[HOT] Fwd: Urgent: Nepal satellite imagery (Pre-Earthquake VIIRS Sample Files)

Thu Apr 30 14:19:57 UTC 2015

see below. perhaps of interest for prioritization. 

Send from my phone. Please excuse brevity and typos. 

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-------- Original message --------
From: "Roman, Miguel (GSFC-6190)" <miguel.o.roman at nasa.gov> 
Date:04/30/2015  4:53 AM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: "Azevedo, Meredith" <meredith.azevedo at yale.edu>, Stacey Maples <stacemaples at stanford.edu>, "Turin, Mark" <mark.turin at ubc.ca>, "Shneiderman, Sara" <sara.shneiderman at ubc.ca>, Pablo Suarez <suarezpir at gmail.com>, "Jones, Brenda" <bkjones at usgs.gov>, "Schultz, Lori A. (MSFC-ZP11)[UAH]" <lori.a.schultz at nasa.gov>, eleanor.stokes at yale.edu, "Seto, Karen" <karen.seto at yale.edu>, "Cole, Tony A. (MSFC-ZP11)[UAH]" <tony.a.cole at nasa.gov>, "Molthan, Andrew L. (MSFC-ZP11)" <andrew.molthan at nasa.gov>, "Voiland, Adam P. (GSFC-613.0)[SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS INC]" <adam.p.voiland at nasa.gov> 
Cc: "Habib, Shahid (GSFC-6104)" <shahid.habib-1 at nasa.gov>, "Irons, James R. (GSFC-6100)" <james.r.irons at nasa.gov>, "Sellers, Piers J. (GSFC-6000)" <piers.j.sellers at nasa.gov>, "Masuoka, Edward J. (GSFC-6190)" <edward.j.masuoka at nasa.gov>, "Devadiga, Sadashiva (GSFC-619.0)[SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS INC]" <sadashiva.devadiga-1 at nasa.gov>, "Lynch, Patrick Gerald. (GSFC-606.4)[Wyle Information Systems, LLC]" <patrick.lynch at nasa.gov>, "Allen, Jesse S. (GSFC-613.0)[SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS INC]" <jesse.s.allen at nasa.gov>, "Carlowicz, Michael J. (GSFC-613.0)[SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS INC]" <michael.j.carlowicz at nasa.gov>, "KITTEL, DREW H. (GSFC-5860)" <drew.h.kittel at nasa.gov> 
Subject: RE: Urgent: Nepal satellite imagery (Pre-Earthquake VIIRS Sample Files) 

Meredith et al.,

Here's a google drive link containing the latest Suomi-NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band nighttime composites developed by our NASA/GSFC team.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8mPn1wjvuVOWXBWUV9hc01nRVU&usp=sharing

A Readme is attached to the folder (also included below). Note there are still a lot of corrections to be made in order to make this a scientifically valid estimate of VIIRS nighttime lights. Thus, this sample data are to be considered of BETA quality and should be used with care. Having said that, the sooner we can start analyzing, producing, and sharing our results, the better. Comments and feedback are welcomed.

A few key shout outs and updates:

Mark (UBC): We haven't forgotten about your district-level plots. We just need a few more days of 'post-earthquake' data to build a good enough sample of the region (the cloudy monsoon period is really hitting us hard).

Brenda (USGS): Feel free to relay this message to HDDS listserv + post these files on HDDS portal: http://hddsexplorer.usgs.gov. I would encourage **everyone** on this list to register to HDDS and contribute satellite and GIS data in support of this effort.

Lori (NASA SPoRT, cc: Tony and Andrew): Just wanted to plug your recently published VIIRS DNB change detection image of the Kathmandu region: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/kathmandu-with-lights-out-26april15.html?linkId=13865832 I cannot state how significant these results are for the Nepal community. Well done!!

Let's all keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Miguel_
-------------------
Miguel O. Román, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 619 Bld-32 S-036F, Greenbelt MD 20771, USA miguel.o.roman at nasa.gov<mailto:miguel.o.roman at nasa.gov>, phone +1-301-614-5498, Twitter: @NASA_Roman,<https://twitter.com/NASA_Roman> URL: http://goo.gl/oRC3rH
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-------------------------------------------------------
README V 4/30/2015 07:50:10
Author: Miguel O. Román (NASA/GSFC)
-------------------------------------------------------
Description:

Included in this folder are 16 Suomi NPP VIIRS daily nighttime composites for the Nepal Region in GEOTIFF format for the period of 4-10-2015 to 4-25-2015.
A multidate compositing method, based on Román and Stokes (2015) (see reference below), was adapted to ensure that the correct trajectory of nighttime lights could be retained.

File Details:

The naming convention for each file is:

DNB_DATA.A"yeardoy"."AS"."MX_version"."moon_phase_angle"_"dow".tif."%QA".tif

Here:

(1) "yeardoy" is the year follow by the day-of-year
(2) "AS" is the NASA Land SIPS archive set (used for testing purposes)
(3) "MX_version" is the operational IDPS build used (used for testing purposes)
(4) "moon_phase_angle" = Lunar Phase angle, with 0 = Full moon and 180 = New moon and 90 = half moon. http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/phase+angle
(5) "DOW" = the day of week, with 0 = Sunday, 1 = Monday, ... 5 = Friday, and 6 = Saturday.
(6) "%QA" = is the percent % number of majority high quality retrievals (see band4, below)

Each GEOTIFF file contains four bands. Here's a quick description:

Band 1 = Gridded VIIRS Day/Night Band Nighttime Composites [units of Radiance: W per Sq cm] corrected for clouds, lightning, and thermal emissions.
Note this BETA version has no correction for lunar illumination (BRDF) effects. NO DATA (fill) values  = -999.00
Band 2 = Is the corresponding MODIS 5km monthly NDVI product (used for testing purposes).
Band 3 = Is the overpass time for each pixel (in UTC format). To convert to Nepal Local time, add +8 hours.

Band 4 = Is the mandatory binary quality flag:
[0 = High-Quality Retrieval extracted during the VIIRS overpass period]
[1 = Low-Quality Retrieval extracted using our gap-filling algorithm.]
No-data pixels are also flagged as 1.

Credit:

When using the data please credit the data generation to the Suomi NPP VIIRS Land Science Investigator-led Processing System (VIIRS Land SIPS), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Reference: Román, M.O., & Stokes, E.C. (2015). Holidays in lights: tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services. Earth's Future Journal [Under Review]

For questions contact miguel.o.roman (at) nasa.gov or eleanor.stokes (at) yale.edu
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