Original Articles

GEO Announces Free And Unrestricted Access To Full Landsat Archive

Cropped Beech ForestBucharest conference to strengthen environmental monitoring of planet Earth Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) will save lives, improve resource management, and track humanity’s impact on the environment Bucharest, 14 November 2008 - Some 300 officials from the Group on Earth Observations’ member governments and organizations are meeting here on 19 and 20 November to plan the next three-year phase in the construction of a new global monitoring network that will support science-based decision-making about environmental risks and opportunities.

Michael Williams, posted on December 2nd, 2008
Articles, Biodiversity, Earth Observation, ICEO/GEO/GEOSS |

NASA and USAID Bring Earth-Observation Benefits to Africa

Cropped Earth as arrNASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and their international partners have cut the ribbon in Nairobi, Kenya, for SERVIR-Africa. The SERVIR-Africa system integrates the satellite resources of the United States and other countries into a Web-based Earth information system.

Maeve Hickok, posted on December 2nd, 2008
Articles, Earth Observation |

Coherence of Atlantic Cod Stock Dynamics in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

CodThe stocks of Atlantic cod Gadus morhua in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean declined in abundance from 1965 to 2003; the declines in spawning stock biomass (SSB) have been temporally coherent. A coherent, sharp increase in SSBs from 1975 to 1985 and a subsequent decrease from 1985 to 1992 are superimposed on the general decline.

Brian Rothschild, posted on December 2nd, 2008
Articles, Biodiversity, Water |

The Threat to Nature’s Medicine

Cropped CatharanthusHigh in the eastern Himalayas grows a cottony white flower known for centuries among Tibetan and Chinese healers for its power to treat headaches, high-blood pressure, fertility, and menstrual problems. Despite its remote, rocky habitat some 13,000 feet above sea level, however, dual forces now imperil the slow-growing snow lotus.

Lori Keesey, posted on December 2nd, 2008
Articles, Biodiversity, Health |

GEO BON - First-Ever Global Biodiversity Observation Network Launched

Coral ReefThe GEO and some 80 leading scientific institutes, intergovernmental organizations and national ministries have joined forces to start building a global Biodiversity Observation Network for monitoring and assessing the world’s species and ecosystems in order to prevent their further destruction.

Maeve Hickok, posted on November 17th, 2008
Articles, Biodiversity, ICEO/GEO/GEOSS |

G-8 Summit Affirms GEOSS

G-8 BannerThe G-8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit address on global climate change specifically recognized “the growing demand for Earth observation data” and pledged to “accelerate efforts within the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)”.

Maeve Hickok, posted on November 17th, 2008
Articles, Earth Observation, ICEO/GEO/GEOSS |

Some Computer Science Issues in Creating a Sustainable World

Cropped CO2 EmissionsAmong the biggest challenges the world faces today are the climate crisis and the broader issues of environmental sustainability raised in books such as Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking, 2004). Part of the solution to this problem depends on climate science, breakthrough technologies, and policy changes.

Jennifer Mankoff, Robin Kravets and Eli Blevis , posted on November 17th, 2008
Articles, Climate, OpEd, Technology |

Call for nominations to the NOAA - David Johnson Award for Outstanding Innovative Use of Earth Observation Satellite Data

The NOAA - David Johnson Award is presented by the National Space Club in honor of the first administrator of what was to become the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).

Paul Racette, posted on November 4th, 2008
Articles, Earth Observation |

NASA’s Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications: Integrating Earth Observations

There are advantages and disadvantages to reanalyses for climate study. The main advantages are that global Earth observations (disparate distributions in space and time) are assimilated leading to uniformly gridded and globally available data. Reanalyses also combine many different types of observations into a single analysis.

Michael G. Bosilovich, posted on September 26th, 2008
Articles, Climate, Earth Observation |

Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

Last Child RevisedWe all hear about global this and global that, what to recycle or not, and who should be responsible. This is almost non-stop from every sort of media available, which becomes mind numbing and, in a huge sense, scary. With all the information our there, Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods caught my attention.

Nancy Racette, posted on August 28th, 2008
Articles, Health, Reviews |