CORVALLIS – A prototype scanner aboard the International Space Station is providing scientists with a new set of imaging tools that will help them monitor Earth’s coastal regions for events from oil spills to plankton blooms.
The images and other data are now available to scientists from around the world through an online clearinghouse coordinated by Oregon State University.
Additional details of the project will be announced in a forthcoming issue of the American Geophysical Union journal, EOS, and can be found on the project’s website.
The Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean, or HICO, is the first space-borne sensor created specifically for observing the coastal ocean and will allow scientists to better analyze human impacts and climate change effects on the world’s coastal regions, according to Curtiss O. Davis, an OSU oceanographer and the project scientist.
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(Image: Mouth of the Columbia River, from HICO image gallery)