From NASA:
NCEI continues its seven-year partnership with the NASA DEVELOP. This nationwide program utilizes NASA Earth science satellite data to address diverse environmental issues impacting communities Program working with early-career scientists and university students. This nationwide program utilizes NASA Earth science satellite data to address diverse environmental issues impacting communities. At the DEVELOP NCEI location, participants work on projects that focus primarily on climate applications and incorporate NCEI climate data.
This spring, the NASA DEVELOP NCEI team is building upon the fall 2020 project by continuing research into water resource forecasting in the Upper Missouri River Basin. The fall 2020 team developed a framework for computing a Composite Moisture Index (CMI) to enhance forecasting of summer drought and flood conditions, and the spring team is focusing on refining this innovative tool. CMI leverages NASA Earth observations to derive soil moisture and snow cover data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS), and the Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The team is also exploring the impacts of adding stream flow measurements to the index and will conduct a sensitivity analysis to understand the thresholds and timescales of the CMI outputs.
The team has partnered with the Montana Climate Office, the NWS Missouri Basin River Forecast Center, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, and the NOAA Regional Climate Services of the Central Region.
