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Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory (614)

Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory (614)

Mission Statement

To explore and understand the Earth's hydrosphere and biosphere, and the linkages between the oceans, land, atmosphere and life on Earth.

The Blue Marble

This mission supports NASA and the nation by conceiving, developing, and implementing cutting-edge observations from space to enable community-wide climate, hydrologic and Biospheric research that addresses issues of importance to society. Our mission defines the multiple roles that the HBSL serves as a federal research and development organization. The Laboratory's water cycle on Earth and Terrestrial Ecosystems foci are closely aligned with NASA's mission to "understand and protect our home planet" and to "improve life here". As a part of our mission, we accept the challenge of the President's vision of exploration as we apply our expertise "to explore the universe and search for life".

Laboratory Overview

Free Public Presentations By Leading NASA Scientists

Free Public Presentations By Leading NASA Scientists

Made Possible by The Library of Congress and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Partnership

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Earth Sciences Seminar and Conference Information

Earth Sciences Seminar and Conference Information
614.3 Seminar Contact: Joseph Santanello

Blogs & Features

Greenland Blog Greenland Summit Blog This research is taking place at Summit Station, Greenland from November 2008 to mid-February 2009. Summit is an National Science Foundation (NSF) supported station on the Greenland Ice Sheet that houses around 40 scientist and staff in the summer months and 4 in the winter. The web address for the station, that includes a webcam link, is www.summitcamp.org. This station is located where the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core was taken.

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PIG Ice Shelf BlogPIG Ice Shelf Blog This project’s official title is "Ocean-Ice Interaction in the Amundsen Sea: the Keystone to Ice-Sheet Stability". A real mouthful, but it captures the essence of what we intend to do, where we will do it and why we feel it is important to do it. Various other measurements have captured the West Antarctic ice sheet changing very rapidly in the region where it flows into the Amundsen Sea, one of the sectors of the Southern Ocean. The spatial pattern strongly suggests that the cause of this change is weaker ice shelves, the floating apron of ice that fringe the perimeter of the ice sheet. Our hypothesis is that warm water is melting the undersides of these ice shelves decreasing the "back pressure" from the ice shelves to help hold the ice sheet. Less backpressure means the ice sheet can flow faster. Faster flow-smaller ice sheet-higher sea levels-slow motion coastal flooding worldwide.

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Project Highlights

Digital rendering of ICESat
ICESat
Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite
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Aquarius
Aquarius
Measuring Global Sea Surface Salinity
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SeaWiFS
SeaWiFS
Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
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Landsat 7
Landsat 7
Acquiring images of the Earth's land surface
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NPOESS
NPOESS Preparatory Project
National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System
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AERONET
AERONET
Aerosol Robotic Network
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OceanColor
OceanColor
OceanColor homepage
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MODIS Rapid Response System
MODIS Rapid Response System
Rapid access to MODIS data
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Science on a Sphere icon
SOS
Science on a Sphere
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LIMA: Faces of Antarctica Website
LIMA: Faces of Antarctica
The NASA LIMA Faces of Antarctica Website
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The MODIS Snow/Ice Global Mapping Project Website
MODIS Snow/Ice
The MODIS Snow/Ice Global Mapping Project
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SMAP Image
SMAP
Soil Moisture Active Passive
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Contact Us

Questions or Comments

General inquiries about the scientific programs at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center may be directed to the Center Public Affairs office at 1.301.286.8955
> PAO's Questions and Comments Page

 

Calendar

Terrestrial Water Cycle Seminar Series

Terrestrial Water Cycle Seminar: Dr. Wade Crow (USDA)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Our knowledge of error in remotely-sensed surface soil moisture retrievals is currently hampered by a lack of soil moisture ground networks with sufficient spatial sampling density to provide direc…

Terrestrial Water Cycle Seminar: Dr. Randy Koster and Dr. Rolf Reichle (GMAO)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP)  mission and the Level 4 Surface and Root-zone Soil Moisture (L4_SM) product…

Terrestrial Water Cycle Seminar: TBA
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Abstract unavailable...…

Science Highlights

2009   2008   2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002   2001  

Funding Opportunities

Click here for a full listing and related resources (Updated August 29, 2008)

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