Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/78956
NEWSLINK Japanese Satellite Joins International Constellation The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) placed an Earth-observing satellite among an interna- tional constellation of satellites known as "the A-Train." In late June 2012, the Global Change Observation Mission 1st-Water "Shizuku" (GCOM-W1) joined sat- ellites including NASA's Aqua, CloudSat and Aura as well as the CALIPSO satellite maintained by NASA and France's CNES space agency. Shizuku, which means "droplet" in Japanese, will observe precipitation, vapor amounts, wind velocity above the ocean, sea-water temperatures, water lev- els on land areas and snow depths. It's currently fly- ing in front of the Aqua satellite, in the lead position of the A-Train. A future NASA satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), ultimately will take the lead position. "We are pleased to welcome JAXA and Shizuku as a member of the international A-Train constel- lation," said Michael Freilich, director, NASA Earth Science Division. "The merging and sharing of data from multiple A-Train satellites has already led to significant advances in atmospheric sci- ence, and the addition of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) dataset will be an important extension of the A-Train's scientific capabilities." AMSR2 is Shizuku's key Earth-observing instru- ment. From about 700 kilometers above the planet, it measures weak microwave emission from Earth's surface and atmosphere. The tool effectively pro- vides measurements of the intensity of microwave emission and scattering, with its antenna rotating once per 1.5 seconds and obtaining data over a 1,450-kilometer swath. The approach allows AMSR2 to collect daytime and nighttime data over 99 per- cent of the planet every two days. Student Wins Contest with Flood-Modeling Work An environmental research contest awarded its top prize to a high-school student whose winning entry sought to model flood conditions in new ways. The entry, prepared by Ahnaf Choudhury of South Riding, Va., for the 2012 Thacher Environmental Research Contest, pulled data from the NASA Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model, inputting them into a GIS to create a detailed "unsteady-flow" model. According to the contest orga- nizer, the nonprofit Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, similar models could be prepared to pro- vide information on regions while topographic data are manually collected or for remote areas where topographic surveys may not be feasible. Choudhury's entry—inspired in part by local events such as East Coast flooding in September 2011 and global events such as the Attabad Lake landslide in Pakistan—won the first-place prize of $2,000. The annual competition challenges students in grades 9-12 to use geospatial tools and data to create inno- vative research projects. The second-place prize of $1,000 went to Ehsan An artist's rendering shows the emerging "A-Train" satellite constellation, including the Japanese GCOM-W1 or "Shizuku" satellite (second from right). 8 GEO W ORLD / AUGUST 2O12 Jafree from Ashburn, Va., who researched the cor- relation between land cover and stream health in Loudoun County, Va. Dillen Maurer and Paul David, from Glendale, Calif., shared the third-place prize of $500, with a study to determine the effect of protect- ing an isolated area from the introduction of invasive, nonnative plants. NASA