NASA ARSET Webinar Course Winter 2014 – Assignment #3

Name ______

Date______

IMAGE ARCHIVE EXERCISE

The purpose of this exercise is to become familiar with some feature of the rapid response image archive sites mentioned in presentation #3

Please submit by January 29, 2014 to

1.  Go to http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=81051

This is an image and story mentioned in the Natural Hazards newsletter about the Panther Fire in California.

If you look under the image you will see the date that the image was acquired. The correct year is 2013. The story tells you which satellite acquired the image.

Go to the rapid response site (see the page of links for week 3) and select “MODIS Near Real Time (Orbit Swath) Images.” Navigate to the correct date using the calendar at the top of the page. Use the orbit track map or simply mouse over the images until you find the image that corresponds to California (there is only one for this satellite for this day). Click on the thumbnail to access the higher quality image.

2.  Use the FAQ to figure out which false color image is used for showing burn scars.

Which band combination is that? ______

Enter in the field below the name of the granule which is shown below the

image in the window that popped open. This information can be found at the bottom of the page showing the granule image. Write down only the first three fields of the granule name up until the collection number. ______

3.  Display the highest resolution of the false color image available.

Look for an area that shows an evident burn scar. This will look like a reddish-brown area (not a bright red square).

4.  Go to the modis-atmos site and find the image of the same granule you looked at from the LANCE rapid response site. Give a very approximate lat-lon for the burn scar you found in the false color image by just using the lat-lon lines available in the image from MODIS-Atmos ______

5.  Explore some of the sites that have available imagery from this weeks presentation and then answer the following questions. You can find those links listed on slide 26 of the presentation.

  1. List three ways that the Rapid Response site and the images available from it are different than the MODIS-Atmos site in reference to the images available on that site.
  1. When would YOU prefer to use the Rapid Response site and why?
  1. When would YOU prefer to use the MODIS-Atmos site and why?
  1. What are some reasons to use the Earth Observatory site?
  1. List 2 advantages and one disadvantage of the MODIS today site.

http://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/

Add any information on useful image sites to the week 1 homework assignment. This is important to keep updated as a template. You will need to resubmit that assignment at the end of the course.