On Friday, April 19, 2024, students from UMBC and MSU visited NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, for NASA’s 2024 Earth Day Event. Dominique Footes (GESTAR II/SURA) coordinated with Trena Ferrell (NASA GSFC/610) as well as GESTAR II’s Charles Ichoku, Belay Demoz, Dan Laughlin, and Zhibo Zhang. She worked with doctoral student Roy Prouty (CSST/UMBC) and Dr. Ferrell to assemble a group of undergraduate and graduate students from UMBC as well as a GESTAR II MSU Undergraduate Fellow to attend the event. 

At NASA HQ, attendees were divided into groups; one group was led by Caterina Mogno (614/UMBC). Additionally, Inia Soto Ramos (616/MSU) staffed one of the information tables. NASA Earth Day activity topics focused on ICESat-2, PACE, JPSS, Heliophysics, Disasters, among others, and the event provided immersive and augmented reality experiences. 

Opening Remarks, NASA HQ Earth Day Event

Students in front of the NASA sign (Roy Prouty, fourth from left)

Dr. Soto Ramos volunteering at one of the information tables.

Aisha Henderson (NASA/KBR) and Micah Wallace (GESTAR II/MSU)

(All photos provided by D. Footes)

Congratulations to Thomas Stanley (617/UMBC), who has been promoted from Research Associate I to Research Associate III within GESTAR II! We asked him about his research and what he likes about working with the Landslides group in the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory (Code 617) at NASA GSFC.

Mr. Stanley tries to predict where and when landslides will occur, at global and regional scales. To do this, the group uses precipitation estimates from the GPM core observatory and other satellites. They combine the rainfall data with other predisposing conditions to make a daily global map of landslide hazard.

He adds, “The thing I love about working here is that I have to learn something every day, just to get the job done; it’s not an employee perk that you can indulge in your spare time. The nature of the research is such that it pushes me outside of things I already know (and hopefully it contributes to the general store of knowledge, as well).

We asked him about any favorite books, and Mr. Stanley provided this feedback:

“I’ve read “Pete the Cat and the Perfect Pizza Party” several times now. In this book, Pete accepts the suggestions of his friends to put their favorite items (pistachios, pretzels, etc.) on the group’s pizza. I think the author’s intention was to encourage young readers to be accepting of other people's different tastes and backgrounds. But I take a quite different lesson from the story: If you just say yes to everything, you end up with a monstrosity that no one wants. Now that we’re in the season of writing grant proposals, it’s a good reminder that we need to be selective about which things to put on our plates.” 

The United Nations International Telecommunications Union (UN-ITU) Focus Group on AI for Natural Disaster Management scheduled its annual international workshop. This year, NASA’s Disasters Program led the organization of this workshop, which was hosted at UMBC's arena, from March 13-14. This was arranged as a collaboration between UMBC's GESTAR II team and NASA Disasters Program Leadership, Dr. Shanna McClain. Arif Albayrak (618/UMBC) and Robert Emberson (617/UMBC) were both involved in organizing this workshop. The objective of the workshop was twofold: first, to share novel AI methods and use-cases for Disaster Management, and second, to plan future actions of the Focus Group (FG-AI4NDM).

Over 230 virtual and in-person participants joined the public events on March 13th and 14th. Following the successful two-day workshop, the Disasters Program hosted high-level discussions at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on March 15th. The outcome of these meetings includes deepening the collaboration between NASA and the UN ITU focus group, and the identification of opportunities for NASA, UN ITU, and UMBC scientists to connect with an extensive audience of AI-researchers. While at UMBC, attendees were given a tour of the UMBC campus, and on the final day, participants were given the opportunity to visit the NASA Goddard Visitor Center.

On March 15, 2024, a small high-level delegation of the focus group visited NASA GSFC, organized by the HQ Disasters Program and GSFC leadership. Representatives from NASA and the UN ITU Focus group discussed various projects and initiatives related to disaster management and AI. Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, Director of the GSFC Earth Sciences Division (ESD), introduced the ESD and highlighted various activities. She emphasized the importance of international partnerships in accelerating science. Dr. Robert Emberson then presented the NASA Disasters Program, which demonstrated how models can provide actionable information and the benefit to AI for disaster resilience. The program showcased examples of how near-time satellite observations of volcanic ash and synthetic aperture radar were used to provide proxy maps during wildfires in Hawaii and identified opportunities for connecting the Disasters Program to international efforts including the Early Warning for All Initiative (EW4All).

*Thanks to Arif Albayrak and Robert Emberson for providing the information on this important workshop. Dr. Albayrak is the Co-Chair of the ITU/WMO/UNEP FG-AI4NDM, a member of the NASA disaster group, and a Senior Research Engineer with GESTAR II/UMBC. As liaison, Dr. Albayrak worked with agencies, UMBC, and GESTAR II to make this event happen. Dr. Emberson is a member of the NASA disaster group and Associate Research Scientist with GESTAR II/UMBC, and was heavily involved in organizing this international workshop. 

UN-ITU Workshop Attendees at UMBC's Retriever Activity Center. (Photo Credit: Jessie Cruz, WMO)

Shah, V., C. A. Keller (610.1/MSU), K. E. Knowland (610.1/MSU), A. Christiansen, L. Hu, H. Wang, X. Lu, B. Alexander, and D. J. Jacob (2024), Particulate nitrate photolysis as a possible driver of rising tropospheric ozone, Geophys. Res. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL107980.

Fedkin, N. M., R. M. Stauffer, A. M. Thompson (614/UMBC), D. E. Kollonige, et al. (2024), Satellite NO2 Trends and Hotspots Over Offshore Oil and Gas Operations in the Gulf of Mexico in Earth and Space, Earth and Space Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2023EA003165.

Remer, L. A. (613/UMBC), R. C. Levy, and J. V. Martins (613/UMBC) (2024), Opinion: Aerosol remote sensing over the next 20 years, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2113–2127, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2113-2024.

Schubert S. D., Y. Chang (610.1/MSU), A. M. DeAngelis, Y.-K. Lim (610.1/UMBC), N. P. Thomas (610.1/UMBC), R. D. Koster, M. G. Bosilovich, A. M. Molod, A. Collow (610.1/UMBC), and A. Dezfuli (610.1/UMBC) (2024), Insights into the causes and predictability of the 2022/23 California Flooding, J. Climate, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0696.1.

Pukar Amatya and Thomas Stanley were recognized by Wiley Publishing as lead and co-author of a paper "published in Geoscience Data Journal on behalf of Royal Meteorological Society that has received enough downloads to rank within the top 10% of papers published*":

Amatya, P., D. Kirschbaum, and T. Stanley (2022), Rainfall-induced landslide inventories for Lower Mekong based on Planet imagery and a semi-automatic mapping method, Geoscience Data Journal, https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.145.

Ghassan Taha (614/MSU) was recognized by Wiley Publishing as a co-author of a paper that was "one of the most downloaded during its first 12 months of publication" in GRL:

Schoeberl, M. R., Y. Wang, R. Ueyama, G. Taha, E. Jensen, W. Yu (2022), Analysis and Impact of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Stratospheric Water Vapor Plume, Geophys. Res. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL100248. 

Allison Collow (610.1/UMBC) was recognized by Wiley Publishing as lead author of a paper "published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres on behalf of American Geophysical Union, [that] has received enough downloads to rank within the top 10% of papers published*." 

Marquardt Collow, A. B., C. A. Shields, B. Guan, S. Kim, J. M. Lora, E. E. McClenny, K. Nardi, A. Payne, K. Reid, E. J. Shearer, R. Tomé, J. D. Wille, A. M. Ramos, I. V. Gorodetskaya, et al. (2022), An Overview of ARTMIP's Tier 2 Reanalysis Intercomparison: Uncertainty in the Detection of Atmospheric Rivers and Their Associated Precipitation, JGR Atmospheres, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD036155.

Congratulations!