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NASA’s Earth Science Program is dedicated to advancing Earth remote sensing and pioneering the scientific use of satellite measurements to improve human understanding of our home planet in order to inform economic and policy decisions and improve operational services of benefit to the Nation. The Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program supports NASA's Earth Science research community in providing Earth science data products and services driven by NASA’s Earth Science goals.

The Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program, an element of Research Opportunities in Space and Earth and Science (ROSES), expand these capabilities with competitively selected data products developed and produced by the research community to meet the community’s priority needs.

NASA uses satellite sensors to advance knowledge of the integrated Earth system, the global atmosphere, oceans (including sea ice), land surfaces, ecosystems, and interactions between all elements, including the impacts of humans. MEaSUREs provides an opportunity for the research community to participate in the development and generation of data products, which complement and augment the Earth science already available to the research community. MEaSUREs projects are required to utilize at least one satellite dataset, preferably a NASA-sponsored dataset.

The MEaSUREs projects are focused on product generation, availability, and utility of Earth System Data Records (ESDRs). An ESDR is defined as a unified and coherent set of observations of a given parameter of the Earth system, which is optimized to meet specific requirements in addressing science questions. These data records are critical to understanding Earth System processes and in assessing variability, long-term trends, and change in the Earth System as well as providing means for input and validation to modeling efforts. Emphasis is placed on linking together multiple satellites into a constellation, developing the means of utilizing a multitude of data sources to form coherent time series, and facilitating the use of extensive data in the development of comprehensive Earth system models.

MEaSUREs 2017

MEaSUREs 2017 projects work to afford a solution for utilization of NASA assets and capabilities by:

  • Providing or adding to mature data records needed for NASA Earth System research, and potentially developing product science tools and services capabilities;
  • Applying Earth Science Division principles regarding community involvement, product life cycle planning, and standards and interfaces for interoperability and exchange of data and information;
  • Supporting ongoing data system evolution efforts through participation in one or more Earth Science Data System Working Groups (ESDSWG).

During the life of MEaSUREs the projects, each of the projects is responsible for making its ESDRs available to the user community. At the end of the MEaSUREs projects, the generated ESDRs will be archived and distributed by the EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs).

MEaSUREs Data at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Past MEaSUREs Projects