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National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) Affiliate Recognized for Technological Breakthrough
NGDC affiliate Kimberly E. Baugh has been awarded a Cash-in-a-Flash award from the University of Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) based on her recent development of a technique for recovering the visible-band gain settings for the Operational Linescan System (OLS) sensor flown on the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). NGDC and CIRES collaborate in the production of OLS-derived global, cloud-free, nighttime-lights composites which are used for a wide range of applications where the lights serve as a proxy for other, more difficult-to-observe, phenomena such as the distribution of population, economic activity and the density of constructed surfaces.
Significance: Ms. Baugh's technological breakthrough enables the development of a quantitatively valid OLS nighttime lights time series that will be a substantial improvement over currently available products.
Outcome: This is in support of the Goal 3 objective to demonstrate global leadership on environmental issues.
( or 303-497-6121)
Global Earthquake Model Representative Visits NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
Ross Stein, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazards Program, visited NGDC and gave a presentation on the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) project. GEM, http://www.globalquakemodel.org/, is a public/private partnership initiated and approved by the Global Science Forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. GEM aims to be the uniform, independent standard to calculate and communicate earthquake risk worldwide. GEM will be the first global, open source model for seismic risk assessment at a national and regional scale, and aims to achieve broad scientific participation and independence. NGDC was contacted because of the global historical natural hazards databases; including significant earthquakes, significant volcanic eruptions, and tsunami events. For the past five years, NGDC has been reviewing and quality controlling these data. A major part of this effort has been to separate the effects of the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. These data, available online from NGDC's natural hazards website, are important for validation of earthquake fatality models and for conducting hazard and risk assessments.
Significance: The NOAA/NGDC efforts in data management and its role in archiving NOAA's tsunami and bathymetry data are essential aspects of the NOAA effort to forecast and mitigate impacts from tsunami events. The integrated hazards archive provides data essential for coastal hazard assessment, improved data for research, and assured access to data related to past hazardous events for monitoring and mitigating the socio-economic impact of coastal hazards.
Outcome: This activity supports the general goal to improve our environmental and marine infrastructure and to develop a more robust Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
( or 303-497-6084)
Progress in Putting America to Work
NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is putting the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars to work, hiring five new contract employees to support improved ingest, description, archive, product development, and delivery of NOAA hydrographic data. NGDC benefits from the National Ocean Service (NOS) Office of Coast Survey ARRA funding package to improve NOAA's hydrographic products. Four of the five 12-18 month contract positions have been filled and the new employees are expected to start work mid-July. NGDC hopes to have all five positions filled by August, putting a small slice of America back to work.
( or 303-497-6478)
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