Blog - Brian Andrew Campbell

Dramatic images show El Niño beginning to rescue California from its drought! As you may know, the state of California has been facing drought conditions for some time now. Over the last few months, the El Niño phenomenon has brought much needed precipitation to the drought-stricken state. Click HERE to read the full story and see the evidential images.

The SMAP Mission satellite launched on 31-January 2015 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  Check out the video below to watch it take off!  

How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data (Part II)? Data Analysis and Blog by Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist In order to start using GLOBE soil moisture data we need at least 15 measurements collected on days when SMAP flew overhead. The Varazdin School is an example of such and the chart below is a comparison between their data and SMAP soil moisture at 36 km2 spatial resolution. Figure 2:...

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...

While your students continue to collect data for the El Niño Field Campaign, think about how you can have your students interpret the data they are collecting and expand upon its use. From science fair projects to student research projects to El Niño (ENSO) Tales & Stories (see below for more details), your students can come up with great ways to use the data they are collecting to tell a...

Fenómeno El Niño: 8 niños mueren en Piura por altas temperaturas El Niño : 8 children die in Peru by high temperatures It seems the effects of the El Niño phenomena has cause the death of eight children due to heat stroke.  Click HERE to see the original story, in Spanish. Below is the entire article translated into English. _________________ The high temperatures in northern Peru...

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...

Greetings from Alfred State College in Alfred, New York! We are very excited to be participating in the NASA SMAP soil moisture sampling project. The project here is overseen by Jessica Hutchison, Instructor in the Department of Agriculture and Veterinary Technology. Two Agriculture Technology students, Kayana Fonseca and Peter Meyer, take samples and input data. We have one site, located...

Guest Blog by NASA SMAP Scientists Dr. Erika Podest and Dr. Narendra Das of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California USA. SMAP scientists are using soil moisture in a number of ways, ways that allow all of us to better understand water’s role on Earth: Weather Prediction: Water in the soil has the potential to evaporate (depending on atmospheric temperature and pressure) and...

Have you ever wondered how the SMAP satellite, with an altitude of 685 km (425 miles) above the Earth, can take measurements as precise as the amount of water in the Earth's soil? The quick answer is that it requires precisely calibrated instruments, along with a technological marvel in satellite design. SMAP was designed to use a combination of two precise instruments, one with high...

The SMAP Mission is vital to understanding our planet. Water is an essential source for life. By understanding the amount of water in the soil, or soil moisture, we can apply this information to many things. Monitoring Drought 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...

Weekly Report 1: 10/1/15 - 10/15/15 This report contains two weeks of data collection due to the beginning of the campaign on October 1, 2015: Volumetric Soil Moisture Measurements = 19 Participating Sites = 4 Schools Submitting Data: Shumate Middle School - Michigan - 8 data counts Ramey School - Puerto Rico -7 data counts The University of Toledo -Ohio - 2 data counts Thomas Edison...

Greetings from NASA and the SMAP Mission! The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission is an orbiting observatory that measures the amount of water in the top 5 cm (2 inches) of soil everywhere on Earth’s surface will soon be placed in a polar orbit around Earth. The topsoil layer is the one in which the food we eat grows and where other vegetation lives. Moisture in the soil...

GLOBE Teachers and Students, The GLOBE/SMAP Soil Moisture Measurement Field Campaign has begun!   To support this effort, the SMAP satellite mission invites GLOBE schools to participate in the 7-month-long soil moisture measurement campaign. Students will take soil moisture measurements following the GLOBE SMAP Block Pattern Soil Moisture (Volumetric) Protocol and input this data into...

Greetings from NASA and the SMAP Mission! The SMAP Soil Moisture Measurement Field Campaign begins in 3 days. The NASA SMAP satellite mission wants your soil moisture data. Click HERE for more information.  

Thank you to those that were able to join the webinars today. If you were unable to attend, you can check out the recording of the webinar, presentation, and movie HERE! This will be a great campaign and I look forward to working with all of you. Remember, if you have any questions, please contact me Brian.A.Campbell@nasa.gov The campaign officially starts on October 1, 2015 and runs until...

GLOBE Friends, Greetings from NASA and the SMAP satellite mission! As you know, The GLOBE Program has a collaboration with the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite mission. As part of this collaboration, we have developed the SMAP Block Pattern Soil Moisture Protocol, that allows for the collection of volumetric soil moisture measurements, just like the measurements we get from...

Mission managers for NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory have determined that its radar, one of the satellite's two science instruments, can no longer return data. However, the mission, which was launched in January to map global soil moisture and detect whether soils are frozen or thawed, continues to produce high-quality science measurements supporting SMAP's objectives...

SMAPpers,   The GLOBE/SMAP Soil Moisture Measurement Campaign is almost here! Beginning October 1, 2015 and ending April 30, 2016, we are hoping to get a wide array of GLOBE schools participating.   NASA launched an Earth observing satellite called Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) on January 31, 2015 and its purpose is to measure soil moisture globally with a high level of...

Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, are assessing an anomaly with the radar instrument on NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite observatory. The radar is one of two science instruments on SMAP used to map global soil moisture and detect whether soils are frozen or thawed. See more HERE!

The radar measurements made by NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory are sensitive to whether land surfaces are frozen or thawed. As liquid water freezes in soil, the water molecules become bound in a crystalline lattice, which changes how the incoming radar energy from SMAP interacts with Earth's surface, compared to soil containing freely oriented liquid water molecules. ...

"With its antenna now spinning at full speed, NASA's new Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory has successfully re-tested its science instruments and generated its first global maps, a key step to beginning routine science operations next month." Read more HERE! Brian

So, now that we have a satellite in space called SMAP, why is the data from the spacecraft so important? SMAP will help: Monitor Drought Predict Floods Assist Crop Productivity Improve Weather Forecasting Linking Water, Energy, and Carbon Cycles Read more HERE

To find our where the SMAP spacecraft is, at any time in relation to my school, you can check on the SMAP Orbit Calculator Tool! As you might have noticed in the SMAP Block Pattern Soil Moisture Protocol document, we recommend that measurements be taken and collected around 9:00am local time.  This is due to the SMAP spacecraft's 6am and 6pm local time equator crossings.  In order to...

Hi Everyone, This past week and a half has been rather quiet as we performed two orbital maneuvers. The first maneuver placed the spacecraft at an altitude closer to its final orbit. The second one slightly adjusted the inclination of the orbit to ensure that SMAP goes over the equator at approximately 6:00 am and 6:00 pm every day, which are the ideal times to obtain our science...