Ice Area Losses near Puncak Jaya, Indonesia From Landsat Christopher A. Shuman1, Compton J. Tucker2, Katherine A. Melocik3, and Rikke D. Jepsen3 1UMBC Joint Center for Earth Technology; 2NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and 3Science Systems and Applications, Inc. Landsat 2 Landsat 4 Landsat 5 A Landsat 2 MSS West Multispectral Scanner Multispectral Scanner Thematic Mapper image taken on Northwall 8 Aug. 1980 9 Sep. 1982 3 Nov. 1988 6.34 km2 6.07 km2 4.67 km2 th the 8 of August Firn East Northwall 1980 begins a Firn time series that now extends to a Meren Southwall Glacier Landsat 8 OLI Hanging Firn Carstensz image from the Glacier th Landsat 5 Landsat 7 Landsat 5 11 of March Thematic Mapper Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ Thematic Mapper 2018. These nine 17 Nov. 1993 9 Oct. 1999 14 Oct. 2004 3.36 km2 2.74 km2 1.88 km2 images detail ongoing losses from the last glacier area in tropical Asia. Each scene is Landsat 5 Landsat 8 Landsat 8 labeled with the Thematic Mapper Operational Land Imager Operational Land Imager sensor, date, 28 Oct. 2009 13 Oct. 2015 11 Mar. 2018 1.29 km2 0.56 km2 0.47 km2 and the total ice area remaining. Average area loss over 37.588 years is 0.156 km2 per year Earth Sciences Division – Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics Name: Christopher A. Shuman, Cryospheric Sciences, NASA GSFC and UMBC JCET E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Phone: 301-614-5706 References: Glaciers in the Tropics, but Not for Long, 14 Feb. 2018: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91716 Decline of the Last Glaciers in the Eastern Tropics,14 Dec. 2016: https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/decline-of-the-last-glaciers-in-the-eastern-tropics/ Klein, A.G. and J.L. Kincaid, Retreat of glaciers on Puncak Jaya, Irian Jaya, determined from 2000 and 2002 IKONOS satellite images, Journal of Glaciology, vol. 52/176 pp. 65-79, https://doi.org/10.3189/172756506781828818 Glaciers of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386-H-1 https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386h/indonesia/intoc.html Hope G.S., Peterson J.A. Radok U. and Allison I., 1976. The equatorial glaciers of New Guinea – results of the 1971–1973 Australian Universities’ expeditions to Irian Jaya: survey, glaciology, meteorology, biology and paleoenvironments. Rotterdam , Balkema A.A. (see older oblique aerial and ground- based photographs in Chapter 3 here: http://papuaweb.org/dlib/bk/hope1976/index.html). Data Sources: Landsat 2, 4 Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper + (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) multispectral were used to create this time series of ice losses in this mountain region since 1980. A slightly larger area has been prepared for the hyperwall to encompass the Grasberg Mine and a tiny ice remnant near Ngga Pilimsit to the west of the mine. Ice Losses in the Tropics: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30938 Technical Description of Figure 1: The figure shows nine subsets of individual false-color multispectral Landsat scenes selected for low/no snow or cloud cover and fairly high southern hemisphere sun angle. A number of the images selected show dark blue bare ice while others show that some whiter snow or possibly firn from a previous year was still visible, typically at higher elevations. The 1980 MSS scene indicates one pixel may contain a melt pond. The ETM+ image appears to be a bit saturated. Each scene area is 9.18 x 7.62 km. The time series shown here shows that the ice loss is due to thinning that reveals bedrock knobs or ridges and leads to fragmentation of the remaining ice. The full Landsat archive was investigated for useable images and the available image series shows that the Meren Glacier, in a valley between the two highest parts of the mountainous terrain, was lost by 1998. The Southwall Hanging Firn, in the shadow of the 4884 m peak of Puncak Jaya was lost by 2005 and the shrinking West Northwall Firn area was gone by 2012. As discussed in Klein and Kincaid (2006), two small glaciers at the eastern end of the Carstensz Glacier were indistinguishable from it by the turn of this century. Because the remaining East Northwall Firn is near the second and third highest peaks in the area, Sumantri and Ngga Pulu (4870 and 4863 m respectively), it may last longer than the Carstensz Glacier remnant and both may be gone before 2030. An earlier Landsat 1 MSS scene from 1974 April 27 was used in USGS 1386-H-1 and shows the three main eastern glacial ice masses were probably continuous at that time but that image is only available on film now. Image processing was done with PCI-Geomatica and area estimates were generated by unsupervised classification in that program by two operators (CAS and RDJ). Further image processing was done in Adobe Photoshop with final annotations added in PowerPoint. The 1982 image was repositioned due to its initial poor geolocation processing by James Storey (SGT) here at GSFC. All MSS images are currently undergoing reprocessing by the USGS. Scientific significance, societal relevance, and relationships to future missions: The continuing observations from the Landsat series of sensors in areas of dramatic cryospheric change provides compelling visuals for the public, scientific colleagues, and policymakers. The ability of Landsat’s sensors to detail glaciological features is very well shown in this ~38 year time series. Earth Sciences Division – Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics From microscopy to spectroscopy: unravelling spatio-temporal phytoplankton distributions from space A.R. Neeley1,2 1Ocean Ecology Laboratory (616) NASA GSFC 2University of Maryland, UMCES (b) Arctic Ocean (a) (c) Nanophytoplankton Microphytoplankton Picophytoplankton Chukchi Sea Alaska Figure 1 Figure 2 Fractional concentration The number of satellite algorithms for deriving phytoplankton functional types (PFTs) and size classes (PSCs) has grown dramatically, as has the demand for such products for applications from assessing climate change impacts on marine ecosystems. The purpose of this study is to use water column measurements of phytoplankton taxonomy, such as from microscopy, and optical properties (remote sensing reflectances, absorption and scattering) to ground-truth multiple PFT and PSC algorithms applied to the Chukchi Sea Region. Earth Sciences Division – Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics Name: Aimee R. Neeley, Ocean Ecology Laboratory (616), NASA GSFC E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 301-614-5778 References: Hirata, T. et al., 2011. Synoptic relationships between surface chlorophyll-a and diagnostic pigments specific to phytoplankton functional types. Biogeosciences , Volume 8, p. 311–327. Overland, J. E., & Wang, M. (2013). When will the summer Arctic be nearly sea ice free? Geophysical Research Letters, 40(10), 2097-2101. Mathis, J. T., Grebmeier, J. M., Hansell, D. A., Hopcroft, R. R., Kirchman, D. L., Lee, S. H., et al. (2014). Carbon biogeochemistry of the western Arctic: Primary production, carbon export and the controls on ocean acidification. In The Pacific Arctic Region (pp. 223-268): Springer. Tremblay, J.-É., Simpson, K., Martin, J., Miller, L., Gratton, Y., Barber, D., & Price, N. M. (2008). Vertical stability and the annual dynamics of nutrients and chlorophyll fluorescence in the coastal, southeast Beaufort Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 113(C7), doi:10.1029/2007JC004547. Data Sources: MODIS Aqua by the Ocean Biology Processing Group, Ocean Ecology Laboratory (616), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Figures were created using NASA’s SeaDAS software. Technical Description of Figures: th Figure 1: True color image of the Chukchi Sea and Arctic Ocean from MODIS Aqua on July 19 , 2011. Figure 2: Fractional contribution of (a) large (b) medium and (c) small phytoplankton to the phytoplankton community derived from a chlorophyll-based PSC algorithm. Scientific significance, societal relevance, and relationships to future missions: Sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean is declining at an alarming rate, leading to predictions that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer as early as 2020. The expected consequences of ice-free summers are longer open water duration and an extended growth season for pelagic phytoplankton. It is timely to consider how phytoplankton communities will respond to longer periods of seasonally open water. Time series ocean color data are important for understanding phytoplankton bloom dynamics. It is important to evaluate and improve the accuracy of PFT algorithm output so that these algorithms can be used to evaluate shifts in phytoplankton communities in both size and functional groups in the Chukchi Sea as well as the global ocean. Application of PFT algorithms in this manner will also serve as a proof of concept for future efforts to derive greater insight into phytoplankton ecology from satellite based monitoring. Earth Sciences Division – Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics The Operational Inland Water Height Data Product for ICESat-2: Algorithm Development and Testing Michael Jasinski1, Jeremy Stoll 1,2 1Hydrological Sciences Laboratory/617, 2SSAI, Inc. A global, operational, Inland Water Height Data Product has been developed for ICESat-2. The principal product consists of along track surface water height statistics for each of six ICESat-2 beams, including mean, standard deviation and slope, for up to 300,000 water bodies greater than ~ 3 km2, to be traversed during the ICESat-2 mission. Earth Sciences Division – Hydrosphere, Biosphere and Geophysics Name: Michael Jasinski, Hydrological Sciences Lab/617, NASA GSFC E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 301-614-5782 References: Jasinski, M.; Stoll, J.; Cook, W.; Ondrusek, M.; Stengel, E., and Brunt, K., 2016. Inland and Near-Shore Water Profiles Derived from the High-Altitude Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL). Journal of Coastal Research, SI No.