Abstract's details

Recent Advances in NOAA Altimetry Outreach and Education

Laury Miller (NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, United States)

CoAuthors

John Lillibridge (NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, United States); Eric Leuliette (NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, United States); Walter H.F. Smith (NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, United States); Karen Marks (NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, United States); Lori Brown (StormCenter Communications, Inc., United States)

Event: 2014 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Outreach, Education and Altimetric Data Services

Presentation type: Type Oral

Contribution: PDF file

Abstract:

2014 has been a very busy, exciting year for NOAA altimetry outreach and education activities, including new web initiatives, educational presentations, and public-oriented articles. This talk will cover some of the recent developments, beginning with our new Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry website (http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/sod/lsa/) which highlights the four main areas of Lab activity: the Jason Altimeter Program, Sea Level Rise, Arctic Sea Ice, Ocean Bottom Topography.

The Jason Program section summarizes the broad range of benefits provided to the Nation by altimetry, ranging from life saving hurricane intensity and high wave warnings to oil spill monitoring and fishery services. The Sea Level Rise section provides access to our diverse set of sea level trend products, including global and regional trend time series and map products, all readily downloadable. The Arctic Sea Ice section highlights our rapidly growing involvement in Arctic sea ice research through CryoSat-2, NASA's IceBridge Program, IceSat, and more. The Ocean Bottom Topography section provides a useful introduction to the whole field of bottom topography from altimetry, which the Lab has helped pioneer.

In addition to the new Lab website, some of our sea level map products and animations are now featured on NOAAView (http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/view/#SSHA), NOAA's new corporate data visualization portal which includes data from five major subject areas: ocean, atmosphere, land, cryosphere, and climate.

In the realm of education, the Lab's Walter Smith made several presentations on marine geophysics and ocean bottom topography from altimetry to school kids and the general public as part of the NOAA Science On a Sphere Program (http://sos.noaa.gov/What_is_SOS/index.html). SOS is a visualization system that uses computers and video projectors to display animated data onto the outside of a large sphere, thus providing a truly global impact.

Perhaps the most vivid example of altimetry outreach was the recent publication in Eos of an article on the sea floor in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search area by Walter Smith and Karen Marks. This generated a great deal of public interest, including newspaper reports, radio interviews, as well as a news article and editorial in Science Magazine calling for greater support for ocean survey work.
 

Oral presentation show times:

Room Start Date End Date
Red salon Tue, Oct 28 2014,17:30 Tue, Oct 28 2014,17:45
Laury Miller
NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry
United States
Laury.Miller@noaa.gov