Message from the Director
Dr.Nan Walker (nwalker@lsu.edu)
The LSU Earth Scan Laboratory is celebrating its 20th year of operation and expansion. You
will find real-time satellite movie loops of current weather, storm
motion, and ocean currents based on measurements of the GOES-East satellite, as well as historic
animations of deadly hurricanes. We use measurements from the MODIS and OCM sensors to produce true color
images that provide incredible detail on vegetation, water quality, suspended sediments, and algal
blooms from Louisiana to Mexico and the Bahamas.
In support of research and eduction, we have developed techniques for quantifying surface sediments,
temperature, and chlorophyll a usings our satellite products. We have also developed novel ways of
"de-clouding" temperature imagery so that we can map temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and track ocean
features even during summer.
In addition to a wide range of current imagery and archives dating back to 1999, you will find
information on research projects and a listing of publications. If you want to know what satellites
will be capturing in the near future, for cruise planning or satellite validation efforts,
you may find our satellite schedules useful, accessible from the "satellites" page.
We look forward for your feedback.
Mission of the ESL
The mission of the Earth Scan Laboratory is to support research, education,
and public service/emergency response with near real time or archival
remotely sensed satellite data, its processing, analysis, interpretation,
and dissemination.
From its central location, the ESL can capture satellite data covering the
entire Gulf of Mexico, most of the Western Atlantic, the extreme Eastern
Pacific, and the land mass from the Hudson Bay to the northern most part
of South America. This data is permanently archived creating a growing
record of environmental data for education, research, economic, and
forensic applications. This satellite data is a valuable asset for
management decision making that involves environmental conditions, such
as:
- Surveillance of coastal and estuarine waters surface temperatures, coastal circulation changes, water quality, sediment transport, algal blooms, and coastal flooding for effective management of coastal resources.
- Detecting and tracking coastal and ocean currents, eddies, and water mass boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico for oil spill response, oil and gas operations, coastal and pelagic fisheries, and weather forecasting.
- Tracking and forecasting the movement of severe storms over land and sea
- Providing atmospheric information in areas of frontogenesis and cyclogenesis over the Gulf of Mexico, needed for severe storm detection and forecasting
- Detecting forest and brush fires and their progress in remote regions
- Detecting river flooding in local detail for state disaster-related decision makers
- Detecting vegetation stress (water or parasitic) of agricultural land and forests for crop yield forecasting and management
- Monitoring and forecasting of river and coastal fog for offshore petroleum, fisheries, and other maritime industries
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The ESL At-a-Glance
- 1-meter tracking antenna, capturing NOAA HRPT, SeaWiFS telemetries
- 3.6m geostationary antenna, capturing GOES-12 GVAR
- 4.4m tracking antenna, capturing MODIS, OCM, SAR
- Data archive
- HRPT: 1987 - present
- MODIS: 2001 - present
- OCM: 2002 - present
- GVAR: Various, event-related
- Software
- Seaspace Terascan
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IMAPP
- (Univ. of Wisc.)
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Description and Brief History of ESL
The LSU Earth Scan Laboratory (ESL), founded by
Dr. Oscar Huh,
Coastal Studies Institute in collaboration with other CSI faculty, is a
receiving and processing facility for environmental data from earth
orbiting satellites. The Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
provided initial funding for its establishment on 29 June 1988. On that
day, the ESL received its first satellite image of Louisiana and the Gulf
of Mexico from one of the NOAA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites.
Download the ESL history to read the whole story!
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