Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 3:30pm

NASA Goddard Visitor Center

(refreshments available at 3:00pm)

Featuring:

NPP Project Scientist

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

NPP (npp.gsfc.nasa.gov) is the first of a new generation of environmental observing satellites. NPP is the first satellite mission to address the challenge of acquiring a wide range of land, ocean, and atmospheric measurements for Earth system science while simultaneously preparing to address operational requirements for weather forecasting. NPP carries five science instruments. Observing in the microwave to the ultraviolet, data from NPP instruments continues many key data records initiated by NASA's Earth Observing System satellites. NOAA meteorologists will incorporate NPP data into their weather prediction models to produce accurate forecasts and warnings that will help emergency responders monitor and react to natural disasters. The NPP mission, measurements and how the some of the many NPP data products are used will be presented.

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Dr. James Gleason, is the Project Scientist for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP.) As Project Scientist, he is responsible for making sure the science requirements for the NPP mission are met. In June 2010, he was also named the Senior Project Scientist for the NASA/NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Program. In 2011, he received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for his work on NPP and JPSS. Dr Gleason has been a research scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center since 1989. Trained as a laboratory scientist, his degrees are in chemistry, a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a B.S. from St Lawrence University, Canton NY.

Dr. Gleason is contributor to many ongoing research groups and studies involving atmospheric remote sensing. He was the Principal Investigator of the Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) data product from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the Earth Observing System's Aura mission. In addition to his work on OMI NO2, he has published papers on the effect of the Mount Pinatubo eruption on stratospheric ozone, long-term ozone trends and using Total Ozone Mapper (TOMS) Aerosol Index to monitor biomass burning in the Amazon Region