May 2002. AIRS covers the 3.7-15.4 micron region of the thermal infrared spectrum with a spectral resolution of nu/Delta nu = 1200 and has returned 3.7 million spectra of the upwelling radiance each day since the start of routine data gathering in September 2002.

Description: Over 20 years of investigation by NASA and NOAA scientists and Doppler lidar technologists into a global wind profiling mission from earth orbit have led to the current favored concept of an instrument with both coherent- and direct-detection pulsed Doppler lidars (i.e., a hybrid Doppler lidar) and a stepstare beam scanning approach covering several azimuth angles with a fixed nadir angle. The nominal lidar wavelengths are 2 microns for coherent detection, and 0.355 microns for direct detection. The two agencies have also generated two sets of sophisticated wind measurement requirements for a space mission: science demonstration requirements and operational requirements. The requirements contain the necessary details to permit mission design and optimization by lidar technologists. Simulations have been developed that connect the science requirements to the wind measurement requirements, and that connect the wind measurement requirements to the Doppler lidar parameters. The simulations also permit trade studies within the multi-parameter space. These tools, combined with knowledge of the state of the Doppler lidar technology, have been used to conduct space instrument and mission design activities to validate the feasibility of the chosen mission and lidar parameters. Recently, the NRC Earth Science Decadal Survey recommended the wind mission to NASA as one of 15 recommended missions. A full description of the wind measurement product from these notional missions and the possible trades available are presented in this paper.

Description: The effects of dust storms on cloud properties and radiative forcing are analyzed over northwestern China from April 2001 to June 2004 using data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments on the Aqua and Terra satellites. On average, ice cloud effective particle diameter, optical depth and ice water path of the cirrus clouds under dust polluted conditions are 11%, 32.8%, and 42% less, respectively, than those derived from ice clouds in dust-free atmospheric environments. The humidity differences are larger in the dusty region than in the dust-free region, and may be caused by removal of moisture by wet dust precipitation. Due to changes in cloud microphysics, the instantaneous net radiative forcing is reduced from -71.2 W/m2 for dust contaminated clouds to -182.7 W/m2 for dust-free clouds. The reduced cooling effects of dusts may lead to a net warming of 1 W/m2, which, if confirmed, would be the strongest aerosol forcing during later winter and early spring dust storm seasons over the studied region.

Description: The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) provides a brief to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) regarding the CEOS Systems Engineering Office (SEO) and current work on climate requirements and analysis. A "system framework" is provided for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). SEO climate-related tasks are outlined including the assessment of essential climate variable (ECV) parameters, use of the "systems framework" to determine relevant informational products and science models and the performance of assessments and gap analyses of measurements and missions for each ECV. Climate requirements, including instruments and missions, measurements, knowledge and models, and decision makers, are also outlined. These requirements would establish traceability from instruments to products and services allowing for benefit evaluation of instruments and measurements. Additionally, traceable climate requirements would provide a better understanding of global climate models.

Description: The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) measures the infrared spectrum in 2378 channels between 3.7 and 15.4 microns with a very high spectral resolution of approximately 1200. AIRS footprints are approximately 1.1 by 0.6 degrees. Because AIRS is a grating spectrometer, each channel has a unique spatial response. Image rotation due to the scan mirror causes these spatial responses to rotate. In effect, each channel has 90 spatial responses, one for each scene footprint in the scan line. Although the spatial response for most channels is symmetric and nearly uniform, some channels have significantly asymmetric response. This paper reviews and describes the prelaunch measurements that characterized the spatial response functions. Next, it describes the conversion of the ground-based results into footprint-specific response functions valid in flight. Then we describe the postlaunch validation of the measurements, including centroid location, axes orientations, and a check on the full two-dimensional response functions. This latter check involves comparison of AIRS data with that of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS), which flies on the same platform as AIRS. An important result is that AIRS/MODIS brightness temperature comparisons are significantly improved (scatter reduced) when the AIRS spatial response is explicitly taken into account. Finally, a status report is given on attempts to fully verify the prelaunch measurements by deriving the AIRS spatial response from flight data alone.

Description: The Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), launched on 18 December 1999 aboard the Terra spacecraft, are making global observations of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances. Aerosol optical depths and particle properties are independently retrieved from these radiances using methodologies and algorithms that make use of the instruments corresponding designs. This paper compares instantaneous optical depths retrieved from simultaneous and collocated radiances measured by the two instruments at locations containing sites within the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). A set of 318 MISR and MODIS images, obtained during the months of March, June, and September 2002 at 62 AERONET sites, were used in this study. The results show that over land, MODIS aerosol optical depths at 470 and 660 nm are larger than those retrieved from MISR by about 35% and 10% on average, respectively, when all land surface types are included in the regression. The differences decrease when coastal and desert areas are excluded. For optical depths retrieved over ocean, MISR is on average about 0.1 and 0.05 higher than MODIS in the 470 and 660 nm bands, respectively. Part of this difference is due to radiometric calibration and is reduced to about 0.01 and 0.03 when recently derived band-to-band adjustments in the MISR radiometry are incorporated. Comparisons with AERONET data show similar patterns.

Description: Geodetic networks support the TRF requirements of NASA ESE missions. Each of SLR, VLBI, GPS substantially and uniquely contributes to TRF determination. NASA's SLR, VLBI, and GPS groups collaborate toward wide-ranging improvements in the next 5 years. NASA leverages considerable resources through its significant activity in international services. NASA faces certain challenges in continuing and advancing these activities. The Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) is an accurate, stable set of positions and velocities. The TRF provides the stable coordinate system that allows us to link measurements over space and time. The geodetic networks provide data for determination of the TRF as well as direct science observations.

Description: The mission of the NASA Applied Sciences Program is to expand and accelerate the use of NASA research results to benefit society in 12 application areas of national priority. ONe of the program's major challenges is to perform a quick, efficient, and detailed review (i.e., prototyping) of the large number of combinations of NASA observations and results from Earth system models that may be used by a wide range of decision support tools. A Rapid Prototyping Capacity (RPC) is being developed to accelerate the use of NASA research results. Here, we present the conceptual framework of the Rapid Prototyping Capacity within the context of quickly assessing the efficacy of NASA research results and technologies to support the Coastal Management application. An initial RPC project designed to quickly evaluate the utility of moderate-resolution MODIS products for calibrating/validating coastal sediment transport models is also presented.