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Forum Tag Definitions

by asdc_user_services » Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:07 pm America/New_York

Tags are used by this site to help identify questions related to common Earthdata topics.

This helps our users easily find information related to their area of research.

DISCIPLINE List
NASA Earth Science Disciplines
  • Air Pollution: Air quality health related research and applications, e.g., PM2.5 Concentration, O3 Concentrations, NO2 Concentrations.
  • Air-Sea Interaction: The exchange of energy, momentum, and matter between the atmosphere and the ocean. It encompasses processes such as heat transfer, evaporation, and the formation of sea spray, which affect weather and climate patterns. This field studies how winds influence ocean currents, how the ocean's temperature impacts atmospheric conditions, and the role these interactions play in climate systems, including the development of storms and the regulation of global climate.
  • Atmosphere: This discipline includes both the dynamic processes in the atmosphere related to air temperature, evaporation, condensation, winds, and precipitation; and the chemical constituents of the atmosphere, including major species such as carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), and water vapor (H2O); minor or anthropogenic constituents such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), or formaldehyde (HCHO); and atmospheric aerosols, including dust and soot.
  • Biogeochemical Dynamics: This discipline studies the complex interactions between biological, geological, and chemical processes that occur in nature, particularly how these interactions change over time.
  • Calibrated and Solar Radiance: This discipline incorporates some of the most basic electromagnetic spectrum variables that can be measured by satellite instruments, including shortwave and longwave IR fluxes, reflection, absorption, scattering, and albedo. Measurements of the total irradiance coming from the Sun to the Earth system are also available.
  • Coastal Oceanography: The study of the physical, chemical, and biological conditions in the coastal zones of oceans. It focuses on understanding the dynamics of coastal waters, including currents, tides, wave processes, sediment transport, and the interaction between the ocean and the land. This field aims to address issues related to coastal ecosystems, erosion, sea-level rise, and human impacts on the coastal environment.
  • Cryosphere: The cryosphere encompasses the frozen parts of Earth, including glaciers and ice sheets, sea ice, and any other frozen body of water. The cryosphere plays a critical role in regulating climate and sea levels.
  • Environmental Justice: food insecurity, natural disasters, vulnerability.
  • Human Dimensions: The human dimensions discipline includes ways humans interact with the environment and how these interactions impact Earth’s systems. It also explores the vulnerability of human communities to natural disasters and hazards.
  • Human Population: This discipline involves the size, growth, spatial distribution, health, migration, poverty, characteristics (age, sex), settlements.
  • Hydrology: This discipline is concerned with water on the Earth’s surface in the form of lakes, reservoirs and rivers, water in the soil, and underground. The data variables in hydrology can include surface and subsurface water extent and height, surface and subsurface runoff, groundwater and groundwater storage, evaporation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and total water column. Related geographical variables are watershed extent, storage capacity, and topography.
  • Land: The land surface discipline includes research into areas such as shrinking forests, warming land, and eroding soils. NASA data provide key information on land surface parameters and the ecological state of our planet.
  • Marine Ecosystem: A dynamic environment that includes the interactions among organisms in the ocean and their physical habitat. It covers a wide range of aquatic environments from deep-sea ecosystems to coastal zones, encompassing a diverse array of life forms, from microscopic phytoplankton to large marine mammals. Marine ecosystems play a crucial role in the Earth's biological and chemical processes, including carbon cycling and global climate regulation. They provide vital services such as food, medicine, and habitat, while also facing threats from human activities like overfishing, pollution, and climate change.
  • Ocean: The ocean covers more than 70% of Earth’s surface and contains 97% of the planet’s water. This vast, critical reservoir supports a diversity of life and helps regulate Earth’s climate. Data variables can include sea surface temperature, sea surface height, associated anomalies, salinity, ocean color.
  • Space Geodesy Techniques and Solid Earth: Geodesy is the science of the Earth’s shape, gravity, and rotation, including their evolution in time. A number of different techniques are used to observe the geodetic properties of the Earth including the space-geodetic techniques of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).
    Solid Earth processes occurring deep within Earth constantly shaping landforms. Although originating from below the surface, these processes can be analyzed from the ground, air, or space-based measurements.
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a type of active data collection where a sensor produces its own energy and then records the amount of that energy reflected back after interacting with the Earth.
  • Terrestrial Ecology: This discipline studies land-based ecosystems, their populations and communities of plants, animals, and microbes, their interactions with the atmosphere and with the hydrosphere, and their role in the cycling of energy, water, and the major biogeochemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen.


    DAAC List
    • NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) are custodians of NASA's Earth Observation Data and ensure that data will be easily accessible to users. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/eosdis/daacs
    • Each DAAC has specified discipline areas of data they process, archive, document, and distribute data from NASA's past and current Earth-observing satellites and field measurement programs. app.php/daac-resources?sid=7a58533e74c9346c636a46f501e07174
    • CSDA Program: Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program
    MAJOR PROJECTS List
    Most frequently accessed Programs, Missions, and Projects.
    Major Projects: Full Titles
    • ABoVE: Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment
    • ACT-America: Atmospheric Carbon and Transport - America
    • ADEOS-II: Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II
    • AfriSAR: an airborne campaign that collected radar and field measurements of tropical forests in Gabon, West Africa
    • Agriculture and Food Security
    • Airborne Hyperspect: Airborne Hyperspectral
    • AirMOSS: Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface
    • Air Qlty Health-Rltd Data
    • AIRS: Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
    • ALOS PALSAR: Advanced Land Observing Satellite-1 Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar
    • ALOS PALSAR RTC: ALOS PALSAR Radiometric Terrain Correction
    • AMS: Autonomous Modular Sensor
    • AMSR-E/AMSR2: Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System Sensor/Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer2
    • Aqua: Information about the Earth's water cycle including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice
    • AQUARIUS/SAC-D: Aquarius/Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas-D
    • AST: ASTER Surface Kinetic Temperature
    • ASTER: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
    • ATom: Atmospheric Tomography Mission
    • AVIRIS: Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer
    • BioSCape: Biodiversity Survey of the Cape
    • CALIPSO: Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation
    • CATS: Cloud-Aerosol Transport System
    • CERES: Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System
    • CLARREO Pathfinder: Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory Pathfinder
    • Coast: Not an acronym
    • CORAL-PRISM: COral Reef Airborne Laboratory Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer
    • COWVR-TEMPEST: COWVR and TEMPEST on Space Test Program-Houston 8 (STP-H8)
    • CMS: Carbon Monitoring System
    • CYGNSS: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System
    • CZCS: Coastal Zone Color Scanner
    • Daymet: provides long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations through statistical modeling techniques
    • Delta-X: 5-year NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 mission to study the Mississippi River Delta in the United States
    • DISCOVER-AQ: Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from COlumn and VERtically -Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality
    • DORIS: Doppler Orbitography by Radiopositioning Integrated on Satellite
    • DSCOVR: Deep Space Climate Observatory
    • e-MAS: enhanced-MODIS Airborne Simulator
    • ECCO: Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean
    • ECOSTRESS: ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station
    • EMIT: Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation
    • EPI: Environmental Performance Index
    • ERS: European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Remote Sensing satellites
    • Envisat MERIS: Envisat (Largest Earth observation spacecraft ever built) Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
    • Field Campaign: General Category of observational study planned for a specific location and a defined time period during which measurements are conducted from airborne platforms and/or ground sites to study physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere
    • FIRMS: Fire Information for Resource Management System
    • GCMD: Global Change Master Directory
    • GEDI: Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation
    • GEO-3: Geoynamics and Earth Ocean Satellite 3
    • GHRSST: Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature
    • Giovanni: A Web-based data visualization and exploration system, providing rapid access to a multitude of Earth science data variables and a suite of visualization options for mapping and plotting these variables. Both the plotted data and the visualizations can be downloaded from the system.
    • GLDAS/NLDAS: Global Land Data Assimilation System/North American Land Data Assimilation System
    • G-LiHT: Goddard's LiDAR, Hyperspectral & Thermal Imager 
    • GLIMS: Global Land Ice Measurements from Space
    • GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite System
    • GOCI: Geostationary Ocean Color Imager
    • GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement
    • GPW: Gridded Population of the World
    • GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
    • GRACE-FO: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On
    • GUNW InSAR: Geocoded Nearest-Time Unwrapped Interferogram Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar
    • HARP2: Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter 2
    • Headwall: HeadWall Hyperspec imager
    • HICO: Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean
    • HLS: Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2
    • HMA: High Mountain Asia
    • IceBridge: Largest airborne survey of polar regions in history
    • ICESat/ICESat-2: Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite/Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2
    • ISS-RAPIDSCAT: International Space Station Rapid Scatterometer
    • JASON 1: Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network 1
    • JASON 3: Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network 3
    • JERS-1: Japanese Earth Resources Satellite
    • LANCE: Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS
    • Landsat: Originally-- Earth Resources Technology Satellite
    • Libera: The Libera NASA mission will record how much energy leaves our planet’s atmosphere on a day-by-day basis
    • MAIA: Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols
    • MASTER: MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator
    • Maxar: not an acronym
    • MEaSUREs: Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments
    • MEaSUREs-CCMP: MEaSUREs - Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP) Ocean Surface Wind Vector Analyses
    • MEASURES-GFSAD: MEaSUREs - Global Food Security Support Analysis Data
    • MEaSUREs-MUR: MEaSUREs - Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution (MUR) Sea Surface Temperature
    • MEaSUREs-NASADEM: MEaSUREs - NASA Digital Elevation Model
    • MEaSUREs-PRE-SWOT: MEaSUREs - Pre-Surface Water and Ocean Topography (Pre-SWOT) Hydrology
    • MEaSUREs-SRTM: MEaSUREs - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
    • MERIS: Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
    • MERRA-2: Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications
    • MISR: Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer 
    • MODIS: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
    • MODIS Subsets: MODIS Land Products Subsets
    • MOPITT: Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere
    • NASADEM: NASA Digital Elevation Model
    • NASA-SSH: NASA - Integrated Multi-Mission Ocean Altimeter Data for Climate Research
    • Nimbus: not an acronym
    • NOAA-20/JPSS-1: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA-20)/Joint Polar Satellite System-1
    • NOAA-21/JPSS-2: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA-21)/Joint Polar Satellite System-2
    • NOAA AVHRR: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
    • NSCAT: NASA Scatterometer
    • OCI: Ocean Color Instrument
    • OCO: Orbiting Carbon Observatory
    • OCTS: Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner
    • OLCI: Ocean and Land Colour Instrument
    • OMG: Oceans Melting Greenland
    • OMI: Ozone Monitoring Instrument
    • OPERA: Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis project. Space-borne synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical sensor products.
    • OSTM-JASON 2: Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2
    • PACE: Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem
    • Planet: not an acronym
    • POD: Precise Orbit Determination
    • POWER - SSE: Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources (previously Surface meteorology and Solar Energy)
    • PREFIRE: Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment
    • QUIKSCAT: Quick Scatterometer
    • RADARSAT-1: not an acronym
    • SAGE: Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment
    • SAR: Synthetic Aperture Radar
    • SASSIE: Salinity and Stratification at the Sea Ice Edge
    • SASSIE: Salinity and Stratification at the Sea Ice Edge
    • SEASAT: Sea Satellite
    • SeaBASS: SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System
    • SeaHawk: Cubesat satellite bus carrying the Hawkeye Ocean Color Sensor
    • Sea Ice MEaSUREs: sea ice imagery and data products supported by MEaSUREs program
    • SeaWiFS: Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
    • Sentinel-1: not an acronym
    • Sentinel-1 Bursts: Derived bursts-based products for Sentinel-1 single look complex (SLC) data collected via the Interferometric Wide (IW) mode and Extra-Wide (EW) Swath modes.
    • Sentinel-1 Interferometric Coherence and Backscatter: not an acronym
    • Sentinel-2: not an acronym
    • Sentinel-3A-OLCI/SLSTR: Sentinel-3A Ocean and Land Colour Instrument/Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer
    • Sentinel-3B-OLCI/SLSTR: Sentinel-3B Ocean and Land Colour Instrument/Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer
    • Sentinel-6: not an acronym
    • SLR: Satellite laser ranging
    • SMAP: Soil Moisture Active Passive Data
    • S-MODE: Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment
    • SMMR-SSM/I-SSMIS: Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer-Special Sensor Microwave/Imager-Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder
    • SnowEX: Snow Water Equivalent
    • SNWG OPERA: Satellite Needs Working Group Observation Products for End-Users for Remote Sensing Analysis
    • SPEXone: Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration one
    • SPURS: Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Stud
    • SRB: NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget
    • Suomi NPP: Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership
    • SWOT: Surface Water and Ocean Topography
    • TEMPO: Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution
    • TERRA: Explores the connections between Earth's atmosphere, land, snow and ice, ocean, and energy balance
    • TES: Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer
    • TOLNet: Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network
    • TOPEX-POSEIDON: Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon
    • TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
    • TROPOMI: TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument
    • UAVSAR: Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar
    • VIIRS: Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite
    • VLBI: Very Long Baseline Interferometry
    • Wetlands MEaSUREs: wetlands imagery and data products supported by MEaSUREs program
    SERVICES/USAGE List
    Algorithms:
    Use this tag to categorize questions related to the DAACs Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs). Users may want to identify missing elements, errors in posted information, allow collection of user requests/FAQ related to the ATBD or identify the need to add/accept a new one. The DAAC may want to announce status of ATBD (in progress, under review or active).

    Announcements:
    Use this tag to differentiate site announcements from general topic posts.

    AppEEARS:
     Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples
    AρρEEARS provides access to a wide range of geospatial data from multiple federal archives, including MODIS aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, Daymet gridded weather parameters, and population information from the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) collection.
    https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov

    Data Access:
    User knows what data is sought and where to locate it, but can't access it.
    • When will this data be available?
    • Can this data be made available through ___ tool or service?
    • Am I allowed to use this data in my publication? / Copyright questions
    • How much does it cost to use this data? / Is it free?
    • Where can I subscribe to have this data sent to me?
    Data Download:
    User has found and accessed needed data, but is having trouble getting the data to download or open.
    • My download was corrupted.
    • I got __ error when I tried to download this data.
    • I never received the data/ the confirmation email.
    Data Processing:
    Users can search for information related to a specific data processing version or to inquire about the status of an upcoming one. The DAAC would use this tag to announce information about specific reprocessing activities, dates, changes to data, and plans.

    Data Recipes:
    Tutorials, coding how-tos, or step-by-step instructions that have been developed to help users learn how to discover, access, subset, visualize and use our data, information, tools and services. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/data-recipes

    Data Search/ Discovery:
    User doesn't know where to find needed data.
    • Where is this tool/ data/ service?
    • Do you have ___ data?
    • Where is the documentation for ___?
    • Do you have ___ data in a different format?
    • Is there a better tool/ service/ dataset for ___ purpose?
    • Where can I download ___ data?
    • I am looking for aerosol data. What is the name of the dataset/ project that I need to look at?
    Data Visualization Visualize/ Usage:
    User has the data but now is having trouble using it.
    • How do I use ___ data in __tool? Ex: How can I import CALIPSO data into ArcGIS?
    • The data looks wrong to me. Should it look like this? Ex: The elevation is 10m in Google Earth, but its 15m in your data.
    • What does this parameter mean?
    • How do I convert the data to…? Ex: How do I convert days to hours in this equation?
    • What version/ file should I use?
    Documentation:
    • Product Information
    • Guide Documents
    • Related Tools
    • News/Announcements
    • Publications
    • Project Links
    Earthdata Cloud:
    User knows that NASA is moving data into the Earthdata Cloud, but don’t know which datasets are available or when they will be available, as well as how to access them once in the cloud.
    • Which datasets are currently available in the cloud?
    • How are data selected for movement to the cloud?
    • What is NASA’s timeline for moving data to the cloud?
    • How do I access NASA data in the cloud?
    • How do I analyze data in the cloud?
    • How much does it cost to use data in the cloud? / Is it free?
    Earthdata Search:
    Earthdata Search provides easy-to-use access to EOSDIS services for Earth science data discovery, filtering, visualization, and access. It also serves as a platform to feature planned EOSDIS services as they become available. Through these services, Earthdata Search allows users to:
    Search for Earth observation data: Earthdata Search uses the Common Metadata Repository (CMR) for sub-second search across the EOSDIS metadata catalog and simpler, faster access to faceted metadata.

    Preview Earth observation data: Using Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), Earthdata Search enables high-performance, highly available data visualization.

    Download and access Earth observation data: In addition to direct download, Earthdata Search surfaces OPeNDAP services for simpler spatial and parameter subsetting. This includes data subsetting, download, and transformation

    FAQs:
    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and answers. A quick link to the FAQs is available at the top of the home page.

    GCMD Keywords
    Keyword users and metadata providers can discuss topics related to the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords. Users can ask questions, submit keyword requests, discuss trade-offs, and track the status of keyword requests. For more information about the GCMD Keywords, visit
    https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/find-data/idn/gcmd-keywords

    General Science:
    Science question not specifically related to a particular discipline or mission.

    GIS Tools:
    User intends to employ primary geospatial tools (such as ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Earth Engine) to work with NASA data (i.e. mapping, visualization, spatial analysis, modeling, web service enablement, content or application development).

    HyP3 On-Demand Processing:
    Alaska Satellite Facility's Hybrid Pluggable Processing Pipeline
    HyP3 SDK for Pythonhttps://hyp3-docs.asf.alaska.edu/using/sdk/
    HyP3 SDK REST API https://hyp3-api.asf.alaska.edu/ui/

    Near-Real Time (NRT):
    Describes data and imagery that are made available much quicker than routine processing allows.
    https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/near-real-time/download-nrt-data

    SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS):
    Originally designed for the SeaWiFS mission, SeaDAS is a comprehensive software package that now supports over 15 US and international satellite missions for the processing, display, analysis, and quality control of remote-sensing Earth data. https://seadas.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    SOOT (Sub-Orbital Order Tool):
    An online tool to assist in the discovery and accessibility of ASDC sub-orbital data.
    Accessible at https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/soot/

    TESViS (Terrestrial Ecology Subsetting & Visualization Services):
    TESViS is an online tool that provides summaries of selected Terrestrial Ecology Products for the community to use for validation of models and remote-sensing products and to characterize field sites. Online interactive visualizations are provided along with the data as comma separated text files and in GIS compatible format.
    https://daac.ornl.gov/tesvis


    Vertex Data Search:
    Alaska Satellite Facility's graphical search interface for finding SAR data.
    https://search.asf.alaska.edu/#/
Last edited by ASDC - rkey on Thu Mar 21, 2024 11:55 am America/New_York, edited 2 times in total.

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