Space station attached payload program support

The USRA is providing management and technical support for the peer review of the Space Station Freedom Attached Payload proposals. USRA is arranging for consultants to evaluate proposals, arranging meeting facilities for the reviewers to meet in Huntsville, Alabama and management of the actual review meetings. Assistance in developing an Experiment Requirements Data Base and Engineering/Technical Assessment support for the MSFC Technical Evaluation Team is also being provided. The results of the project will be coordinated into a consistent set of reviews and reports by USRA. The strengths and weaknesses analysis provided by the peer panel reviewers will by used NASA personnel in the selection of experiments for implementation on the Space Station Freedom

Downscaling MODIS Land Surface Temperature for Urban Public Health Applications

This study is part of a project funded by the NASA Applied Sciences Public Health Program, which focuses on Earth science applications of remote sensing data for enhancing public health decision-making. Heat related death is currently the number one weather-related killer in the United States. Mortality from these events is expected to increase as a function of climate change. This activity sought to augment current Heat Watch/Warning Systems (HWWS) with NASA remotely sensed data, and models used in conjunction with socioeconomic and heatrelated mortality data. The current HWWS do not take into account intra-urban spatial variation in risk assessment. The purpose of this effort is to evaluate a potential method to improve spatial delineation of risk from extreme heat events in urban environments by integrating sociodemographic risk factors with estimates of land surface temperature (LST) derived from thermal remote sensing data. In order to further improve the consideration of intra-urban variations in risk from extreme heat, we also developed and evaluated a number of spatial statistical techniques for downscaling the 1-km daily MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST data to 60 m using Landsat-derived LST data, which have finer spatial but coarser temporal resolution than MODIS. In this paper, we will present these techniques, which have been demonstrated and validated for Phoenix, AZ using data from the summers of 2000-2006

Henry E. Eccles, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret)

The Naval War College has been in historic Newport on glorious Narragansett Bay for almost a century. Its mission has remained constant, but the faculty and students stay for only short periods-and most of the population of Newport ebb and flow even faster. Yet, the Naval War College has been remarkably stable with all the frequent changes

Qualitative and Quantitative Effects of Temperature on the Growth and Development of Three Cultivars of Lilium Longiflorum, Thunb. (Heat-Units, Degree-Days, Degree-Hours).

Three cultivars of Lilium longiflorum, Thunb., \u27Ace\u27, \u27Nellie White\u27 and \u27Harson\u27 were forced for the spring of 1983 and 1984 in greenhouse sections with minimum temperatures of 10, 14.5 or 18.9(DEGREES)C until 5 weeks after emergence (phase 1). Plants from each temperature treatment were then divided equally among the 3 temperature regimes (phase 2) to give 9 temperature histories. The design was based on results from a preliminary experiment in 1982. Fewer flowers, fewer leaves and shorter terminal height were associated with higher minimum temperatures. Flower and leaf number were most affected by early (phase 1) temperature treatment. \u27Ace\u27 produced more flowers and more leaves than \u27Nellie White\u27 or \u27Harson\u27. \u27Harson\u27 was the tallest of the 3 cultivars followed by \u27Ace\u27 then \u27Nellie White\u27. Temperature treatments did not influence the time required for the bulb to emerge from potting. The other growth stages: emergence to visible flower bud and flower bud to open flower took fewer days under higher temperatures. \u27Nellie White\u27 was quickest to reach the first visible bud stage from emergence when all cultivars had experienced 10(DEGREES)C in phase 1. Under all other temperature treatments, \u27Harson\u27 matured just as quickly as \u27Nellie White\u27. \u27Ace\u27 was quickest to reach first open flower after the bud stage. Base temperatures were estimated for \u27Ace\u27, \u27Nellie White\u27 and \u27Harson\u27 Easter lilies by regressing change in plant height, change in leaf number and progress per day over 3 growth stages (the periods from potting to emergence, emergence to first visible bud and from first visible bud to first open flower) on temperature and determining the x-intercept. Using the estimated base temperatures, heat units were measured for all three cultivars from emergence to first open flower. \u27Nellie White\u27 gave the best uniformity in heat units for all three years followed by \u27Harson\u27 then \u27Ace\u27. By substituting various base temperatures, it was observed that accumulated heat units from emergence to first open flower were most consistent across years when a base temperature of 0(DEGREES)C was used for \u27Nellie White\u27 and when a base temperature of 3.7(DEGREES)C was used for \u27Ace\u27 and \u27Harson\u27

Relationships Between Excessive Heat and Daily Mortality over the Coterminous U.S

In the United States, extreme heat is the most deadly weather-related hazard. In the face of a warming climate and urbanization, it is very likely that extreme heat events (EHEs) will become more common and more severe in the U.S. Using National Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) meteorological reanalysis data, we have developed several measures of extreme heat to enable assessments of the impacts of heat on public health over the coterminous U.S. These measures include daily maximum and minimum air temperatures, daily maximum heat indices and a new heat stress variable called Net Daily Heat Stress (NDHS) that gives an integrated measure of heat stress (and relief) over the course of a day. All output has been created on the NLDAS 1/8 degree (approximately 12 km) grid and aggregated to the county level, which is the preferred geographic scale of analysis for public health researchers. County-level statistics have been made available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) system. We have examined the relationship between excessive heat events, as defined in eight different ways from the various daily heat metrics, and heat-related and all-cause mortality defined in CDC's National Center for Health Statistics 'Multiple Causes of Death 1999-2010' dataset. To do this, we linked daily, county-level heat mortality counts with EHE occurrence based on each of the eight EHE definitions by region and nationally for the period 1999-2010. The objectives of this analysis are to determine (1) whether heat-related deaths can be clearly tied to excessive heat events, (2) what time lags are critical for predicting heat-related deaths, and (3) which of the heat metrics correlates best with mortality in each US region. Results show large regional differences in the correlations between heat and mortality. Also, the heat metric that provides the best indicator of mortality varied by region. Results from this research will potentially lead to improvements in our ability to anticipate and mitigate any significant impacts of extreme heat events on health

Using NASA Remotely Sensed Data to Help Characterize Environmental Risk Factors for National Public Health Applications

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is collaborating with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Public Health Informatics to address issues of environmental health and enhance public health decision making by utilizing NASA remotely sensed data and products. The objectives of this study are to develop high-quality spatial data sets of environmental variables, link these with public health data from a national cohort study, and deliver the linked data sets and associated analyses to local, state and federal end-user groups. Three daily environmental data sets will be developed for the conterminous U.S. on different spatial resolutions for the period 2003-2008: (1) spatial surfaces of estimated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposures on a 10-km grid utilizing the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ground observations and NASA's MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data; (2) a 1-km grid of Land Surface Temperature (LST) using MODIS data; and (3) a 12-km grid of daily Solar Insolation (SI) using the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) forcing data. These environmental data sets will be linked with public health data from the UAB REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) national cohort study to determine whether exposures to these environmental risk factors are related to cognitive decline and other health outcomes. These environmental datasets and public health linkage analyses will be disseminated to end-users for decision making through the CDC Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) system

Aquarius iPhone Application

The Office of the CIO at JPL has developed an iPhone application for the Aquarius/SAC-D mission. The application includes specific information about the science and purpose of the Aquarius satellite and also features daily mission news updates pulled from sources at Goddard Space Flight Center as well as Twitter. The application includes a media and data tab section. The media section displays images from the observatory, viewing construction up to the launch and also includes various videos and recorded diaries from the Aquarius Project Manager. The data tab highlights many of the factors that affect the Earth s ocean and the water cycle. The application leverages the iPhone s accelerometer to move the Aquarius Satellite over the Earth, revealing these factors. Lastly, this application features a countdown timer to the satellite s launch, which is currently counting the days since launch. This application was highly successful in promoting the Aquarius Mission and educating the public about how ocean salinity is paramount to understanding the Earth