NASA Portal Can Lead Reporters to Universe of Data

NASA’s data portal holds thousands of resources for environmental reporters. Above, the agency’s “meatball” logo at its research center in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo: NASA/Bridget Caswell (United States government work).

Reporter’s Toolbox: NASA Portal Can Lead Reporters to Universe of Data

By Joseph A. Davis

“Billions and billions.” Isn’t that how Carl Sagan put it? The NASA data portal is a gateway to a data universe that holds many resources for environmental journalists. Lots and lots. Petabytes and petabytes.

You see, NASA is the agency that flies the satellites — almost every one of which is a data collection device. A large fraction of those sensors are pointed back at our fair planet Earth.

 

We clicked on ‘earth science’ and

got well over 2,000 datasets.

It’s almost impossible to

catalog such riches.

 

We clicked on “earth science” and got well over 2,000 datasets.

It’s almost impossible to catalog such riches. One of the first we stumbled on was “Surface Urban Heat Islands.” Another is “U.S. National Ice Center Daily Marginal Ice Zone Products,” which tracks ice cover affected by waves.

Still others include a model of ocean chlorophyll, lots of datasets on ocean surface height (used for tracking El Niños), gridded world population estimates, tracking of ocean color and land ice on Greenland.

There is data for studying weather, photosynthesis, U.S. lakes, ocean surface winds, sea-surface temperature (for hurricanes), wetland methane emissions and many air pollutants.

Launch your exploration from here.

 

Where the data comes from (or soon may not)

Most of the datasets are well-documented; the metadata is consistently extensive. Data quality is high since it comes from satellites.

 

The Trump cuts to the

NASA budget are massive.

A word to the wise: Use it or lose it.

 

But here’s another take on NASA data. We have little idea what data will be left a year from now. The Trump cuts to the NASA budget are massive. A word to the wise: Use it or lose it.

Meanwhile, a lot of the data satellites boosted into orbit by NASA are actually operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The two agencies are fairly integrated.

You can see the connection if you drive by the forest of uplink parabolic dish antennae at Wallops Island, Virginia.

This universe of data is also collected at the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. You can access NOAA’s NESDIS data from here or here.

 

How to use the data smartly

You might feel less spooked by the technocentric gestalt of this data smorgasbord if you start with something like Landsat, which is a familiar friend to some environmental journalists.

Yes, Landsat is included in the above databases of databases. It is a collaboration of NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

So if you want to know how deforestation or reforestation is going in your vicinity, check it out by all means.

If you know where the data comes from, and you are skilled or lucky, you may be able to talk to the actual agency scientists who fly and nurture these birds.

To be honest, you might be well-advised to find some scientists to help you understand what the data is all about. Check in with earth sciences departments at nearby universities and research institutes.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

---

* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 27. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.