NASA and international agencies send Earth science data to South Africa

[News_Editor]

NASA and international agencies send Earth science data to South Africa

2010-10-07 02:57:10 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON D.C. (BNO NEWS) – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Wednesday announced that a unique partnership between NASA and African and European agencies sent large amounts of Earth science satellite data to South Africa for local research.

The partnership sent over 30 terabytes of data to researchers in order to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa. The data was gathered by NASA's Terra satellite and contains observations of Africa's surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and winds.

"NASA is committed to helping governments, organizations and researchers around the world make effective use of Earth observation data to aid in environmental decision making," said Hal Maring, a program manager in NASA's Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate.

The data was sent to South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria that will distribute it at no charge to African users who have not been able to download the large files due to the Internet limitations in the continent. CSIR will distribute the data as part of its strategy of educating, training and transferring knowledge to the southern African research community.

"The data transfer will kick-start a new generation of high-quality land surface products, with applications in climate change and avoiding desertification, the gradual transformation of land into desert due to climate change," Bob Scholes, CSIR research group leader, said.

The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on Terra satellite collected the data which was processed archived and distributed by NASA's Langley Research Center. MISR continuously makes measurements of Earth's surface and atmosphere since more than a decade ago.

MISR observes the sunlit portion of Earth, viewing the entire planet between 82 degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude every nine days. Thus, the instrument collects images form nine widely spaced view angles.

The partnership, which began in 2008, involves NASA, the European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability (JRC-IES) in Ispra, Italy, and CSIR. At first it began as collaboration between JRC-IES and CSIR in the study of the environment around Kruger National Park, a major wildlife reserve in South Africa.

After that, the two agencies signed an agreement for the exchange of people, knowledge, data and software. NASA got involved in 2009 after a training workshop for MISR users in Cape Town, South Africa. During this training, it was acknowledged that the African continent was in need of accessing a large volume of data for research and applications in developing countries in Africa.

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