The Center for Satellite Applications and Research
(STAR) is the science arm of the NOAA Satellite and Information Service
(NESDIS), which acquires and manages the nation's operational Earth-observing
satellites. STAR's mission is to accelerate the transfer of
satellite observations of land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate from
scientific research and development into routine operations, enabling NOAA
to offer state-of-the-art data, products, and services to decision-makers.
Brad Pierce Receives the Prestigious NOAA Administrators Award
15 November 2016 - Brad Pierce from the Advanced Satellite Products Branch received the prestigious 2016 NOAA Administrators award at a ceremony that was held on 15 November 2016 in Silver Spring, MD. He received the award "For providing robust, real-time, simulated data of next generation geostationary satellite images, reducing risk in post-launch operations". STAR congratulates Brad for his excellent work.
Atmospheric Gravity Waves over the Atlantic Ocean
3 October 2016 - On April 27, 2016, a striking true-color image acquired by MODIS NASA's Aqua satellite showed several groups of very well structured arc cloud patterns, indicating atmospheric gravity waves, aligned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa, extending over 2,000 km. The unique feature of this observation is that the scale of the atmospheric gravity waves are an order of a magnitude larger than previously reported in the literature. The August issue of Acta Oceanologica Sinica featured this image on its cover, which was submitted by STAR's Xiaofeng Li and several co-authors.
Read more.
2016 CoRP Symposium
22 July 2016 - The 2016 CoRP Symposium was held 18-19 July at the CIRA/Atmospheric Science complex on the foothills campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins CO. The Symposium consisted of two days of presentations and posters, including a few invited speakers and featuring oral and poster presentations by younger scientists from several Cooperative Institutes. The poster presenters also gave brief oral summaries of their posters in an introductory session. At the end of the Symposium, award certificates were presented to the three best posters. See the symposium site. Read more.
Historic Coral Bleaching Threatens the Great Barrier Reef
21 April 2016 - A new study by Australia's James Cook University, University of Queensland and NOAA's Coral Reef Watch found that Great Barrier Reef corals were able to survive past bleaching because they were exposed to an early season pulse of warm waters. However, this protective pattern is likely to be lost in coming years. Using 27 years of NOAA satellite sea surface temperature data and innovative genomic analyses, they showed that this early pulse of warming turned on genes that protect the coral. Unfortunately, global warming is likely to eliminate this "practice run" making bleaching worse in coming decades. Read more in Science.
Tropical Cyclone Fantala
20 April 2016 - Tropical Cyclone Fantala achieved a category 5 intensity of 150 knots (172 mph) on 17 April as it passed north of the island of Madagascar in the southwestern Indian Ocean. These daytime Infrared and Visible images from the VIIRS 375-m I-bands show a very well-organized storm with a warm eye, symmetric cold central dense overcast, and evidence for mesovortices in the low-level clouds inside the eye. As of 4/20, Fantala is reported to be the most powerful tropical storm on record for the Indian Ocean. Click image to enlarge - image courtesy of STAR's Dan Lindsey, CoRP / RAMMB and Don Hillger.
2016 Gold Medal Award Winners -
Tom Smith and Ken Pryor
27 September 2016 - STAR's Tom Smith (CoRP / SCSB)
and Ken Pryor (SMCD / OPDB) were honored today with Dept. of Commerce Gold Medal awards for
Scientific and Engineering Achievement. The highest honor award of the DOC, the Gold Medal has
been presented since 1949 by the Secretary of Commerce for distinguished performance.
STAR Scientists and the NASA IceBridge Mission:
Underflying Sentinel-3A's Track for Cal/Val
21 April 2016 - The NOAA Hurricane Hunter "Miss
Piggy" and the NASA Operation IceBridge team arrived on site at Thule Air
Base, Greenland on Monday 4-18, and quickly departed for the first science
mission of the season Tuesday morning, 19 April 2016. Using a suite of
remote sensing instrumentation, the aircraft surveyed shore-fast ice at
Ellesmere Island, Canada. NOAA/STAR and CICS scientists are participating
in the NASA Operation IceBridge Spring 2016 mission, including today's attempt
to underfly the Sentinel-3A satellite, a cal/val flight which the NOAA-LSA team proposed. read more.
Latest STAR Publications
Updated: Fri, 30 Dec 2016
- Title:
- Global linkages originating from decadal oceanic variability in the subpolar North Atlantic
- Authors:
- Chafik L, Hakkinen S, England MH, Carton JA, Nigam S, Ruiz-Barradas A, Hannachi A and Miller L
- Journal:
- Geophysical Research Letters 43(20):10909-10919.
DOI: 10.1002/2016gl071134
- Date:
- Oct 2016
- Title:
- A Review on Predicting Ground PM2.5 Concentration Using Satellite Aerosol Optical Depth
- Authors:
- Chu YY, Liu YS, Li XY, Liu ZY, Lu HS, Lu YA, Mao ZF, Chen X, Li N, et al.
- Journal:
- Atmosphere 7(10)
DOI: 10.3390/atmos7100129
- Date:
- Oct 2016
- Title:
- Strong 2015-2016 El Nino and implication to global ecosystems from space data
- Authors:
- Kogan F and Guo W
- Journal:
- International Journal of Remote Sensing 38(1):161-178.
DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2016.1259679
- Date:
- Jan 2017
- Title:
- Foreword to the Special Issue on the Remote Sensing of the World Oceans
- Authors:
- Li XF and Fablet R
- Journal:
- IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 9(11):4895-4897.
DOI: 10.1109/jstars.2016.2621400
- Date:
- Nov 2016
- Title:
- Evaluating the Performance of Jason-2 Open-Loop and Closed-Loop Tracker Modes
- Authors:
- Martin-Puig C, Leuliette E, Lillibridge J and Roca M
- Journal:
- Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 33(11):2277-2288.
DOI: 10.1175/jtech-d-16-0011.1
- Date:
- Nov 2016
- Title:
- Error characterization in iQuam SSTs using triple collocations with satellite measurements
- Authors:
- Xu F and Ignatov A
- Journal:
- Geophysical Research Letters 43(20):10826-10834.
DOI: 10.1002/2016gl070287
- Date:
- Oct 2016
View all of STAR's latest research articles.