Application of ERTS-1 data to the protection and management of New Jersey's coastal environment

ERTS-1 imagery is being used by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to develop information products that will assist the state in optimally managing its coastal resources and in allocating funds. Interviews with NJDEP personnel have identified significant problem areas in the coastal zone, and the types of remote sensor derived information products that can be used in real-time decision making. Initial analyses of imagery from several successive ERTS-1 orbits have shown the extent, predominant drift, and dispersion characteristics of waste disposal in coastal New Jersey waters. Imagery (MSS Bands 4 and 5) for several orbits, shows that New-York Harbor tidal discharge extending as far south as Long Branch, New Jersey

Impact of ERTS-1 images on management of New Jersey's coastal zone

The thrust of New Jersey's ERTS investigation is development of procedures for operational use of ERTS-1 data by the Department of Environmental Protection in the management of the State's coastal zone. Four major areas of concern were investigated: detection of land use changes in the coastal zone; monitoring of offshore waste disposal; siting of ocean outfalls; and allocation of funds for shore protection. ERTS imagery was not useful for shore protection purposes; it was of limited practical value in the evaluation of offshore waste disposal and ocean outfall siting. However, ERTS imagery shows great promise for operational detection of land use changes in the coastal zone. Some constraints for practical change detection have been identified

Application of ERTS-1 data to the protection and management of New Jersey's coastal environment

The author has identified the following significant results. A Coastal Zone Surveillance Program has been developed in which systematic comparisons of early ERTS-1 images and recently acquired images are regularly made to identify areas where changes have occurred. A methodology for assessing and documenting benefits has been established. Quantification of benefits has been directed toward four candidate areas: shore protection, ocean outfalls, coastal land resources, and offshore waste disposal. A refinement in the change detection analysis procedure has led to greater accuracy in spotting developmental changes in the Coastal Zone. Preliminary conclusions drawn from the Shore Erosion case study indicate that in the northern test area (developed beach) erosion has occurred more often, is generally more severe, and the beach is slower to recover than in the southern test area (natural beach). From these data it appears that it may be possible to define areas most likely to experience further erosion. The assumption of continued erosion in areas that have at one time experienced severe erosion is supported by the simple fact that as a beach narrows wave energy is concentrated on a narrower beach surface. The higher energy condition subsequently results in accelerated erosion

Application of ERTS-1 data to the protection and management of New Jersey's coastal environment

The author has identified the following significant results. Rapid access to ERTS data was provided by NASA GSFC for the February 26, 1974 overpass of the New Jersey test site. Forty-seven hours following the overpass computer-compatible tapes were ready for processing at EarthSat. The finished product was ready just 60 hours following the overpass and delivered to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. This operational demonstration has been successful in convincing NJDEP as to the worth of ERTS as an operational monitoring and enforcement tool of significant value to the State. An erosion/ accretion severity index has been developed for the New Jersey shore case study area. Computerized analysis techniques have been used for monitoring offshore waste disposal dumping locations, drift vectors, and dispersion rates in the New York Bight area. A computer shade print of the area was used to identify intensity levels of acid waste. A Litton intensity slice print was made to provide graphic presentation of dispersion characteristics and the dump extent. Continued monitoring will lead to the recommendation and justification of permanent dumping sites which pose no threat to water quality in nearshore environments

The JCMT Transient Survey: An Extraordinary Submillimeter Flare in the T Tauri Binary System JW 566

© 2019 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.The binary T Tauri system JW 566 in the Orion Molecular Cloud underwent an energetic, short-lived flare observed at submillimetre wavelengths by the SCUBA-2 instrument on 26 November 2016 (UT). The emission faded by nearly 50% during the 31 minute integration. The simultaneous source fluxes averaged over the observation are 500 +/- 107 mJy/beam at 450 microns and 466 +/- 47 mJy/beam at 850 microns. The 850 micron flux corresponds to a radio luminosity of $L_{\nu}=8\times10^{19}$ erg/s/Hz, approximately one order of magnitude brighter (in terms of $\nu L_{\nu}$) than that of a flare of the young star GMR-A, detected in Orion in 2003 at 3mm. The event may be the most luminous known flare associated with a young stellar object and is also the first coronal flare discovered at sub-mm wavelengths. The spectral index between 450 microns and 850 microns of $\alpha = 0.11$ is broadly consistent with non-thermal emission. The brightness temperature was in excess of $6\times10^{4}$ K. We interpret this event to be a magnetic reconnection that energised charged particles to emit gyrosynchrotron/synchrotron radiation.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The JCMT Transient Survey: An Extraordinary Submillimetre Flare in the T Tauri Binary System JW 566

The binary T Tauri system JW 566 in the Orion Molecular Cloud underwent an energetic, short-lived flare observed at submillimetre wavelengths by the SCUBA-2 instrument on 26 November 2016 (UT). The emission faded by nearly 50% during the 31 minute integration. The simultaneous source fluxes averaged over the observation are 500 +/- 107 mJy/beam at 450 microns and 466 +/- 47 mJy/beam at 850 microns. The 850 micron flux corresponds to a radio luminosity of $L_{\nu}=8\times10^{19}$ erg/s/Hz, approximately one order of magnitude brighter (in terms of $\nu L_{\nu}$) than that of a flare of the young star GMR-A, detected in Orion in 2003 at 3mm. The event may be the most luminous known flare associated with a young stellar object and is also the first coronal flare discovered at sub-mm wavelengths. The spectral index between 450 microns and 850 microns of $\alpha = 0.11$ is broadly consistent with non-thermal emission. The brightness temperature was in excess of $6\times10^{4}$ K. We interpret this event to be a magnetic reconnection that energised charged particles to emit gyrosynchrotron/synchrotron radiation.Comment: Accepted in ApJ. 16 pages (single column), 6 figure

The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: a quantitative comparison between SCUBA-2 data reduction methods

Performing ground-based submillimetre observations is a difficult task as the measurements are subject to absorption and emission from water vapour in the Earth's atmosphere and time variation in weather and instrument stability. Removing these features and other artefacts from the data is a vital process which affects the characteristics of the recovered astronomical structure we seek to study. In this paper, we explore two data reduction methods for data taken with the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array-2 (SCUBA-2) at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). The JCMT Legacy Reduction 1 (JCMT LR1) and The Gould Belt Legacy Survey Legacy Release 1 (GBS LR1) reduction both use the same software (starlink) but differ in their choice of data reduction parameters. We find that the JCMT LR1 reduction is suitable for determining whether or not compact emission is present in a given region and the GBS LR1 reduction is tuned in a robust way to uncover more extended emission, which better serves more in-depth physical analyses of star-forming regions. Using the GBS LR1 method, we find that compact sources are recovered well, even at a peak brightness of only three times the noise, whereas the reconstruction of larger objects requires much care when drawing boundaries around the expected astronomical signal in the data reduction process. Incorrect boundaries can lead to false structure identification or it can cause structure to be missed. In the JCMT LR1 reduction, the extent of the true structure of objects larger than a point source is never fully recovered