Extreme events like heavy rainfall, storms or hurricane activate landslides. Unstable soil surface conditions can make heavy rains act as the triggering point for mud, rocks and/or debris to move down from mountains and hillsides. These mass movements cause unexpected human and economical losses. Heavy rainfall is the most common cause for landslides although earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, erosion, collapse of groundwater reservoirs, ice melt can also cause them.
Floods, landslides, and droughts are hazards that are triggered by excess or shortage of precipitation. Monitoring precipitation is important to see those hazards coming and to enable decision makers to take measures as early as possible. Precipitation data - together with ancillary data - thus help to prevent that natural hazards turn into disasters.
Floods, landslides, and droughts are hazards that are triggered by excess or shortage of precipitation. Monitoring precipitation is important to see those hazards coming and to enable decision makers to take measures as early as possible. Precipitation data - together with anciliary data - thus help to prevent that natural hazards turn into disasters.
The first set of data from the NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is now available to the public.
NASA reported: "The data set consists of GPM Microwave Imager instrument observations, called brightness temperatures. Brightness temperatures are a measurement of naturally occurring energy radiated, in this case, by precipitation particles like raindrops or snowflakes. Other data sets, like the rain rate information, will be released later this summer."
Tropical Cyclone Jack lost power yesterday, 22 April 2014, and is no longer on the scale of tropical cyclones. However, NASA’s TRMM satellite took one last look at the storm yesterday.
The TRMM satellite is co-managed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. The satellite mission flew twice over the storm and delivered data about rainfall and precipitation rates. The TRMM’s Microwave Imager and Precipitation Radar were used to create this image.
The GPM Core Observatory is continuing its pre-programmed course and is communicating with the GPM Mission Operations Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The mission is a collaboration of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and it was launched yesterday from Japan. In the next days the flight center will begin to communicate with the spacecraft – sending commands, receiving data, but also health and safety information from the satellite.
As UN-SPIDER reported, NASA is preparing for the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite in the end of February. The Satellite will be mainly used for rain- and snowfall observation and forecasting.
The satellite carries a multi-spectral Imager, 19 channel sounder, Data Relay Transponder and Search and Rescue Transponder. The instruments are mainly used for meteorological purposes as well as for search and rescue.
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