NASA Flies Radar South on Wide-Ranging Scientific Expedition

April 3, 2013

Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

Alan Buis
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0474
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 13-097

NASA FLIES RADAR SOUTH ON WIDE-RANGING SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

WASHINGTON -- A versatile NASA airborne imaging radar system is
showcasing its broad scientific prowess for studying our home planet
during a month-long expedition over the Americas.

A NASA C-20A piloted aircraft carrying the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle
Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is wrapping up studies over the
U.S. Gulf Coast, Arizona, and Central and South America. The plane
left NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif.,
on March 7. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena built and
manages UAVSAR.

The campaign is addressing a broad range of science questions, from
the dynamics of Earth's crust and glaciers to the carbon cycle and
the lives of ancient Peruvian civilizations. Flights are being
conducted over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry that sends microwave
energy pulses from the sensor on the aircraft to the ground. This
technique can detect and measure subtle changes in Earth's surface
like those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and glacier
movements. The radar's L-band microwaves can penetrate clouds and the
tops of forests, making it invaluable for studying cloud-covered
tropical environments and mapping flooded ecosystems.

"This campaign highlights UAVSAR's versatility for Earth studies,"
said Naiara Pinto, UAVSAR science coordinator at JPL. "In many cases,
study sites are being used by multiple investigators. For example,
some volcanic sites also have glaciers. The studies also help U.S.
researchers establish and broaden scientific collaborations with
Latin America."

Volcano scientists will compare UAVSAR's images taken during this
campaign with new imagery collected in 2014 in order to measure very
subtle sub-centimeter changes in Earth's surface associated with the
movement of magma at depth beneath active volcanoes. These results
are expected to improve models used to understand and potentially
mitigate volcanic hazards. The volcanoes being studied are in
Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

UAVSAR glacier data from South America's Andes Mountains will be
combined with ground measurements and airborne lidar data to
determine how much these glaciers move during summer and from year to
year. The U.S. Geological Survey is leading the collaborative project
with the Chilean government to understand glacier processes within
the context of climate change impacts from human activities. The
glaciers being imaged by UAVSAR provide freshwater for the residents
of Santiago and water for regional agriculture.

This year's study sites include coastal mangroves in Central and South
America. "Much of Earth's population lives along coasts, and its
livelihood and well-being depend on services provided by marine
ecosystems," said JPL's Marc Simard, one of the campaign's many
principal investigators. "These regions are among the most fragile on
Earth. It is critical to understand how the interactions of human
activities and climate change may impact the sustainability of these
ecosystems."

Another principal investigator, Kyle McDonald, jointly of JPL and the
City University of New York, is leading four data collections that
will support the mapping of wetlands across the greater Amazon River
basin, including Pacaya-Samiria National Park in Peru.
"Pacaya-Samiria contains large expanses of flooded palm swamps,"
McDonald said. "These ecosystems are potential major sources of
atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas. UAVSAR will help us
better understand processes involved with the exchange of methane
between Earth's land and atmosphere, and with the contribution of
these unique ecosystems to Earth's climate."

UAVSAR also is supporting agricultural studies of vineyards in Chile's
La Serenas region. The efforts will help scientists at the
Universidad de La Serena's Terra Pacific Group better understand the
value of soil moisture data in grape and wine production. Another
study site in Argentina will be overflown by both UAVSAR and the
Argentine sensor SARAT as part of a collaboration between research
scientist Thomas Jackson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales. These
studies assist scientists preparing for the launch of NASA's Soil
Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite in 2014.

The radar also is imaging the northern coastal Peruvian desert, where
the Moche culture lived almost 2,000 years ago. Researchers are using
UAVSAR's vegetation and cloud penetrating capabilities to search for
unrecorded archaeological features in an attempt to preserve
sensitive sites from encroaching civilization.

JPL researcher Sassan Saatchi is using UAVSAR to study the structure,
biomass and diversity of tropical cloud forests in the Peruvian Andes
and Manu National Park, continuing his work there during the past
decade. The data will be used to evaluate how much carbon the forests
contain and assess their vulnerability to human and natural
disturbances.

UAVSAR also is monitoring seasonal land subsidence and uplift in
groundwater basins in Arizona's Cochise County for the Arizona
Department of Water Resources. Other subsidence studies in New
Orleans and the Mississippi Delta are aimed at better understanding
what causes Gulf Coast subsidence and predicting future subsidence
rates. The data can help agencies better manage the protection of
infrastructure, including levees in the New Orleans area.

For more information on UAVSAR, visit:

http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov

For more on NASA's Airborne Science program, visit:

http://airbornescience.nasa.gov


-end-



To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov