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2006 Annual Science Report

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Reporting  |  JUL 2005 – JUN 2006

Satellite Thermal Remote Sensing of Boiling Springs Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park

Project Summary

Pedelty worked with the NAI Virus Focus Group (ViFoG), co-chaired by K. Stedman, Portland State University, and former NAI director B. Blumberg, Fox Chase Cancer Center, to understand the thermal history of Boiling Springs Lake (BSL) in the Lassen Volcanic National Park.

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Field Sites

Project Progress

Pedelty worked with the NAI Virus Focus Group (ViFoG), co-chaired by K. Stedman, Portland State University, and former NAI director B. Blumberg, Fox Chase Cancer Center, to understand the thermal history of Boiling Springs Lake (BSL) in the Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Stedman and others in the ViFoG have been sampling the extremophilic organisms in BSL and other hot and acidic environments. The sampling of BSL has occurred in the summer and early fall for logistical reasons, and at those times the temperature of the lake has been measured to be ~52C, with temperatures ~82C in a more active cove in the southeast. These high temperatures, along with pH values ~2.2, favor prokaryotic over eukaryotic organisms, but it was not known whether Boiling Springs Lake cools significantly during the winter or when late spring snowmelt might deliver fresh cold water to the lake. Such cooling and fresh water infusion would lead to a different microbial ecology compared to a nearly constant thermal environment.

Pedelty acquired satellite thermal remote sensing images to address this question. Images from the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument on the Landsat 7 satellite and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on the EOS Terra satellite were used in this study. The ETM+ has a single thermal channel spanning 10.4 — 12.5 μm with a spatial resolution of 60m, while ASTER has 5 bands between 8 and 12 μm with 90m spatial resolution, along with other bands in the visible and near infrared. Analyses of 4 ETM+ scenes taken in February 2004, May 2005, August 2004 and October 2002 provided an initial indication of fall/winter cooling, as temperatures of 26C, 35C, 42C, and 35C were measured for the hottest temperature pixel in each scene, respectively. Atmospheric correction of these scenes was accomplished using the AtmCorr tool developed by Barsi (NASA GSFC) et al., and made available at http://atmcorr.gsfc.nasa.gov . This temperature trend was confirmed and extended using a larger collection of ASTER scenes ordered through the Earth Observing System Data Gateway (http://edcimswww.cr.usgs.gov/pub/imswelcome ). A total of 53 scenes exist in their archive, with 35 daytime (15 clear) and 18 nighttime (9 clear) acquisitions spanning May 2000 through May 2006. Initial analyses show a clear cooling from approximately October through May, with peak temperatures as low as 15-20C measured. The trend of temperature versus date (within each year) for the daytime scenes is shown in Figure 1.

Shadowing due to lower sun angles is not likely to be the cause of the cooler winter temperatures since nighttime temperatures show the same seasonal trend. However, second order effects due to the non-square point spread function are under investigation, and efforts are underway to confirm these temperature trends with aerial thermal remote sensing. Pedelty presented these results to the NAI ViFoG meeting near Lassen Volcanic National Park in June 2006, where he accompanied the group on a fascinating tour of Boiling Springs Lake.

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  • PROJECT INVESTIGATORS:
    Jeffrey Pedelty
    Co-Investigator
  • RELATED OBJECTIVES: