John Dwyer (Former Employee)
Science and Products
The Landsat Burned Area algorithm and products for the conterminous United States
Complete and accurate burned area map data are needed to document spatial and temporal patterns of fires, to quantify their drivers, and to assess the impacts on human and natural systems. In this study, we developed the Landsat Burned Area (BA) algorithm, an update from the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) algorithm. Here,...
Hawbaker, Todd J.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Schmidt, Gail L.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Takacs, Joshua; Falgout, Jeff T.; Dwyer, John L. Lessons learned implementing an operational continuous U.S. national land change monitoring capability: The LCMAP approach
Growing demands for temporally specific information on land surface change are fueling a new generation of maps and statistics that can contribute to understanding geographic and temporal patterns of change across large regions, provide input into a wide range of environmental modeling studies, clarify the drivers of change, and provide more...
Brown, Jesslyn F.; Tollerud, Heather J.; Barber, Christopher; Zhou, Qiang; Dwyer, John L.; Vogelmann, James; Loveland, Thomas; Woodcock, Curtis; Stehman, Stephen V; Zhu, Zhe; Pengra, Bruce; Smith, Kelcy; Horton, Josephine; Xian, George Z.; Auch, Roger F.; Sohl, Terry L.; Sayler, Kristi L.; Gallant, Alisa L.; Zelenak, Daniel; Reker, Ryan R.; Rover, Jennifer R. Analysis ready data: Enabling analysis of the Landsat archive
Data that have been processed to allow analysis with a minimum of additional user effort are often referred to as Analysis Ready Data (ARD). The ability to perform large scale Landsat analysis relies on the ability to access observations that are geometrically and radiometrically consistent, and have had non-target features (clouds) and poor...
Dwyer, John L.; Roy, David P.; Sauer, Brian; Jenkerson, Calli B.; Zhang, Hankui K.; Lymburner, Leo An initial validation of Landsat 5 and 7 derived surface water temperature for U.S. lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries
The United States Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research Control Act of 2014 identified the need for forecasting and monitoring harmful algal blooms (HAB) in lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries across the nation. Temperature is a driver in HAB forecasting models that affects both HAB growth rates and toxin production. Therefore, temperature data...
Schaeffer, Blake A.; Iiames, John; Dwyer, John L.; Urquhart, Erin; Salls, Wilson; Rover, Jennifer; Seegers, Bridget Mapping burned areas using dense time-series of Landsat data
Complete and accurate burned area data are needed to document patterns of fires, to quantify relationships between the patterns and drivers of fire occurrence, and to assess the impacts of fires on human and natural systems. Unfortunately, in many areas existing fire occurrence datasets are known to be incomplete. Consequently, the need to...
Hawbaker, Todd J.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Takacs, Joshua; Schmidt, Gail L.; Falgout, Jeff T.; Williams, Brad; Brunner, Nicole M.; Caldwell, Megan K.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Howard, Stephen M.; Stitt, Susan; Dwyer, John L. Cloud detection algorithm comparison and validation for operational Landsat data products
Clouds are a pervasive and unavoidable issue in satellite-borne optical imagery. Accurate, well-documented, and automated cloud detection algorithms are necessary to effectively leverage large collections of remotely sensed data. The Landsat project is uniquely suited for comparative validation of cloud assessment algorithms because the modular...
Foga, Steven Curtis; Scaramuzza, Pat; Guo, Song; Zhu, Zhe; Dilley, Ronald; Beckmann, Tim; Schmidt, Gail L.; Dwyer, John L.; Hughes, MJ; Laue, Brady A note on the temporary misregistration of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) imagery
The Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 sensors provide multi-spectral image data with similar spectral and spatial characteristics that together provide improved temporal coverage globally. Both systems are designed to register Level 1 products to a reference image framework, however, the Landsat-8 framework, based upon the Global Land Survey images,...
Storey, James C.; Roy, David P.; Masek, Jeffrey; Gascon, Ferran; Dwyer, John L.; Choate, Michael J. Selection and quality assessment of Landsat data for the North American forest dynamics forest history maps of the US
Using the NASA Earth Exchange platform, the North American Forest Dynamics (NAFD) project mapped forest history wall-to-wall, annually for the contiguous US (1986–2010) using the Vegetation Change Tracker algorithm. As with any effort to identify real changes in remotely sensed time-series, data gaps, shifts in seasonality, misregistration,...
Schleeweis, Karen; Goward, Samuel N.; Huang, Chengquan; Dwyer, John L.; Dungan, Jennifer L.; Lindsey, Mary A.; Michaelis, Andrew; Rishmawi, Khaldoun; Masek, Jeffery G. Characterizing LEDAPS surface reflectance products by comparisons with AERONET, field spectrometer, and MODIS data
This study provides a baseline quality check on provisional Landsat Surface Reflectance (SR) products as generated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) software. Characterization of the Landsat SR products leveraged...
Maiersperger, Tom; Scaramuzza, Pat; Leigh, Larry; Shrestha, S.; Gallo, Kevin; Jenkerson, Calli B.; Dwyer, John L. Development of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission Cloud Cover Assessment Algorithms
The upcoming launch of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) will start the next era of the Landsat program. However, the Automated Cloud-Cover Assessment (CCA) (ACCA) algorithm used on Landsat 7 requires a thermal band and is thus not suited for OLI. There will be a thermal instrument on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM)-the Thermal Infrared...
Scaramuzza, Pat; Bouchard, M.A.; Dwyer, John L. Landsat: building a strong future
Conceived in the 1960s, the Landsat program has experienced six successful missions that have contributed to an unprecedented 39-year record of Earth Observations that capture global land conditions and dynamics. Incremental improvements in imaging capabilities continue to improve the quality of Landsat science data, while ensuring continuity over...
Loveland, Thomas R.; Dwyer, John L. The next Landsat satellite; the Landsat Data Continuity Mission
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Interior United States Geological Survey (USGS) are developing the successor mission to Landsat 7 that is currently known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). NASA is responsible for building and launching the LDCM satellite observatory. USGS is building the...
Irons, James R.; Dwyer, John L.; Barsi, Julia A.
Level-3 Products Provide Land Cover Gold in Landsat Data Mining
When it comes to mining remotely sensed data, Landsat Level-3 science products offer what some might call land cover gold.
Significant Milestone in Improving Usability of Landsat Satellite Data
Improvements to the quality and usability of Landsat satellite data have been made with the release of a new USGS product called Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD).