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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Cliffs slope into the ocean in San Simeon, California. All along the state’s dynamic coastline, land is inching down and up due to natural and human-caused factors. A bet-ter understanding of this motion can help communities prepare for rising seas.NASA/JPL-Caltech The elevation changes may seem small — amounting to fractions of inches per year — but they can increase or decrease local flood risk, wave exposure, and saltwater intrusion.
Tracking and predicting sea level rise involves more than measuring the height of our oceans: Land along coastlines also inches up and down in elevation. Using California as a case study, a NASA-led team has shown how seemingly modest vertical land motion could significantly impact local sea levels in coming decades.
By 2050, sea levels in California are expected to increase between 6 and 14.5 feet (15 and 37 centimeters) higher than year 2000 levels. Melting glaciers and ice sheets, as well as warming ocean water, are primarily driving the rise. As coastal communities develop adaptation strategies, they can also benefit from a better understanding of the land’s role, the team said. The findings are being used in updated guidance for the state.
“In many parts of the world, like the reclaimed ground beneath San Francisco, the land is moving down faster than the sea itself is going up,” said lead author Marin Govorcin, a remote sensing scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The new study illustrates how vertical land motion can be unpredictable in scale and speed; it results from both human-caused factors such as groundwater pumping and wastewater injection, as well as from natural ones like tectonic activity. The researchers showed how direct satellite observations can improve estimates of vertical land motion and relative sea level rise. Current models, which are based on tide gauge measurements, cannot cover every location and all the dynamic land motion at work within a given region.
Local Changes
Researchers from JPL and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used satellite radar to track more than a thousand miles of California coast rising and sinking in new detail. They pinpointed hot spots — including cities, beaches, and aquifers — at greater exposure to rising seas now and in coming decades.
To capture localized motion inch by inch from space, the team analyzed radar measurements made by ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Sentinel-1 satellites, as well as motion velocity data from ground-based receiving stations in the Global Navigation Satellite System. Researchers compared multiple observations of the same locations made between 2015 to 2023 using a processing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR).
Scientists mapped land sinking (indicated in blue) in coastal California cities and in parts of the Central Valley due to factors like soil compaction, erosion, and groundwater withdrawal. They also tracked uplift hot spots (shown in red), including in Long Beach, a site of oil and gas production. NASA Earth Observatory Homing in on the San Francisco Bay Area — specifically, San Rafael, Corte Madera, Foster City, and Bay Farm Island — the team found the land subsiding at a steady rate of more than 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) per year due largely to sediment compaction. Accounting for this subsidence in the lowest-lying parts of these areas, local sea levels could rise more than 17 inches (45 centimeters) by 2050. That’s more than double the regional estimate of 7.4 inches (19 centimeters) based solely on tide gauge projections.
Not all coastal locations in California are sinking. The researchers mapped uplift hot spots of several millimeters per year in the Santa Barbara groundwater basin, which has been steadily replenishing since 2018. They also observed uplift in Long Beach, where fluid extraction and injection occur with oil and gas production.
The scientists further calculated how human-induced drivers of local land motion increase uncertainties in the sea level projections by up to 15 inches (40 centimeters) in parts of Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Reliable projections in these areas are challenging because the unpredictable nature of human activities, such as hydrocarbon production and groundwater extraction, necessitating ongoing monitoring of land motion.
Fluctuating Aquifers, Slow-Moving Landslides
In the middle of California, in the fast-sinking parts of the Central Valley (subsiding as much as 8 inches, or 20 centimeters, per year), land motion is influenced by groundwater withdrawal. Periods of drought and precipitation can alternately draw down or inflate underground aquifers. Such fluctuations were also observed over aquifers in Santa Clara in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Ana in Orange County, and Chula Vista in San Diego County.
Along rugged coastal terrain like the Big Sur mountains below San Francisco and Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles, the team pinpointed local zones of downward motion associated with slow-moving landslides. In Northern California they also found sinking trends at marshlands and lagoons around San Francisco and Monterey bays, and in Sonoma County’s Russian River estuary. Erosion in these areas likely played a key factor.
Scientists, decision-makers, and the public can monitor these and other changes occurring via the JPL-led OPERA (Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis) project. The OPERA project details land surface elevational changes across North America, shedding light on dynamic processes including subsidence, tectonics, and landslides.
The OPERA project will leverage additional state-of-the-art InSAR data from the upcoming NISAR (NASA-Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission, expected to launch within the coming months.
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
Written by Sally Younger
2025-015
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Last Updated Feb 10, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Credit: NASA The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), an advisory committee that reports to NASA and Congress, issued its 2024 annual report Thursday examining the agency’s safety performance, accomplishments, and challenges during the past year.
The report highlights 2024 activities and observations on NASA’s work, including:
strategic vision and agency governance Moon to Mars management future of U.S. presence in low Earth orbit health and medical risks in human space exploration “Over the past year, NASA has continued to make meaningful progress toward meeting the intent of the broad-ranging recommendations the panel has made over the last several years,” said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan J. Helms, chair of ASAP. “We believe that the agency’s careful attention to vision, strategy, governance, and program management is vital to the safe execution of NASA’s complex and critical national mission.”
This year’s report reflects the panel’s continued focus on NASA’s strategies for risk management and safety culture in an environment of growing space commercialization. Specifically, the panel cites its 2021 recommendations for NASA on preparing for future challenges in a changing landscape, including the need to evaluate NASA’s approach to safety and technical risk and to evolve its role, responsibilities, and relationships with private sector and international partners.
Overall, the panel finds NASA is continuing to make progress with respect to the agency’s strategic vision, approach to governance, and integrated program management. The NASA 2040 new agencywide initiative is working to operationalize the agency’s vision and strategic objectives across headquarters and centers. With the establishment of NASA’s Moon to Mars Program Office in 2023, it finds NASA has implemented safety and risk management as a key focus for NASA’s Artemis campaign.
The 2024 report provides details on the concrete actions the agency should take to fulfill its previous recommendations and spotlights its recommendations for the agency moving ahead. It addresses safety assessments for Moon to Mars and current International Space Station operations, as well as risk-related issues surrounding NASA’s planned transition to commercial low Earth orbit destinations.
It covers relevant areas of human health and medicine in space and the impact of budget constraints and uncertainty on safety.
The annual report is based on the panel’s 2024 fact-finding and quarterly public meetings; direct observations of NASA operations and decision-making; discussions with NASA management, employees, and contractors; and the panel members’ experiences.
Congress established the panel in 1968 to provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA administrator on safety matters after the 1967 Apollo 1 fire claimed the lives of three American astronauts.
To learn more about the ASAP, and view annual reports, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/asap
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Jennifer Dooren / Elizabeth Shaw
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
jennifer.m.dooren@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.shaw@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 06, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
NASA’s Cloud-based Confluence Software Helps Hydrologists Study Rivers on a Global Scale
The Paraná River in northern Argentina. Confluence, which is open-source and free to use, allows researchers to estimate river discharge and suspended sediment levels in Earth’s rivers at a global scale. NASA/ISS Rivers and streams wrap around Earth in complex networks millions of miles long, driving trade, nurturing ecosystems, and stocking critical reserves of freshwater.
But the hydrologists who dedicate their professional lives to studying this immense web of waterways do so with a relatively limited set of tools. Around the world, a patchwork of just 3,000 or so river gauge stations supply regular, reliable data, making it difficult for hydrologists to detect global trends.
“The best way to study a river,” said Colin Gleason, Armstrong Professional Development Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “is to get your feet wet and visit it yourself. The second best way to study a river is to use a river gauge.”
Now, thanks to Gleason and a team of more than 30 researchers, there’s another option: ‘Confluence,’ an analytic collaborative framework that leverages data from NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission and the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 archive (HLS) to estimate river discharge and suspended sediment levels in every river on Earth wider than 50 meters. NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) hosts the software, making it open-source and free for users around the world.
By incorporating both altimetry data from SWOT which informs discharge estimates, and optical data from HLS, which informs estimates of suspended sediment data, Confluence marks the first time hydrologists can create timely models of river size and water quality at a global scale. Compared to existing workflows for estimating suspended sediment using HLS data, Confluence is faster by a factor of 30.
I can’t do global satellite hydrology without this system. Or, I could, but it would be extremely time consuming and expensive.
Colin Gleason
Nikki Tebaldi, a Cloud Adoption Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Co-Investigator for Confluence, was the lead developer on this project. She said that while the individual components of Confluence have been around for decades, bringing them together within a single, cloud-based processing pipeline was a significant challenge.
“I’m really proud that we’ve pieced together all of these different algorithms, got them into the cloud, and we have them all executing commands and working,” said Tebaldi.
Suresh Vannan, former manager of PO.DAAC and a Co-Investigator for Confluence, said this new ability to produce timely, global estimates of river discharge and quality will have a huge impact on hydrological models assessing everything from the health of river ecosystems to snowmelt.
“There are a bunch of science applications that river discharge can be used for, because it’s pretty much taking a snapshot of what the river looks like, how it behaves. Producing that snapshot on a global scale is a game changer,” said Vannan.
While the Confluence team is still working with PO.DAAC to complete their software package, users can currently access the Confluence source code here. For tutorials, manuals, and other user guides, visit the PO.DAAC webpage here.
All of these improvements to the original Confluence algorithms developed for SWOT were made possible by NASA’s Advanced Intelligent Systems Technology (AIST) program, a part of the agency’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), in collaboration with SWOT and PO.DAAC.
To learn more about opportunities to develop next-generation technologies for studying Earth from outer space, visit ESTO’s solicitation page here.
Project Lead: Colin Gleason / University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Sponsoring Organization: Advanced Intelligent Systems Technology program, within NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office
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Last Updated Feb 04, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Caption: Illustration of the four PUNCH spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 4, to share information about the agency’s upcoming PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 27.
The agency’s PUNCH mission is a constellation of four small satellites. When they arrive in low Earth orbit, the satellites will make global, 3D observations of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, and help NASA learn how the mass and energy there become solar wind. By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:
https://www.nasa.gov/live
Participants include:
Madhulika Guhathakurta, NASA program scientist, NASA Headquarters Nicholeen Viall, PUNCH mission scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Craig DeForest, PUNCH principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute To participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 12 p.m. on Feb. 4 to: Abbey Interrante at: abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
The PUNCH mission will share a ride to space with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) space telescope on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, leads the PUNCH mission. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
To learn more about PUNCH, please visit:
https://nasa.gov/punch
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Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.fox@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
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By NASA
In 2023, NASA Langley’s workforce brought imagination to reality with innovative technological development and a continued commitment to tackling some of the tough challenges that both NASA and the nation face.
NASA At NASA, we aspire to know more, dig deeper, climb higher and along the way we are asking, ‘What if?’,” said NASA Langley Center Director Clayton P. Turner in an introductory message to Langley’s 2023 Annual Report. “Our inquisitive nature propels us on our mission to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”
All year, the Langley workforce pondered and planned for a future alongside self-flying drones, aircraft with reduced emissions, air travel that benefits from greater fuel efficiency and space exploration assisted by inflatable heat shields that could give us the ability to carry greater payloads than ever before.
“We invite you to explore all that NASA’s Langley Research Center has to offer — our amazing people, unique capabilities, and legacy of success,” Turner said in his introduction.
Use this link to explore the 2023 Annual Report for NASA’s Langley Research Center.
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