There is a high demand for environmental indicators in policy and management contexts, yet serious data deficiencies exist for many parameters of interest to environmental decision making. With its global synoptic coverage and the wide range of instruments available,satellite remote sensing has the potential to fill data gaps. This webinar presents results of a NASA Research Opportunities in Earth and Space Science (ROSES) pilot study to develop satellite-derived indicators in three major issue areas: ambient air pollution, coastal eutrophication, and biomass burning.
The presentation will describe what makes an indicator that passes muster with policy and technical audiences and the underlying satellite data and methodologies. The presentation will also cover several of NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) data holdings that are derived from satellite data: time series global grids of PM2.5 (particulate matter at 2.5 microns), a global urban heat island (UHI) data set, and forthcoming time series global nitrogen dioxide (NO2) grid and global fire emissions indicators.
For information about SEDAC, go to http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu.