GeoWorld

Time-sensitive GeoWorld departments such as NetLink, PeopleLink, Product News and Business News now are maintained solely at the GeoPlace.com Web site. Check there often for the latest updates as they happen. knowhow for applying the technologies for emergency planning, mitigation, response and recovery. As part of the partnership agreement, GITA will contribute educational sessions to NAPSG's 2011 East Coast Public Safety GIS Summit being held in Washington, D.C., in November 2011. NAPSG func- tions as a non-profit organization and focuses on sup- porting the public-safety/homeland-security community in advancing the use of geospatial technology. "This collaboration with NAPSG offers us a forum for continuing to reach this important industry seg- ment," noted Robert M. Samborski, GITA executive director. "Both GITA and NAPSG have a strong com- mitment to providing education and training that enables those charged with preserving public safety and protecting our nation's critical infrastructure to benefit from leading-edge education and information about geospatial technology." "The NAPSG/GITA partnership is a critical step forward in building strategic alliances among the emergency-response community, private-sector tech- nology providers, and the owners and managers of our nation's critical infrastructure," added Rand Napoli, NAPSG vice chairman. Salinity Map Yields Clues on Planet's Water Cycles A new NASA satellite instrument produced its first map depicting the salinity of the planet's oceans—a key step toward helping scientists get a better understanding of the planet's water and climate cycles. The Aquarius instrument travels on the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satelite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory sent into orbit earlier this year by NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE). Data and information products resulting from the Aquarius mission should give insights into changes in ocean salin- ity. Such salinity changes influence ocean circulation and relate to the cycling of freshwater around the planet. "Aquarius' salinity data are showing much higher quality than we expected to see this early in the mission," said Gary Lagerloef of the nonprofit institute Earth & Space Research in Seattle and an Aquarius principal investigator. "Aquarius soon will allow scientists to explore the connections between global rainfall, ocean currents and climate variations." The new map represents a composite of data garnered since Aquarius began operating on Aug. 25, 2011. "Aquarius/SAC-D already is advancing our understanding of ocean-surface salinity and Earth's water cycle," added Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division. "Aquarius is making continuous, consistent, global mea- surements of ocean salinity, including measurements from places we have never sampled before." The map reveals already-known salinity features (e.g., higher salinity in the subtropics and lower salinity in rainy belts near the equator) as well as a few surprises—such as a larger-than-expected extent of low-salinity water asso- ciated with outflow from the Amazon River. "Aquarius has exposed a pattern of ocean-surface salinity that is rich in variability across a wide range of scales," said Arnold Gordon, professor of oceanography at Columbia University in New York and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y., as well as an Aquarius science-team member. "This is a great moment in the history of oceanography. The first image raises many questions that oceanographers will be chal- lenged to explain." A new map derived from data gathered during a recent NASA satellite mission offers a view of ocean salinity. Government Special Issue NO VEMBER 2O11 / WWW . GEOPLA CE .C OM 7 NASA

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