ANNUAL REPORT 2011-2012 ANNUAL Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research Studies and Investigations GESTAR STAFF Abuhassan, Nader Jethva, Hiren Radcliff, Matthew Achuthavarier, Deepthi Jin, Jianjun Randles, Cynthia Anyamba, Assaf Jones, Randall Reale, Oreste Baird, Steve Jusem, Juan Carlos Retscher, Christian Barahona, Donifan Kekesi, Alex Reyes, Malissa Beck, Jefferson Kim, Dongchul Rousseaux, Cecile Bell, Benita Kim, Hyokyung Sayer, Andrew Belvedere, Debbie Kim, Kyu-Myong Schiffer, Robert Bindschadler, Robert Kniffen, Don Schindler, Trent Bridgman, Tom Korkin, Sergey Selkirk, Henry Brucker, Ludovic Kostis, Helen-Nicole Sharghi, Kayvon Brunt, Kelly Kowalewski, Matthew Shi, Jainn Jong (Roger) Buchard-Marchant, Virginie Kreutzinger, Rachel Sippel, Jason Burger, Matthew Kucsera, Tom Smith, Sarah Celarier, Edward Kurtz, Nathan Soebiyanto, Radina Chang, Yehui Kurylo, Michael Sokolowsky, Eric Chase, Tyler Lait, Leslie Southard, Adrian Chern, Jiun-Dar Lamsal, Lok Starr, Cynthia Chettri, Samir Laughlin, Daniel Steenrod, Stephen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Colombo, Oscar Lawford, Richard Stoyanova, Silvia Corso, William Lee, Dong Min Strahan, Susan Cote, Charles Lentz, Michael Strode, Sarah Dalnekoff, Julie Lewis, Katherine Sun, Zhibin Damoah, Richard Li, Feng Swanson, Andrew De Lannoy, Gabrielle J. Li, Xiaowen Taha, Ghassan de Matthaeis, Paolo Liang, Qing Tan, Qian Diehl, Thomas Liao, Liang Tao, Zhining Draper, Clara Lim, Young-Kwon Tian, Lin Duberstein, Genna Lin, Xin Ungar, Stephen Eck, Thomas Lyu, Chen-Hsuan (Joseph) Unninayar, Sushel Errico, Ronald Majedi, Amir Utku, Cuneyt Farhadi, Leila Malespin, Charles Vikhliaev, Yury Fitzgibbons, Ryan Mao, Jianping Wang, James Follette-Cook, Melanie Marchant, Benjamin Weaver, Clark Gallagher, Dan Margolis, Hank Wen, Guoyong Garner, Robert Meyer, Kerry Wiessinger, Scott Gassó, Santiago Mohammed, Priscilla Willard, Sean Gatebe, Charles Molnar, Gyula Williams, James Gautam, Ritesh Morgan, Dagmar Wright, Ernest Gong, Jie Mounirou Toure, Ally Yang, Weidong Grecu, Mircea Norris, Peter Yang, Yuekui Gupta, Pawan Olsen, Mark Yasunari, Teppei Ham, Yoo-Geun Pan, Xiaohua Zeng, Xiping Han, Mei Patadia, Falguni Zhang, Qingyuan Holdaway, Daniel Peng, Jinzheng Zhang, Yan Houghton, Amy Plummer, Joel Zhou, Yaping Huang, Jingfeng Potter, Gerald Ziemke, Jerald Hurwitz, Margaret Prive, Nikki Zuber, Ryan Technical Editor Amy Houghton Editorial Assistants Sean Willard Stacy Bowles Graphic Design Erin Carver TABLE of CONTENTS TABLE Letter from GESTAR Director..................................4 The GESTAR Team....................................................5 Technical Research.................................................6 Delivering the Message........................................46 Products..................................................................52 Student Engagements/EPO.................................54 Awards....................................................................55 Acronyms................................................................56 Missions Overview.................................................60 LETTER from GESTAR DIRECTOR June 8, 2012 We are pleased to offer this first NASA Goddard Earth Sciences, Technology, and Research (GESTAR) Cooperative Agreement Annual Report for the period: 11 May 2011 – 10 May 2012. NASA awarded GESTAR to the team of Univer- sities Space Research Association (USRA), Morgan State University (MSU), Johns Hopkins University (JHU), I.M. Systems Group (IMSG), Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), and Ball Aerospace. During this initial year, USRA, Morgan State, and IMSG focused on transitioning approximately 120 ongoing, scientific and technical projects with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) sponsors and collaborators. Additionally, nearly40 new projects were added to GESTAR’s portfolio. This report summarizes multidisciplinary efforts of GESTAR-affiliated research- ers, technologists, students, visitors, and staff. We describe accomplishments for the past year and technical progress in all research areas identified in the GESTAR Annual Research Program Plan, submitted to NASA on 10 June 2011. Within the report and its appendices are: a) abstracts and papers published by GESTAR-affiliated staff; b) GESTAR-affiliated presentations at conferences, seminars, and workshops; c) education and public outreach engagements by GESTAR-affiliated staff; d) awards received by GESTAR-affiliated staff; and e) engagement of GESTAR-affiliated staff in reviewing/advising/committee participation activities. In hindsight, this past year has been extraordinary. Everyone at GESTAR has worked diligently with our NASA sponsors/collaborators to ensure continuity of critically important projects that support NASA’s mission in Earth Sciences and beyond. Their efforts have resulted in many substantive accomplishments, highlighted in this report. Our sincerest thanks go out to all for their commit- ment and professionalism. With this year’s experiences, we are wiser. We look forward to applying our knowledge to the upcoming year to ensure GESTAR exceeds expectations. William Corso Joseph Wittaker Darryn Waugh Le Jiang 4 | GESTAR Annual Report 2011 - 2012 The GESTAR TEAM GESTAR MANAGMENT TEAM GESTAR Director: Dr. William Corso Associate Director: Dr. Darryn Waugh, JHU Associate Director: Dr. Joseph Whittaker, MSU Associate Director: Dr. Le Jiang, ISMG Business Administrator: Ms. Dagmar Morgan Founded in 1969, Universities Space Research Association Morgan State University (MSU), founded in 1867, is one of the (USRA) is an independent nonprofit research corporation that nation’s premier Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HB- conducts basic and applied research and operates programs and CUs). The University offers a comprehensive program of studies national facilities for government and industry, many of which are at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Morgan State has in support of NASA. USRA currently manages 20 programs and continuously served the community with distinction while meeting facilities that employ more than 400 scientific, technical, and the educational needs of an increasingly diverse society. Desig- professional staff. With 105 university members, USRA provides nated as Maryland’s Public Urban University, MSU will continue a unique and special value that other research organizations do its prominence in Maryland’s educational future. In many fields, not. Only PhD-granting universities in Earth and space sciences particularly in engineering and the sciences, MSU accounts for with demonstrated outstanding research abilities are eligible for large percentages of degrees received by African-Americans from membership in USRA. USRA’s mission is to advance Earth and Maryland institutions. At the graduate level, it awards doctoral space sciences and exploration through innovative research, and master’s degrees in several selected fields. The University technology, and educational programs, and to develop and oper- has made a major commitment to academic excellence, investing ate premier facilities and programs by involving universities, the substantial resources to enhance its research infrastructure, and private sector, and governments. stimulate research development in a broad range of disciplines, especially STEM. In addition to the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Founded in 1876 as the first research university in the United School of Engineering complex, MSU has the Estuarine Research States, The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is one of the lead- Center, the Richard N. Dixon Science Research Center, a state- ing research institutions in the nation. JHU is composed of of-the-art research facility that provides space for specialized nine academic divisions, including Arts & Sciences, Education, research laboratories in physics, chemistry, and biology, and the Engineering, the School of Public Health, plus JHU Applied Physics modern Murphy Fine Arts Center. Laboratory. The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences is the home of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. A major I.M. Systems Group (IMSG) has over 15 years of providing envi- focus within this department is global change science, with active ronmental, scientific, technical, and I support to the US govern- research groups in atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrospheric sci- ment as well as environmental services to government agencies ences as well as planetary geodynamics. The department main- in Africa and Asia. Over 60% of its workforce has advanced tains state-of-the-art design and engineering facilities, as well as degrees with over 100 PhD researchers. IMSG is NOAA’s largest laboratories for high performance computing and large-scale data support service, with its largest concentration of researchers and analysis that are also being used for Earth system science. JHU’s support scientists in the Satellite Applications Research Center Whiting School of Engineering consists of faculty who possess and the NWS Environmental Modeling Center. experimental, computational, robotic and modeling capabilities. Additionally, faculty at the School of Public Health are involved Rounding out the GESTAR Team are Ball Aerospace and Tech- with the application of Earth system science and remote sensing nologies and The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies to the study and teaching of public/environmental health. (IGES). GESTAR Management continues to work to identify ap- propriate, GESTAR-affiliated activities in which they may become meaningfully engaged. GESTAR Annual Report