Using GLIDER tool in Air Quality Studies

TitleUsing GLIDER tool in Air Quality Studies
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsBerendes, T, Ramachandran, R, Graves, SJ, Maskey, M, Chidambaram, C, Christopher, SA, Hogan, P, Gaskin, T
Conference NameAmerican Geophysical Union
Date Published12/2009
Conference LocationSan Francisco, CA
KeywordsVisualization and portrayal
AbstractOne of the major goals of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) program was to study the Earth-Atmosphere System in an integrated fashion. As part of this vision, a series of individual and multi-sensor satellites were launched. With the launch of multiple sensors on several satellites, there is an increasing need to not only analyze data from individual sensors but from a combination of sensors on the same satellite or multiple satellites. Being able to juxtapose and combine these data sets should increase our ability to more effectively analyze various research scenarios. Currently, there are limited tools available for classifying images into one of several classes (e.g. clouds, aerosol, vegetation, desert, etc) on a pixel-by-pixel basis especially in complex cases when aerosols are mixed with clouds or when aerosols are over inhomogeneous surfaces. For example, the MODIS algorithms for detecting aerosols over land and ocean use a set of simple spatial and spectral thresholds that may not be adequate for complex cases over deserts when the surface is bright with clouds and aerosols in different layers and misclassification is possible. Over the Saharan desert mineral dust could be mixed with biomass burning aerosols, could occur in different layers, or thin cirrus cloud could pose additional ‘contamination’ problems. This poster will present GLIDER, a free software tool currently being developed to address these science needs. GLIDER provides users with a easy to use tool to visualize, analyze and mine satellite imagery. The poster will describe the tool’s unique features that will make it invaluable scientists for conducting air quality studies based on satellite imagery.
URLhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFM.A33B0255B