| | New research led by Landsat 8/9 Project Scientist Chris Neigh used Landsat and ICESat-2 data to investigate how much boreal forests could grow. As young boreal forests grow taller, they sequester carbon, paving the way for a substantial future carbon sink. | | |
| |
February 26, 2025
NASA Open Data Turns Science into Art
Source: Lauren Leese, NASA Science
Numerous artists have incorporated NASA science data into their work, further engaging the public in science discovery. Data for the “Synchronicity” art piece included vegetation health data from Landsat.
| | |
“The satellite data from Landsat are one of the most important inputs to the ET models, which use the satellite data to measure patterns in land surface temperature and vegetation extent and condition at the scale of individual fields.”
—OpenET: How it Works, March 13, 2025
OpenET website
| | | The Landsat Communications and Public Engagement Team will be at the following events in April 2025: | | | | |
April 26, 2025
University of Maryland
College Park, MD
The Landsat team will be at a table in the lawn in front of the Kirwan Hall.
| | |
“It’s hard to overstate the impact of the Landsat program: Landsat data allows scientists to understand land use and land cover change, including processes such as urbanization, deforestation, crop monitoring, monitoring and management of natural disasters (such as floods and wildfires), and more."
Library of Congress Worlds Revealed Blog
| | | |
PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT
New coasts emerging from the retreat of Northern Hemisphere marine-terminating glaciers in the twenty-first century
| Kavan et al., 2025
Across the Arctic, melting glaciers are exposing new coastline. This new coastline has important impacts on local ecosystems and human communities, but it’s been largely overlooked by researchers. In Kavan et al, 2025, published last month in Nature Climate Change, an international team of researchers identified nearly 2,500 km (over 1,550 miles) of new coastline created by glacial retreat between 2000 and 2020. Nearly two thirds (66%) of that coastline was exposed in Greenland. They also looked at glacial advance and coastline loss in the Arctic, finding that less than 55 km (34 miles) of coastline was lost due to growing glaciers. To map the Arctic’s changing coastline, the researchers used a dataset of all marine-terminating glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere. Then, they used false-color imagery from Sentinel-2 to identify the new shoreline and check glacier margin accuracy. To reach back in time to 2000, they used true-color imagery from Landsat 7, which allowed them to measure glacial advance and coastline loss. Emerging coastlines change the dynamics of this ice-dominated region, with varied ecological, economic, and geomorphological impacts.
| Length of new and lost coastline in the Arctic from 2000-2020. Red dots represent the length of new coastline due to glacial retreat, with more new coastline represented by darker reds. Blue dots represent the length of lost coastline due to glacial advance, with greater loss represented by darker blues. Image credit: Kavan et al., 2025 | | | Tracking Glaciers with Landsat | | | | |
Landsat imagery shows how the size of Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier changed from 1986 to 2024, using infrared bands to differentiate ice, rocks & soil, and vegetation. The glacier has retreated about a mile, and in some places thinned by 2,000 feet.
Although Mendenhall’s retreat began centuries ago, warming have accelerated its decline. Between 2005 and 2019, the wider Juneau Icefield (Mendenhall’s source) lost 63 of 1,050 glaciers and 10% of its ice.
Satellites like Landsat help scientists track these changes over time, as seen in a recent reel on the NASA Climate Change Instagram.
+ Get reel
| |
March 17, 2025
Bahía Blanca Inundated
Torrential rains set off dangerous flash flooding in the Argentinian port city.
| | |
A Fond Farewell
You will see a new name and face sending you the NASA Landsat Science News Digest next month. After 25 years with the Landsat Communication and Public Engagement Team, I am saying farewell. The newsletter is in expert hands. Expect great things! ~Laura E.P. Rocchio
| | | | | |
