Eyes on Earth Episode 137 – Landsat Takes Yellowstone’s Temperature
How do you keep track of thousands of hot spots in an area the size of Yellowstone National Park? Check out thermal satellite data like Landsat’s!
The Yellowstone National Park area has more than 10,000 thermal features. And while Old Faithful is a pretty predictable geyser, some thermal features can change quite a bit. New ones can even pop up! Remote sensing provides a tool for monitoring them—especially the thermal infrared sensors (TIRS) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites.
In this episode, R. Greg Vaughan, the remote sensing lead for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, describes what causes the thermal features and how he uses Landsat and other remote sensing data to track their locations and estimate their temperatures. Then Terry Sohl, the Integrated Science and Applications Branch chief at USGS EROS, describes a couple of other important uses of Landsat thermal data.
Guests: R. Greg Vaughan, USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Terry Sohl, USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Producer: Brian Hauge (contractor for USGS EROS)
Release date: Monday, December 8, 2025
Download and Transcript Access
More about Yellowstone’s Thermal Features and Landsat’s Thermal Uses
- Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
- Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing at Yellowstone 101
- Discovering new thermal areas in Yellowstone's dynamic landscape
- Methodologies – OpenET
Related Episodes
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Eyes on Earth Episode 116 – Landsat Images the Twilight Zone
Landsat has documented changes all over the world for over 50 years. Changes in polar regions are happening especially rapidly. But it’s dark in polar regions much of the time. Therefore, a new acquisition scheme is adding more imagery of these dark, polar regions so these changes can be studied in more detail, even in polar twilight. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we learn about this project...
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Eyes on Earth Episode 113 – EROS Science Leader’s Vision
Terry Sohl helped develop the National Land Cover Database, NLCD, when he first arrived, and now he’s overseeing significant improvements to the widely used product. But that’s just one part of his new role. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, Sohl provides an overview of the science efforts at EROS and how artificial intelligence and machine learning help scientists focus more on the work that...
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Eyes on Earth Episode 35 – Watching the Water Supply with OpenET
Evapotranspiration is the process by which water transpires from the leaves and stems of plants and evaporates from the Earth’s surface. ET is an important metric for managing water use, but data availability has long been an issue. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about OpenET, a bold initiative whose goal is to improve water management by making that water consumption data more easily...
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How do you keep track of thousands of hot spots in an area the size of Yellowstone National Park? Check out thermal satellite data like Landsat’s!
The Yellowstone National Park area has more than 10,000 thermal features. And while Old Faithful is a pretty predictable geyser, some thermal features can change quite a bit. New ones can even pop up! Remote sensing provides a tool for monitoring them—especially the thermal infrared sensors (TIRS) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites.
In this episode, R. Greg Vaughan, the remote sensing lead for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, describes what causes the thermal features and how he uses Landsat and other remote sensing data to track their locations and estimate their temperatures. Then Terry Sohl, the Integrated Science and Applications Branch chief at USGS EROS, describes a couple of other important uses of Landsat thermal data.
Guests: R. Greg Vaughan, USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Terry Sohl, USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Producer: Brian Hauge (contractor for USGS EROS)
Release date: Monday, December 8, 2025
Download and Transcript Access
More about Yellowstone’s Thermal Features and Landsat’s Thermal Uses
- Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
- Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing at Yellowstone 101
- Discovering new thermal areas in Yellowstone's dynamic landscape
- Methodologies – OpenET
Related Episodes
-
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 116 – Landsat Images the Twilight Zone
Landsat has documented changes all over the world for over 50 years. Changes in polar regions are happening especially rapidly. But it’s dark in polar regions much of the time. Therefore, a new acquisition scheme is adding more imagery of these dark, polar regions so these changes can be studied in more detail, even in polar twilight. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we learn about this project...
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 113 – EROS Science Leader’s Vision
Terry Sohl helped develop the National Land Cover Database, NLCD, when he first arrived, and now he’s overseeing significant improvements to the widely used product. But that’s just one part of his new role. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, Sohl provides an overview of the science efforts at EROS and how artificial intelligence and machine learning help scientists focus more on the work that...
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 35 – Watching the Water Supply with OpenET
Evapotranspiration is the process by which water transpires from the leaves and stems of plants and evaporates from the Earth’s surface. ET is an important metric for managing water use, but data availability has long been an issue. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about OpenET, a bold initiative whose goal is to improve water management by making that water consumption data more easily...
-