Author's posts
Nov 26 2008
Remote Sensing Data Assimilation
We have developed a computational framework for data assimilation of Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation absorbed by vegetation (FPAR) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to constrain empirical temperature, light, moisture and structural vegetation parameters in a prognostic phenology model. It uses the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) after …
Jan 01 2007
Blue Marble images on the IPCC 4th assessment report (2007)
The Blue Marble western and eastern hemispheres by Reto Stöckli (NASA Earth Observatory) are displayed to the left as printed on the front cover of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 4th assessment WGI report “The Physical Science Basis”. These images integrate land, ocean, sea ice and clouds into a visual representation of …
Nov 27 2006
The European Heat wave of 2003 as seen from MODIS
Europe was experiencing a historic heat wave during the summer 2003. Compared to the long term climatological mean, temperatures in July 2003 were sizzling. Figure 1 below shows the differences in day time land surface temperatures of 2003 to the ones collected in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) …
Jan 01 2006
Terra satellite launch & deploy (Remake from 2006)
For Terra’s 5th anniversary I have created a remake of the original launch & deploy 3D animation:
Dec 23 2005
Land use change in Sumatra
The Swiss NGO Paneco is engaged in Sumatra (Indonesia) where anthropogenic land use changes threaten local fauna and flora. The collaboration with Paneco has started with a small project that aimed at diagnosing rainfall intensity of a storm from TRMM 3B42 space radar data due to a lack of locally available rain gauges. The project …
Jan 01 2005
Blue Marble Next Generation
The Blue Marble Next Generation (BMNG, 2005) is a cloud-free global satellite data set offering great spatial detail. It spans a longer data collection period than the original Blue Marble from 2000 and 2002. The original Blue Marble was a composite of four months of MODIS observations with a spatial resolution (level of detail) of …
Jan 01 2005
Blue Marble Next Generation Monthly Composites
A monthly collection of earth close-up images Click on the respectiv images to get larger versions. January 2004 Kenya February 2004 Lake Etosha March 2004 Sahara Desert April 2004 The Alps May 2004 The Himalayas June 2004 The Andes July 2004 Salt Lake City August 2004 Eastern Greenland September 2004 Patagonia October 2004 The Okawango Delta November 2004 Indonesian Islands December 2004 The Bahamas
Oct 01 2004
PhD Thesis
Modeling and observations of seasonal land-surface heat and water exchanges at local and catchment scales over Europe (Doctoral thesis ETH No. 15742) The land surface plays an important role in the global climate system, because it interacts dynamically with the atmosphere through manifold feedback mechanisms on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. While …
Jul 15 2004
Aura satellite launch & deploy
Aura is a earth observing satellite and it is part of NASA Earth Observing System (EOS). Aura’s four instruments study the atmosphere’s chemistry and dynamics. Aura’s measurements will enable us to investigate questions about ozone trends, air quality changes and their linkage to climate change. Aura’s measurements will provide accurate data for predictive models and …
Jan 01 2004
The European Fourier-adjusted and Interpolated NDVI (EFAI NDVI)
The EFAI NDVI is a high resolution land surface parameter dataset for climate modeling and mesoscale weather simulations. It was derived from the 20 year long NASA/NOAA AVHRR Pathfinder NDVI dataset, which is available in 10 day temporal and 0.1 degree spatial resolution for global area coverage. The variability of vegetation state and function motivates …