Earth Lab

Earth Lab will harness the wave of Earth observations from space and integrate them to answer outstanding questions about the pace and pattern of environmental change, from our backyards to our world.

Projects include:

• Project Fire integrates NASA satellite and field data on climate, fuels and ignitions with government fire records to determine how wildfires have changed in the western U.S. over the past two decades.
• Project Drought links NASA satellite soil moisture data and CU’s Tempest drone to measure soil moisture at sub-meter depths, addressing key questions related to water management.
• Project Risk establishes a decision theater that applies data from multiple Earth system sensors to improve risk management and decision-making in land use (agriculture and infrastructure) and hazards mitigation.
• Project Date Harmonization analyzes satellite, drone and field-based data collected at varying resolutions to determine how Earth science phenomena are represented at different space and time scales. Earth Lab will train the next generation of Earth scientists who are among the leaders in data analytics and problem solving.