Publications

Land‐use and climate change are significantly affecting stream ecosystems, yet understanding of their long‐term impacts is hindered by the few studies that have simultaneously investigated their interaction and high variability among future projections. We modeled possible effects of a suite of 2030, 2060, and 2090 land‐use and climate scenarios on the condition of 70,772 small streams...

Fire Radiative Power (FRP) is related to fire combustion rates and is used to quantify the atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. FRP over gas flares and wildfires can be retrieved remotely using satellites that observe in shortwave infrared (SWIR) to middle infrared (MIR) wavelengths. Heritage techniques to retrieve FRP developed for wildland fires using the MIR 4 μm...

Majuro Atoll in the central Pacific has high coastal vulnerability due to low-lying islands, rising sea level, high wave events, eroding shorelines, a dense population center, and limited freshwater resources. Land elevation is the primary geophysical variable that determines exposure to inundation in coastal settings. Accordingly, coastal elevation data (with accuracy information) are...

An investigation was conducted to determine optimal locations within the continental United States for insitu measurements to validate the U.S. Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) Surface Reflectance product. Site assessment involved analysis of aerosol optical depth, precipitable water vapor, land cover, cloud cover, and elevation models. Nineteen sites were selected for further month-by...

Earth remote sensing optical satellite systems are often divided into two categories—geosynchronous and sun-synchronous. Geosynchronous systems essentially rotate with the Earth and continuously observe the same region of the Earth. Sun-synchronous systems are generally in a polar orbit and view differing regions of the Earth at the same local time. Although similar in instrument design...

One of the biggest changes in the world of optical remote sensing over the last several years is the sheer increase in the number of sensors that are imaging the Earth in moderate to high spatial resolution. With respect to the calibration of these sensors, they are broadly classified into two types, namely government systems and commercial systems. Because of the differences in the...

Earth has a stunning variety of landscapes. The colors, patterns, textures, and shapes all make for intriguing artwork as seen from the perspective of space. Earth As Art shows not only what satellites capture in the visible wavelengths of light you and I can see, but also what’s hiding in the invisible wavelengths that Landsat sensors can detect in the infrared part of the...

In East Africa, accurate grain yield predictions can help save lives and protect livelihoods. Regional grain yield forecasts can inform decisions regarding the availability and prices of key staples, food aid, and large humanitarian responses. Here, we use earth observation (EO) products to develop and evaluate subnational grain yield forecasts for 56 regions located in two severely food...

Western U.S. rangelands have been quantified as six fractional cover (0%–100%) components over the Landsat archive (1985–2018) at a 30 m resolution, termed the “Back-in-Time” (BIT) dataset. Robust validation through space and time is needed to quantify product accuracy. Here, we used field data collected concurrently with high-resolution satellite (HRS) images over multiple locations (n...

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016 provides a suite of data products, including land cover and land cover change of the conterminous United States from 2001 to 2016, at two- to three-year intervals. The development of this product is part of an effort to meet the growing demand for longer temporal duration and more frequent, accurate, and consistent land cover and change...

While there are obstacles to the exchange of long-term high temporal resolution precipitation data, there have been few barriers to the exchange of so-called ‘indices’ which are derived from daily and sub-daily data and measure aspects of precipitation frequency, duration and intensity that could be used for the study of extremes. This paper outlines the history of the rationale and use...

The skill of North American multimodel ensemble (NMME) seasonal forecasts in East Africa (EA), which encompasses one of the most food and water insecure areas of the world, is evaluated using deterministic, categorical, and probabilistic evaluation methods. The skill is estimated for all three primary growing seasons: March–May (MAM), July–September (JAS), and October–December (OND). It...