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SLAP/LIAISE Paper Published

01 December 2023

"High-Resolution Soil Moisture—a European Airborne Campaign Using NASA Goddard’s Scanning L-Band Active Passive (SLAP)," which describes the results from SLAP collected during the Land surface Interactions with the Atmosphere over the Iberian Semi-arid Environment (LIAISE) field campaign, has been published in the journal of Remote Sensing in Earth Systems Sciences.

DOI: 10.1007/s41976-023-00099-4

SLAP Campaigns

SLAP Data

Data Download

The geolocated radiances and geophysical parameters collected by SLAP are posted on the page for each field campaign as they become available. Please explore the list of field campaigns to learn about the flights from each campaign and download SLAP data.

For older versions of SLAP data, the entire published data archive can also be found on Box.

Field Campaigns

Great Salt Lake 2023

On October 2023, SLAP was flown over Great Salt Lake to study high salinity water.

SLAP H-pol radiometer retrieved brightness temperature

scoape II

SCOAPE-II

The success of the May 2019 Satellite Coastal and Oceanic Atmospheric Pollution Experiment (SCOAPE) project motivated the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to renew its partnership with NASA/GSFC in 2022. As with SCOAPE, the primary goal of SCOAPE-II is to explore the ability of NASA resources to monitor and quantify the effects of Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil and natural gas (ONG) emissions on coastal US air quality.

SLAP LIAISE Campaign, Spain 2021

LIAISE Science Target Area

Space Missions

glimr

GLIMR

The Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer (GLIMR) instrument is a hyperspectral ocean color sensor launching after 2026 that targets the Gulf of Mexico and other coastal and ocean waters of North and South America.

Website:

noaa

NOAA-21 VIIRS

The Visible and Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a multi-disciplinary instrument that is being flown on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) series of spacecraft.

Website:

Interactions between aerosols, cloud particles, precipitation, and radiation are central to understanding and predicting weather and severe storm development, air quality, and climate change. Key to ACCP science is that virtually every cloud particle, raindrop and snowflake is born from an aerosol particle, which intimately links aerosol and cloud/precipitation processes.

Atmosphere Observing System

The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) mission goal is to optimize how we examine links among tiny particles known as "aerosols," clouds, atmospheric convection, and precipitation. AOS will deliver key data for improved forecasts of weather, air quality and climate. How? By providing unmatched insight into the vertical structure of our atmosphere with observations from space, our skies, and on the ground.

Research Areas

Outreach

Data Files

Inland Waters (ILW)

HABS

CyAN

Instruments

swesarr

Snow Water Equivalent SAR and Radiometer (SWESARR)

The Snow Water Equivalent Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer (SWESARR) is a new instrument designed to measure the water content in a snowpack. The instrument, developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, uses active and passive microwave sensors to map the radio frequency emissions of the snowpack, which can then be turned into a measurement of snow water equivalent.

Organizations:

SLAP Thermal Infrared

SLAP’s thermal infra-red (TIR) sensor is used to estimate the physical temperature of each footprint on the ground during a science flight. This information is needed by many algorithms—for example, the L2 passive soil moisture algorithm. SLAP uses the CTF-SF15-C1 made by Micro-Epsilon for this measurement.

Organizations:

SLAP Radar

The radar in SLAP utilizes simple scatterometer design with single string used as transmitter and simultaneous V and H chains used as receivers. It provides VV, HH, VH and HV polarization channels. It operated at radio frequency of 1.2625 GHz with flexibility for adjusting to RFI frequencies. It transmits power of 50 W with duty cycle of 0.2%. Internal hot and ambient loads, external anechoic foam and cold sky were used for calibration purpose.

Organizations:

Models

mmdg

Mesoscale Modeling & Dynamics Group

Welcome to the Mesoscale Dynamics & Modeling Group. Our mission is to conduct research to understand the physics and dynamics of atmospheric processes through the use of computer-based simulations and various observations, including satellite remote sensing, aircraft and surface-based in-situ observations.

mmf

Coupled fvGCM-GCE MMF (Multi-scale Modeling Framework)

The diurnal cycle is a fundamental mode of atmospheric variability and has a major impact on weather and climate prediction. In addition, it provides a robust test of physical processes represented in atmospheric models that are used for studying the water and energy cycles. Most climate models simulate precipitation too early over both land and ocean.

gcm

General Circulation Models (fvGCM)

It is known that General Circulation Models (GCMs) have insufficient resolution to accurately simulate hurricane near-eye structure and intensity. Their physics packages (e.g., cumulus parameterizations) are also known limiting factors in simulating hurricanes.