Blog - Brian Andrew Campbell

Let's talk about collaboration? Collaboration is a way to share your research, measurements, and ideas with others that have similar goals and interests. Collaboration is about much more than just sharing data or sharing techniques, it is about leveraging the expertise of others with your own, and combining them into a "POWERPACK" of results. During our current Phase II of the GLOBE ENSO...

How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data (Part I)? Data Analysis and Blog by Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist SMAP has been collecting soil moisture measurements since mid-April 2015, which are freely available, online through the National Snow and Ice Data Archive Center (NSIDC): https://nsidc.org/data/smap Of utmost importance is to have an assessment of the quality of the data, which is why...

Did you know that soil moisture plays a vital role in human health? Those nasty little critters called mosquitoes love warm, wet soil, and can carry extremely dangerous viruses and diseases. We also can use SMAP soil moisture data to assist famine early warning systems. Improved seasonal soil moisture forecasts using SMAP data will directly benefit famine early warning systems particularly in...

The NASA SMAP satellite took off for space on January 31, 2015 to study our planet's soil moisture and freeze/thaw state. Once in space, the satellite had to go through a prescribed series of steps to ensure that the spacecraft was functioning and all its instruments and components on-board were working properly. This took several months. In mid-April 2015, NASA starting receiving its first...

There are many application for SMAP soil moisture satellite data. Understanding drought risk is vital to the health of the planet and to the lives of potentially billions of people around the world. Soil moisture strongly affects plant growth and hence agricultural productivity, especially during conditions of water shortage and drought. Currently, there is no global in situ network for soil...

We all know that the SMAP satellite measures soil moisture. But, how does knowing our planet's soil moisture help us in understanding agriculture's reaction to it? SMAP monitors soil moisture and provides critical information for drought early warning. In fact, a deficit in the amount of moisture in the soil defines agricultural drought. SMAP's measurements will come into play because...

From Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. How do the measurements from different GLOBE protocols serve a mutual purpose better understanding our planet? In previous blogs I’ve discussed the importance of soil moisture and how it plays a large role in weather prediction, flood and drought forecasting, plant growth, and even in pin pointing areas at risk for...

Hello from Medford Memorial Middle School in Medford, New Jersey. The quest to get an accurate soil sample continues at Medford Memorial Middle School, Medford NJ. Hello, we are the students of Memorial’s Citizen Science Education Program. We’re excited to be part of the SMAP campaign, but have not yet been able to enter any data.  Here’s a brief overview of our journey. First, we...