December 2024

December 5, 2024

Maps of mangrove condition in southern Florida. On the left, a map from 2016 shows mangroves mostly healthy. On the right, a map from 2017 shows a large extent of mangroves either recovering from disturbance or declining.

The iconic trees and shrubs of the Florida Everglades are under increased stress due to more frequent, intense hurricanes. A team of researchers (Yang et al., 2024) used Landsat to analyze over 20 years of mangrove condition data, tracking how their ability to recover has declined.

Tracking Mangroves Over Decades

Map of South Korea with water systems highlighted.

January 2, 2025

Monitoring Water Quality in South Korea

South Korea is facing a water quality problem. Researchers Hyunglok Kim and Seongjun Lee from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) embarked on developing a model to predict water quality indicators in near real-time.

Four panels show the amount of green on the peninsula’s ice-free land. The shade of each hexagon corresponds to the amount of land area where levels of plant greenness and density were high enough to indicate the “almost certain” presence of vegetation. The NDVI values were derived from cloud-free Landsat observations from March of 1986 and 2004, which typically encompasses the end of the growing season.

December 2, 2024

Satellites Reveal a Greener Antarctic Peninsula

Source: Lindsey Doermann, NASA's Earth Observatory

An analysis of 35 years of Landsat data (Roland et al., 2024) shows an Antarctic with far more greenery than it had in the past. Scientists are beginning to unravel what comes next, after the ice moves out and vegetation moves in.

Landsat 8 collected this image of the Lena River Delta in Russia on July 7, 2000

December 20, 2024

SPACE OUT with Landsat

In this new special from NASA+, sit back and relax as Landsat takes you around the world. Soar above the towering cliffs of the Grand Canyon, catch the seasons changing in the Appalachian Mountains and watch as the Indus River crests its banks, all part of the vast archive of Landsat imagery.

Reaching Out

Landsat Next spectral band graphic with emerging applications.

December 24, 2024

Landsat at AGU24

At AGU24, NASA and USGS Project Scientists convened two sessions on “Emerging Science Applications of Landsat Data,” which explored potential uses of Landsat Next's 26 bands. At the NASA booth, the Landsat Outreach team educated attendees about the benefits of Landsat data.

PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT

Multi-Decadal Collapse of East Antarctica’s Conger–Glenzer Ice Shelf

| Walker et al., 2024

Antarctica is rapidly melting into the ocean. Thus far, most of that melting has come from West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, which together have the potential to raise sea level by about 5.5 m (or 18 feet). The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, meanwhile, holds 10 times as much ice, and its melting adds a lot of uncertainty to sea level rise predictions. Walker et. al tracked the evolution and eventual collapse of the Conger-Glenzer Ice Shelf in East Antarctica from 1997-2000 using data from several satellites including Landsat 1-9. Researchers used imagery from Landsat 1-9 and Sentinel 1-3 to visually inspect the extent of the ice shelf, and used ICESat to track surface elevation, helping to measure thinning over time. The collapse of the Conger-Glezer Ice Shelf in 2022 was the first major ice shelf collapse observed in East Antarctica.

Map of ice thickness in the Shackleton Ice Shelf in Antartica

Shackleton Ice Shelf (SIS) thickness from 1994-1995, prior to the Conger-Glenzer Ice Shelf separating from the main SIS. The location of the Conger-Glenzer Ice Shelf is shown in orange box. Image credit: Walker et al., 2024

Find more selected Landsat publications on our website.