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