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Publications

Below is a list of the most recent EROS peer-reviewed scientific papers, reports, fact sheets, and other publications. You can search all our publication holdings by type, topic, year, and order.

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Filter Total Items: 2442

Combining NLCD and MODIS to create a land cover-albedo database for the continental United States

Land surface albedo is an essential climate variable that is tightly linked to land cover, such that specific land cover classes (e.g., deciduous broadleaf forest, cropland) have characteristic albedos. Despite the normative of land-cover class specific albedos, there is considerable variability in albedo within a land cover class. The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and the Moderate Resolutio
Authors
J. Wickham, Christopher A. Barnes, M.S. Nash, T.G. Wade

Evaluation of the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) air temperature data products

There is a high demand for agrohydrologic models to use gridded near-surface air temperature data as the model input for estimating regional and global water budgets and cycles. The Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) developed by combining simulation models with observations provides a long-term gridded meteorological dataset at the global scale. However, the GLDAS air temperature produc
Authors
Lei Ji, Gabriel B. Senay, James P. Verdin

Exploring drought controls on spring phenology

The timing of spring phenology can be influenced by several drivers. Many studies have shown the effect of temperature on spring vegetation growth, but the role of moisture is complex and not as well researched. We explored drivers for aspen spring phenology in the mountains of the western U.S. While temperature exerted control over the timing of aspen green-up in the spring, snow moisture as meas
Authors
Jesslyn F. Brown, Gretchen Meier

Landsat—Earth observation satellites

Since 1972, Landsat satellites have continuously acquired space-based images of the Earth’s land surface, providing data that serve as valuable resources for land use/land change research. The data are useful to a number of applications including forestry, agriculture, geology, regional planning, and education. Landsat is a joint effort of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronau
Authors

Assessing the contributions of East African and West Pacific warming to the 2014 boreal spring East African drought

Anthropogenic warming contributed to the 2014 East African drought by increasing East African and west Pacific temperatures, and increasing the gradient between standardized western and central Pacific SST causing reduced rainfall, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture.
Authors
Christopher C. Funk, Shraddhanand Shukla, Andrew Hoell, Ben Livneh

Effect of permafrost thaw on the dynamics of lakes recharged by ice-jam floods: case study in Yukon Flats, Alaska

Large river floods are a key water source for many lakes in fluvial periglacial settings. Where permeable sediments occur, the distribution of permafrost may play an important role in the routing of floodwaters across a floodplain. This relationship is explored for lakes in the discontinuous permafrost of Yukon Flats, interior Alaska, using an analysis that integrates satellite-derived gradients i
Authors
Steve M. Jepsen, Michelle Ann Walvoord, Clifford I. Voss, Jennifer R. Rover

Accuracy assessment of NOAA gridded daily reference evapotranspiration for the Texas High Plains

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides daily reference evapotranspiration (ETref) maps for the contiguous United States using climatic data from North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). This data provides large-scale spatial representation of ETref, which is essential for regional scale water resources management. Data used in the development of NOAA daily
Authors
Jerry Moorhead, Prasanna H. Gowda, Michael Hobbins, Gabriel Senay, George Paul, Thomas Marek, Dana Porter

Landsat science team meeting: Summer 2015

The summer meeting of the joint U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)–NASA Landsat Science Team (LST) was held at the USGS’s Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center July 7-9, 2015, in Sioux Falls, SD. The LST co-chairs, Tom Loveland [EROS—Senior Scientist] and Jim Irons [NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)—Landsat 8 Project Scientist], opened the three-day meeting on an upbeat note fol
Authors
Todd Schroeder, Thomas Loveland, Michael A. Wulder, James R. Irons

Landsat Science Team meeting: Winter 2015

The summer meeting of the joint U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)–NASA Landsat Science Team (LST) was held at the USGS’s Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center July 7-9, 2015, in Sioux Falls, SD. The LST co-chairs, Tom Loveland [EROS—Senior Scientist] and Jim Irons [NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)—Landsat 8 Project Scientist], opened the three-day meeting on an upbeat note fol
Authors
Todd A. Schroeder, Thomas Loveland, Michael A. Wulder, James R. Irons

Multi-decadal trends in spring arrival of avian migrants to the central Arctic coast of Alaska: Effects of environmental and ecological factors

Warming in the Arctic has caused the transition from winter to summer to occur weeks earlier over the last half century, yet little is known about whether avian migrants have altered their timing of arrival on breeding areas to match this earlier seasonal transition. Over a 50-yr period, we examined trends in the timing of the first arrival for 16 avian migrant species at the terminus of their nor
Authors
David H. Ward, J. Helmericks, Jerry W. Hupp, L. McManus, Michael Budde, David C. Douglas, K.D. Tape

Community for Data Integration 2014 annual report

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researches Earth science to help address complex issues affecting society and the environment. In 2006, the USGS held the first Scientific Information Management Workshop to bring together staff from across the organization to discuss the data and information management issues affecting the integration and delivery of Earth science research and investigate the use
Authors
Madison L. Langseth, Michelle Y. Chang, Jennifer Carlino, Daniella D. Birch, Joshua Bradley, R. Sky Bristol, Craig Conzelmann, Robert H. Diehl, Paul S. Earle, Laura E. Ellison, Anthony L. Everette, Pamela L. Fuller, Janice M. Gordon, David L. Govoni, Michelle R. Guy, Heather S. Henkel, Vivian B. Hutchison, Tim Kern, Frances L. Lightsom, Joseph W. Long, Ryan Longhenry, Todd M. Preston, Stan W. Smith, Roland J. Viger, Katherine Wesenberg, Eric C. Wood

Emerging technologies to conserve biodiversity

Technologies to identify individual animals, follow their movements, identify and locate animal and plant species, and assess the status of their habitats remotely have become better, faster, and cheaper as threats to the survival of species are increasing. New technologies alone do not save species, and new data create new problems. For example, improving technologies alone cannot prevent poachin
Authors
Stuart L. Pimm, Sky Alibhai, Richard Bergl, Alex Dehgan, Chandra Giri, Zoë Jewell, Lucas N. Joppa, Roland Kays, Scott Loarie