NORMAN, OK– NASA recently selected the Geosynchronous Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer (GLIMR) instrument, led by principal investigator Joseph Salisbury at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. GLIMR will observe coastal oceans in the Gulf of Mexico, portions of the southeastern US coastline, and tropical Atlantic that is impacted by the Amazon river. Observations from GLIMR will be used to better understand marine ecology, chemistry and biology, all of which tie directly in to the carbon cycle in the coastal environment. GLIMR's data will provide a complementary view to that of GeoCarb's atmospheric measurements of carbon gases over the North and South American land surface. Given that the flow of carbon from land into the coastal oceans is particularly poorly understood, the potential for transformative science using both datasets together is extremely high.
In 2007, the National Research Council, as part of the Decadal Survey, recommended the GEOstationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission , which would measure trace gases important for air quality and climate as well as direct measurements of ocean color. With the selection of GLIMR, GeoCarb and TEMPO, the vision of GEO-CAPE will be realized through three separate instruments that will operate on commercial satellites as hosted payloads. All three instruments are coordinating efforts for mission elements such as scientific algorithms, calibration and validation in order to strengthen the science return from each individually once all three are on orbit.
