McCallum et al.

Identifying And Quantifying The Benefits Of GEOSS

Image of the EuroGEOSS logoThe European Commission sponsored project “Global Earth Observation – Benefit Estimation: Now, Next and Emerging” (GEOBENE) has developed methodologies and analytical tools to assess the societal benefit areas (SBAs) of GEO in the domains of: Disasters, Health, Energy, Climate, Water, Weather, Ecosystems, Agriculture and Biodiversity. This article presents several of these overarching methodologies as a contribution to the ongoing effort to improve GEOSS, and looks to the future via the EuroGEOSS Project.

McCallum et al., posted on July 12th, 2010
Articles, Earth Observation, Economy, GEOSS/ICEO News | No Comments »

Earth Information Systems/Capacity Building – Geo-Wiki.org: Harnessing the power of volunteers, the internet and Google Earth to collect and validate global spatial information

Cropped image of the results of global land cover disagreement in both cropland and forest areas, based on an analysis of three existing land cover products: GLC-2000, MODIS and GlobCover.Do you want to participate in a really big project? Geo-Wiki.org is looking for volunteers in the global Earth observation community to validate, augment and even disagree with existing spatial information and to aid in the collection of new information through the powerful resource of crowd sourcing. In recent years the ability to collect spatial information from volunteers has greatly expanded through the combination of Google Earth, geo-tagged photos and the Internet. So whether you are a confluence hunter, a geographer, or simply a Very Observant Person (VOP), you may be able to contribute important in-situ data about global land cover to GEO-Wiki.org.

McCallum et al., posted on February 1st, 2010
Articles, Earth Observation, Technology | No Comments »

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NASA Image of the Day

Orbital Sunrise

 
The Expedition 24 crew on the International Space Station photographed this image of polar mesospheric clouds illuminated by an orbital sunrise. Polar mesospheric, or noctilucent ("night shining"), clouds usually are seen at twilight, following the setting of the sun below the horizon and darkening of Earth's surface. Occasionally the station's orbital track becomes nearly parallel to Earth's day/night terminator for a time, allowing the clouds to be visible to the crew at times other than the usual twilight because of the station's altitude. This photograph shows polar mesospheric clouds illuminated by the rising, rather than setting, sun at center right. Low clouds on the horizon appear yellow and orange, while higher clouds and aerosols are illuminated a brilliant white. Polar mesospheric clouds appear as light blue ribbons extending across the top of the image. The station was located over the Greek island of Kos in the Aegean Sea (near the southwestern coastline of Turkey) when the image was taken at approximately midnight local time. The orbital complex was tracking northeastward, nearly parallel to the terminator, making it possible to observe an apparent "sunrise" located almost due north. A similar unusual alignment of the ISS orbit track, terminator position and seasonal position of Earth's orbit around the sun allowed for this striking imagery of over the Southern Hemisphere. Image Credit: NASA
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