Geophysical Data Center Research Articles

Generating the Nighttime Light of the Human Settlements by Identifying Periodic Components from DMSP/OLS Satellite Imagery.

Nighttime lights of the human settlements (hereafter, "stable lights") are seen as a valuable proxy of social economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions at the subnational level. In this study, we propose an improved method to generate the stable lights from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) daily nighttime light data for 1999. The study area includes Japan, China, India, and other 10 countries in East Asia. A noise reduction filter (NRF) was employed to generate a stable light from DMSP/OLS time-series daily nighttime light data. It was found that noise from amplitude of the 1-year periodic component is included in the stable light. To remove the amplitude of the 1-year periodic component noise included in the stable light, the NRF method was improved to extract the periodic component. Then, new stable light was generated by removing the amplitude of the 1-year periodic component using the improved NRF method. The resulting stable light was evaluated by comparing it with the conventional nighttime stable light provided by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration/National Geophysical Data Center (NOAA/NGDC). It is indicated that DNs of the NOAA stable light image are lower than those of the new stable light image. This might be attributable to the influence of attenuation effects from thin warm water clouds. However, due to overglow effect of the thin cloud, light area in new stable light is larger than NOAA stable light. Furthermore, the cumulative digital numbers (CDNs) and number of light area pixels (NLAP) of the generated stable light and NOAA/NGDC stable light were applied to estimate socioeconomic variables of population, electric power consumption, gross domestic product, and CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption. It is shown that the correlations of the population and CO2FF with new stable light data are higher than those in NOAA stable light data; correlations of the EPC and GDP with NOAA stable light data are higher those in the new stable light data.

Correlation of Cenozoic‐Late Cretaceous geomagnetic polarity time scales: An Internet archive

Since the development of the first comprehensive Cenozoic geomagnetic polarity time scale in 1968, at least 11 additional time scales have been produced, potentially leading to confusion when comparing geologic studies using different time scales. This compilation correlates 12 different time scales published from 1968 to 1995, graphically and in tabular form, in order to enable geoscientists to compare studies dated on the basis of different time scales. The table and supporting documents are stored electronically on‐line at the World Data Center‐A for Paleoclimatology (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration/National Geophysical Data Center).

The U.S. Geophysical Data Center can provide natural hazards damage photographs

The U.S. Geophysical Data Center can provide natural hazards damage photographs

Dapp satellite observations of auroras

Figure 1 contains two photographs obtained from a military satellite that is part of the U.S. Air Force's Defense Systems Application Program (DSAP). The U.S. Air Force Air Weather Service Data Acquisition and Processing Program (Dapp) now routinely provides similar satellite photographs to the Environmental Data Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at their National Geophysical and Solar Terrestrial Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, for copying and for general distribution. The data center then sends the original photographs to the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories for archiving.