Air sensor and a new satellite earth can not treat the disease. However, the technology was able to give a clear account of the various problems
The view outside the window is quite severe. Currently research aircraft flew over the giant California redwoods, Greg Asner could see the damage caused by drought for four years that plagued the state. However, when he turned from the window to view the video in the lab of flight, the landscape is even more worrying.The digital image derived 3-D scanning system is newly installed Asner, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, in turbopropnya plane. The laser scanner emits a double into the trees. Two spectrometers imaging, one of which is made in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, recording hundreds of wavelengths of sunlight reflected from visible light to infrared, reveals the chemical characteristics of detail that becomes identifiable species of each tree and even show the amount of water absorbed indicators health is important. By setting the selected screen Asner of the day, a tree that water shortages are marked in bright red.Despite these disturbing images, this powerful new way to understand this planet. "Map of the state of an ecosystem that has generated this system of once flew," wrote Asner later, "contains more information than is obtainable from ground surveys for life." And the Carnegie Airborne Observatory is just the beginning in a wider trend this.Sophisticated sensors provide similar benefits for scientists-provide increasingly powerful tool for measuring the earth's vital signs. In 2014 and early 2015, NASA launched five earth observation missions (including the two new instruments on the space station), bringing the total to 19. Another space Institute of Brazil, China, Europe, and other countries also enliven. "No doubt we are now in a golden age of remote sensing," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA earth science.News brought by all eyes in the sky, it must be admitted, mostly not good. This sensing system testifies to the rapidly changing world, ranging from the melting glaciers and shrinking rain forests to rising seas and more. However, when the human impact on the earth reached a new level, this cutting-edge sensors offer an opportunity that has never existed before to monitor and understand the impact of not treating the disease-even the earth, at least be able to give a better diagnosis. That alone is encouraging.Water is the lifeblood for the earth and for the first time, with the sensor in space scientists can predict drought, warned of flooding, protect water supplies and improve yields.In California, the water crisis has transformed the state into a kind of laboratory for many projects on remote sensing. Over the last three years, NASA team led by Tom Painter fly a plane full of instruments on top of Yosemite National Park to measure snow collection that fills the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, San Francisco's main water source.Painter Twin Otter aircraft, named Snow Airborne Observatory, equipped with a sensor that is similar to the one in the best Greg Asner: lidar scanner that measures the thickness of snow and imaging spectrometers to analyze the condition. How it works lidar is similar to radar but uses laser light, measuring the distance between the aircraft with snow by the time the light reflection.By comparing the topography of an area currently covered in snow with the results of a scan on a summer without snow, Painter and his team many times can measure precisely the amount of snow that exist throughout the watershed area of
1,200 square kilometers.While the imaging spectrometer show the multitude of snowflakes as well as the amount of dust contained in the surface-both affect the speed of melting of snow by the spring sun and water supplies to be. "We've never had this data before," said Graham.Painter also measure shrinkage collection of snow in the Rocky Mountains, which supplies water to millions of people across the northwest US. In the near future he plans to bring the technology to other mountain areas around the world that threatened snow melt water supply, such as the watershed of the Indus and the Ganges in the Himalayas. "At the end of this decade, nearly two billion people were affected by changes in collection of snow," he said. "It's one of the most important aspects of climate change."With reduced water flowing into rivers and reservoirs California, farmers pumping more water from wells to irrigate his farm, causing a drop in water level. Party state governments typically monitor the underground water reserves by lowering sensors into wells. However, a team of scientists led by Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine, and JPL, using a pair of satellites called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) to "weigh" the groundwater California from space.The way it works is our satellites detect changes in altitude satellites and the distance between them as a result of changes in the earth's gravity.GRACE satellite can measure the distance change to 1 / 10,000 feet. A year later, after many farmers to pump groundwater, the gravitational pull experienced first satellite is reduced slightly, and the GRACE satellites detect the change.Reflux world aquifer, which supplies at least one third of the water used by humans, has now become a serious danger, said Famiglietti. GRACE data show that more than half the world sucked aquifers faster than the rate of filling, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, India, Pakistan, and North Africa. In the Central Valley, pumping causes another problem: Some parts of the valley sinkhole.Tom Farr, JPL geologist, mapping the decline is using radar data from Canadian satellites orbiting 800 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The techniques used, originally developed to study earthquakes, ground deformation can detect up to 2.5-5 centimeters.Farr created maps showed that in some places, the Central Valley ambles about 30 centimeters per year.One is a small dam near the town of Los Banos that drain water to the farm in the vicinity."We know there is a problem at this dam, because the water started melimpas its banks," said Michael Cannon, president of Bowles Farming Company. "Only after seeing satellite imagery we know the magnitude of the problem." Formed two basins in total agricultural land area of
9,300 square kilometers, threatening dams, bridges, irrigation canals, pipelines, canals and flood-infrastructure worth billions of rupiah. At the end of 2014 the California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the first in the state that the restriction of ground water gradually.As more and more evidence of the disease-earth from rising temperatures and ocean acidification, to deforestation and extreme weather-prioritize NASA mission to cope with its impacts. One of the newest satellite, worth 13 trillion rupiah observatory named SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive), launched in January. The spacecraft is designed to measure soil moisture either by reflecting the radar beam to the surface (active) or capturing the radiation emitted by the earth itself (passive). Last July an active radar stopped operating, but a passive radiometer still functioning. The resulting map can help scientists predict drought, flooding, crop yields, and starve."If we have data SMAP in 2012, we can easily foresee a severe drought in the US mid-west that surprised so many people," said Narendra N. Das, research scientist at JPL. Not many suspect that the region will lose yield around 435 trillion rupiah in the summer due to "drought impromptu" -paduan heat waves suddenly with very low humidity. "SMAP data could show early loss of soil moisture in the region and if it did not rain, the harvest will fail," said Das. Farmers will plant may not land on a large scale.Climate change also increases the chances of extreme rain-and SMAP also help overcome these risks. Data SMAP can tell the government that the ground is already saturated water so as to landslides or flooding in the downstream. However, the lack of water is a threat that is more extensive and prolonged. Without moisture in the soil, healthy environment will be damaged, as happened in California, causing heat waves, droughts, and forest fires. "Moisture ground like human sweat," said Das. "When you yawn, raised a cooling effect. So, when the soil is no longer contain the water, the earth's surface will heat up, like a man who suffered heat stroke. "despite the many challenges that threaten, until now the earth proved to survive. Of the 37 billion tonnes or more of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere annually by human activities, about half is absorbed by the oceans, forests, and grasslands. However, no one knows the point of saturation of absorption. Only recently have researchers discovered the right method to measure the flow in and out of the carbon from the oceans, forests, and grasslands.In July 2014, NASA launched a spacecraft called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory- 2. Designed to "observe the breath of the earth", said the manager, OCO-2 can measure with precision of up to one per million molecules-the amount of CO2 released or absorbed by region anywhere in the world. The first global map using data OCO-2 shows the plume of CO2 originating from northern Australia, southern Africa, and eastern Brazil, where the forest is burned to establish agriculture. Map of the future will be to identify areas that otherwise-absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.Greg Asner and his team also examined carbon sequestration. Before flying over the jungle California, for several years, they scan the 720,000 square kilometers of tropical forest in Peru to calculate the carbon content of the forest.At the time, Peru is discussing how to protect the rain forest together with international partners. Asner was able to show that forests are under increasing pressure from logging, agriculture, mining or oil and gas also store the most carbon-about six billion metric tons.Preservation of the region will make the carbon remains stored, said Asner, and protect countless species. At the end of 2014 the Norwegian government has pledged up to 4 trillion rupiah to prevent deforestation in Peru.In the next few years NASA plans to launch five new missions to study the water cycle, storms and climate change, including a successor GRACE satellite. Earth observation instruments are smaller, so-called CubeSat-some as large as palms will come riding into space to perform other missions. For scientists like Asner, the urgency is clear. "The world is changing very quickly," he said. "Many changes have occurred which have not been understood by the human sciences."About two decades longer the first imaging spectrometer, as used by Asner and Painter, will be placed into orbit the earth. It was like "Star Trek technology" compared to that's up there now, says Painter. "We have already submitted the imaging spectrometer to the orbit of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, but has not even had its own program for our planet," he said. The view of the device is certainly remarkable: We can see and recognize each tree from space. And we will be reminded of the larger forest: Mankind and our technologies are the only hope to clear up evil that we have caused.