Dr. Matthew Rodell is Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland.听 The Lab comprises about 65 scientists and engineers involved in remote sensing and numerical modeling of the terrestrial water cycle and related applications.听 Dr. Rodell is a member of the science team for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow On missions.听 He leads the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) and other projects focused on monitoring groundwater storage changes, mapping and forecasting drought/wetness, and detecting climate related variations in the water cycle. 听Dr. Rodell is a past Associate Editor for the Journal of Hydrology and current Editor for the Journal of Hydrometeorology.听 He has chaired the Hydrology Program for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting and led various national and international scientific working groups.听 He received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2006, a NASA/GSFC Earth Science Achievement Award in 2007, a Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement in Science in 2011, and an Arthur S. Flemming Award for outstanding federal service in the area of basic science in 2015. 听Dr. Rodell has more than 110 peer-reviewed publications and he appeared on Clarivate Analytics鈥� 2018 list of Highly Cited Researchers.听 He holds a B.S. in environmental science from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.听
Abstract: Monitoring the Water Cycle from Space
Monitoring the water cycle is crucial for ensuring food and water security now and in the future.听 In the U.S. and certain other first world nations many types of observations that are useful for water cycle monitoring are collected and made available, however, in less developed countries these observations are often sparse, not centralized, and/or not made available to the public.听 Even in the U.S. there are vast areas that are not well sampled by ground based measurements.听 This is the motivation for airborne and satellite based remote sensing of the water cycle, much of which has been pioneered by NASA.听 Hydrometeorological variables that can be inferred from space include precipitation, soil moisture, surface water location and elevation, snow cover and depth, and terrestrial water storage (the sum of groundwater, soil moisture, surface waters, and snow).听 In this presentation I will provide an overview of various satellite missions and how their data are used for hydrological science and applications.听 I then discuss the NASA/German Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission and the GRACE Follow On mission, discoveries that have been made using GRACE, how the data can be integrated with other observations within a land surface model, and practical applications. 听听听听