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TROPICS

The Time Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS)

Imagine if you could go inside a powerful cyclone? NASA’s TROPICS does and it aims to save lives on the journey

Tropical storms have been a source of some of the most devastating natural disasters, claiming countless lives and disrupting society. A rise in global temperatures is expected to ramp up storm frequency and magnitude . NASA’s Time Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) launched in 2020 and is focused on improving our ability to accurately predict storm strength, giving people more time to evacuate and save lives. How intense is a tropical storm going to get and what causes these cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons)? TROPICS is on a mission to find out with 3D temperature and humidity, cloud ice and precipitation tracking. This mission is critical because close to 60 million, nearly 1/5 of Americans, live along the East and Gulf coasts. We have seen Atlantic landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) that can cause death and destruction like Katrina and recent estimates project a doubling of US economic losses from TCs every ten years!

TROPICS is going deep inside cyclones, so we can forecast storms better, improve disaster preparation and ultimately save lives.
-William Blackwell, Principal Investigator, TROPICS

TROPICS provides high‐resolution, rapid‐updates on storm intensity and size (wind and precipitation structure). The science team measures precipitation and microclimates from 5 kilometers to several hundred kilometers across the sky. Better storm prediction over all ocean basins is provided by 12 small satellites called CubeSats. They fly aboard three low-Earth orbital planes. Each CubeSat hosts a high‐performance radiometer tracking water vapour absorption and precipitation‐sized ice particles. These instruments allow the team to actually go inside to the core of a cyclone, with high resolution from different angles. The power of this knowledge about how cyclones form, how they last and what makes some more intense than others, is leading to smarter storm predictions and better storm preparation by towns, cities, states and the people living in them. Come inside a cyclone and explore what we know so far.

TROPICS Mission-Overview

https://disasters.nasa.gov/programs/tropics

NASA TROPICS blog

HAMAQ

HAMAQ: Hemispheric Airborne Measurements of Air Quality

Science: Hemispheric Airborne Measurements of Air Quality (HAMAQ) is funded under NASA’s Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS-4) program. Current plans include two deployments in 2028, including the Mexico City megalopolis and another North American site yet to be selected. The effort will include two aircraft, NASA’s B777 for in situ sampling and G-III for remote sensing. These aircraft will be used to complete the integrated observing system, combining satellite observations, ground-based monitoring, research observations, and air quality modeling.

Website: https://science.larc.nasa.gov/HAMAQ/

White Paper: HAMAQ White Paper.

ROSES: Anticipate solicitation release in Q1CY2026

FarmFlux

FarmFlux

FarmFlux: While the burning of fossil fuels remains the leading source of carbon in our atmosphere, farmlands and ranchlands are also substantial sources of gas and particle emissions. In the FarmFlux mission, led by Glenn Wolfe of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, researchers will measure the amount of greenhouse gases, nitrogen, and other pollutants that are emitted from agricultural lands across the United States.

Websites: https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/acd/campaigns/farmflux

https://espo.nasa.gov/farmflux

ROSES: FarmFlux Science Team ROSES call

ROSES: No-Cost Participation in/Contributions to FarmFlux Science Team

White Paper: FarmFlux White Paper

Earth Venture Suborbital EVS-4

EVS-4: FarmFlux, FORTE, HAMAQ, INSPYRES, LACCE, Snow4Flow

FarmFlux will measure the amount of carbon- and nitrogen-containing gases emitted from agricultural lands across the Midwestern United States

Websites: https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/acd/campaigns/farmflux

https://espo.nasa.gov/farmflux

ROSES: FarmFlux Science Team ROSES call

ROSES: No-Cost Participation in/Contributions to FarmFlux Science Team

White Paper: FarmFlux White Paper

Arctic Coastlines – the Frontlines Of Rapidly Transforming Ecosystems (FORTE) will combine optical and radar measurements from planes, helicopters, boats, and drones, as well as measurements from surface and underwater platforms, to measure water flows and chemistry and observe how ecosystems respond to changing environmental conditions

Websites: https://espo.nasa.gov/forte

https://cce.nasa.gov/forte/index.html

ROSES: FORTE Science Team ROSES call

White Paper: FORTE White Paper

Hemispheric Airborne Measurements of Air Quality (HAMAQ) will investigate areas of poor air quality over Mexico City and Atlanta, GA. HAMAQ will also test how satellite information can help improve ground-based forecasting and mitigation strategies.

Website: https://science.larc.nasa.gov/HAMAQ/

White Paper: HAMAQ White Paper.

ROSES: Anticipate solicitation release in Q1CY2026

The INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment (INSPYRE) Science Team will constrain the role of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) in the earth system and characterize their physical links to extreme wildfire behavior. INSPYRE will test the hypothesis that: Increasing wildfire size and intensity will amplify pyroCb-driven smoke injection into the stratosphere and induce measurable changes to Earth’s radiative balance.

White Paper: INSPYRE White Paper

Website: https://espo.nasa.gov/inspyre

ROSES: INSPYRE Science Team ROSES call

Landslide Change Characterization Experiment (LACCE) will combine airborne measurements with ground-based sensors and models to track the way landslides are evolving as they are impacted by changes in precipitation and glacier extent.

White Paper: LACCE White Paper

ROSES Call: https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/274affe7-8fea-441e-8f21-143f8b7fcbb9

Snow4Flow will quantify the current state and assess the future of glaciers across the Arctic , using microwave and high-frequency radar sounders to measure snow accumulation and ice thickness. The obtained data combined with satellite assets will be used to improve projections of land ice changes and how those changes influence water sources, natural hazards and associated socioeconomic impacts.

Website: https://snow4flow .lpl.arizona.edu

White Paper: Snow4Flow White Paper

ROSES: Anticipate solicitation release in Q1CY2025

INSPYRE

EVS-4 INSPYRE: INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment

Science: The INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment (INSPYRE) Science Team will constrain the role of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) and characterize their physical links to extreme wildfire behavior.

Website: https://espo.nasa.gov/inspyre

White Paper: INSPYRE White Paper

ROSES: INSPYRE Science Team ROSES call

PolSIR

Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Imager (PolSIR)

https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/climate/instruments/polsir

The PolSIR instrument – short for Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer – will help humanity better understand Earth’s dynamic atmosphere by studying ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions.

The representation of ice clouds in Global Climate Models (GCMs) remains a major source of uncertainty in weather predictions. Ice clouds have been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the biggest unknown in our understanding of the Earth’s weather system.

The goal of PolSIR is to better characterize and understand diurnal variability of tropical and sub-tropical ice clouds, to provide key observational constraints on ice properties in weather models, and to enable modelers to develop more accurate cloud parameterizations.

PolSIR consists of two, 16U CubeSats equipped with a cross-track scanning polarized submillimeter radiometer in the spectral range of 325–680 GHz; fly in separate, 52-degree inclination, non-sun-synchronous orbits, taking science measurements between ±35 degrees latitude enabling monthly sampling of the diurnal cycle of ice clouds and their microphysical properties.

Two years of concurrent observations, enabling comparison of daily, seasonal, and annual cycles.

The PolSIR instrument – short for Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer – will help humanity better understand Earth’s dynamic atmosphere and its impacts by studying ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions.

INCUS

The INCUS Mission

The INCUS mission provides the first tropics-wide investigation of the evolution of the vertical transport of air and water by convective storms, one of the most influential, yet unmeasured atmospheric processes. Such measurements are central to improving our capability to better predict extreme weather events.

https://incus.colostate.edu/

The Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) mission will be a collection of three SmallSats, carrying RainCube-like radars with crosstrack scanning and a Tempest-D-like radiometer, flying in tight coordination. INCUS aims to directly address why convective storms, heavy precipitation, and clouds occur exactly when and where they form. The investigation stems from the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which lays out ambitious, but critically necessary, research and observation guidance. NASA selected INCUS through the agency’s Earth Venture Mission-3 (EVM-3) solicitation that sought complete, space-based investigations to address important science questions and produce data of societal relevance within the Earth science field..

ACT America

Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America
(ACT-America)

https://act-america.larc.nasa.gov/
https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/tag/act-america/

Flying with the gases that impact the climate around you. Making the invisible journey visible.

Track carbon footprints across the sky and through four seasons!
ACT-America is on the hunt for greenhouse gases from our ground and in our air. The project measured both natural and human-based methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to identify how these gases are created, where they go and what absorbs them. Understanding the carbon cycle is powerful knowledge. It means we can predict future climate impacts, develop smarter mitigation strategies, and create fact-based policy. Imagine the benefit from “seeing” where these invisible gases are coming from and where they go.

“ACT-America measurements fill a critical gap in our understanding of the sources, sinks and transport of climate-altering greenhouse gasses. We now see how weather stirs the atmosphere and mixes these gasses across the continent, like a large spoon mixing the cream in your coffee.” – Ken Davis, Principal Investigator

The ACT-America investigation featured five seasonal aircraft campaigns spread over three years, across the eastern and central regions of the United States. Instruments aboard a NASA C-130 and a NASA B-200 aircraft measured greenhouse gasses and indicators of the origins of these greenhouse gases and tracked how weather systems transport them. The aircraft data are part of a growing network of observations that will track the “footprints” of greenhouse gases to enable: 1) policy makers, citizens and industry to understand how their actions are changing the earth’s climate; 2) knowledge of natural gas leaks and awareness of opportunities to minimize these losses; 3) how the earth’s ecosystems contribute to the carbon cycle; and 4) accurate forecasting of future climate. ACT-America’s data can be found here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c76TfzEJLPo

Related Projects

DISCOVER-AQ Earth Venture mission, Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT, 2009), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2, 2004; 2008), NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS,2013), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Carbon Tracker (CT, 2007), (OCO-3, 2013, Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS), NRC, 2007

ACT-America measurements fill a critical gap in our understanding of the sources, sinks and transport of climate-altering greenhouse gasses. We now see how weather stirs the atmosphere and mixes these gasses across the continent, like a large spoon mixing the cream in your coffee.

CloudSat

CloudSat

https://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu/home

https://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu/data

CloudSat is one of NASA’s weather and climate-tracking satellites, and from its name, it’s apparent what it measures – clouds!! Clouds have an enormous influence on Earth’s weather, climate and energy balance, and CloudSat has been helping scientists learn about clouds since it was launched on a Delta II rocket in 2006. From providing a view from space as we watch an approaching hurricane to providing details about how clouds impact radiation from the sun and the climate, CloudSat has been understanding the impact of clouds for nearly 15 years.

The cloud radar on CloudSat is 1000 times more sensitive than most weather radars on the ground. With its long history sending us data about clouds, CloudSat has contributed so much valuable information! CloudSat provides a never-before-seen perspective on clouds; its radar allows us to see inside the large cloud masses that make our weather. This helps us understand processes such as those that convert the tiny cloud particles to precipitation. Key discoveries from CloudSat have included how often the clouds above Earth rain and snow, how much ice and water are in clouds, and how clouds heat or cool the atmosphere. Cloudsat measurements have shown how pollution, volcanic ash, and other aerosols can interact with clouds and affect both precipitation and how efficiently clouds reflect sunlight, which has a huge impact on climate. The cloud and precipitation measurements from CloudSat have been used to track the intensity and patterns of tropical cyclones as they become hurricanes. All of these critical observations will ultimately help us predict the effects of clouds on our climate and improve our predictions of climate change.

NASA launched the CloudSat and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) spacecraft to study the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s weather, climate and air quality.

DCOTSS

Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere (DCOTSS)

https://dcotss.org/

DCOTSS Outreach

During the summer, strong convective storms over North America overshoot the tropopause into the lower stratosphere. These storms carry water and pollutants from the troposphere into the normally very dry stratosphere, where they can have a significant impact on radiative and chemical processes, potentially including stratospheric ozone. The photo below, taken from the International Space Station, shows one of these storms with an anvil, which is typically near the tropopause level; an overshooting top; and a plume of cirrus (ice) clouds injected into the stratosphere by the overshooting top. Overshooting tops can reach many kilometers above the tropopause into the stratosphere.