Analyzing Long-Term Summer Drought Effects Using Aqua-1 Satellite Data

http://nia.ecsu.edu/reuomps2012/teams/seaspace/index.html

Abstract
After observing the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) data sets for summer 2002-2011, provided by the State Climate Office of North Carolina NC CRONOS database, the team observed that there has been a long-term drought since 2007 in the Northern Coastal Plains of North Carolina. Summer is defined as the mounts of June, July, and August.The State Climate Office of North Carolina NC CRONOS defines that long-term drought as being cumilative and their data representative of weather patterns of the current months in compared with previous months. Therefore the PDSI attempts to measure the duration and intensity of the long-term drought-inducing circulation patterns without including man made changes. The PDSI denotes dry and wet spells on a scale between -6 to 6, respectively. After 2006 all DDSI values were negative, indicative of drought during this whole period. Our team's objective is to analyze how long-term drought in summer months effects vegetation and land surface temperature in the Pasquotank and Gates county areas. The team chose to focus on the summer months, June through August, so that data results will not be skewed due to fall, winter, and spring season conditions when vegetation will be in different stages. The satellite that was chosen to analyze data from is Aqua-1, which is a polar orbiting satellite carrying the MODIS sensor. Polar Orbiters travel in twelve hour sequences, daytime and nighttime. Satellite data can have data degradation at the near and far edges. Therefore the team only downloaded daytime orbits with a minimum elevation of 55 degrees. Due to cloud coverage over our area of interest, monthly composites of images were generated by utilizing the "composite" command in TeraScan. The "composite" command takes a calculation that eliminates "bad-values" in multiples images, such as clouds, and creates one image. There are many versions of composite in TeraScan, and the team uses the method that averages the good values located in the same location in each image. The team chose to use data from NASA's LAADS website because of the ability to search for archived MODIS telemetry in our Lat/long parameters that is not limited to real time data. This was useful because the team needed to retrieve raw data from 2007 to 2011 with at least thirty-five percent coverage for the "LocalECSU" master and seventy percent coverage for the "GlobalECSU" master. A master is defined as an area of interest in TeraScan from where the data will be exclusively extracted and processed. The team downloaded the files by using the "laad_fetch.sh" TeraScan function which executes the SeaSpace "configproc" script. During the "configproc" a series of conversions takes place to convert pds files into hdf files and hdf files into tdf files. A pds file is the original satellite data format, hdf is a common data format, and tdf is TeraScan data format. After the file is converted into a tdf file, a calculation with the different channels will be applied create both Land-Surface Temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products. LST uses level-2 and level-3 in a algorithm designed specifically for the MODIS instruments. The NDVI equation is equal to the quantity of infrared channel minus the near-red channel divided by the quantity of the infrared plus the near-red channel. This equation will make the product greener to differentiate the differences in dense vegetation and low vegetation. The channel resolution for the MODIS telemetry vary from 250-1000 m, dependent on channel. When the data is processed into LST and NDVI, TeraScan resamples it to 1 Km by 1 Km pixels over the AOI. Once the team has the LST and NDVI, the data will then be analysed in TeraVision using specified palettes to representing different values. Next is to identify subregions across the study area, then average values to use for comparisons between the years and against various locations.

Abstract
On February 7, 2012 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) and Seaspace Corporation. The memorandum led to the installation of three direct-broadcast satellite receiving ground stations and a training site at ECSU. The receiving stations included a 3.6m X/L band system, a 3.7m C-band system, and a 5.0m L band system. The MOU defined that once the installation of the various systems completed, ECSU would in turn provide an east-coast training and data center for Seaspace products. The purpose of this project was to document the installation requirements and internal processes at ECSU for the ground stations, as well as; generate a report of training site physical requirements. Aspects of the MOU including ECSU policy requirements, location engineering findings, location installation requirements, ground station capabilities, and training center needs are addressed. .