scholarly journals Urban-focused satellite CO2 observations from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3: a first look at the Los Angeles Megacity 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthäus Kiel ◽  
Annmarie Eldering ◽  
Dustin D. Roten ◽  
Ruixue Lei ◽  
Sha Feng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Meteorological Condition ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Kennedy Space ◽  
Urban Emissions ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Characteristics

<p>The OCO-3 instrument was launched on May 4, 2019 from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station. Since August 2019, the instrument has taken measurements of reflected sunlight in three near-infrared bands from which column averaged dry-air mole fractions of carbon dioxide (XCO<sub>2</sub>) are derived. The instrument was specifically designed to measure anthropogenic emissions and its snapshot area map (SAM) and target (TG) observational modes allow to scan large contiguous areas (up to 80×80 km<sup>2</sup>) on a single overpass over emission hotspots like cities, power plants, or volcanoes. These measurements result in fine-scale spatial maps of XCO<sub>2</sub> unlike what can be done with any other current space-based instrument. Here, we present and analyze XCO<sub>2</sub> distributions over the Los Angeles (LA) megacity derived from multiple OCO-3 TG and SAM mode observations using the vEarly data product. We find that urban XCO<sub>2</sub> values are elevated by 2-6 ppm relative to a clean background. The dense, high resolution OCO-3 observations reveal fine-scale, intra-urban variations of XCO<sub>2 </sub>over the LA megacity that have not been observed from space before. We further analyze the intra-urban characteristics and compare the XCO<sub>2</sub> enhancements observed by OCO-3 with simulated values from two models that can resolve XCO<sub>2</sub> variations across the city: an Eulerian (WRF-Chem) and a Lagrangian approach (X-STILT). We show that the observed variations are mainly driven by the complex and highly variable meteorological condition in the LA Basin. Median XCO<sub>2</sub> differences between model and observation are typically below 1.3 ppm over the entirety of the LA megacity with slightly larger differences for some sub regions. Further, we find that OCO-3’s multi-swath measurements capture about three times as much of the city emissions compared to single-swath overpasses. In the future, these observations will help to better constrain urban emissions at finer spatiotemporal scales.</p>

OCO-3 Snapshot Area Mapping Mode: Early Results

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Roland Nelson ◽  
Annmarie Eldering ◽  
Thomas Kurosu ◽  
Matthäus Kiel ◽  
Brendan Fisher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
International Space ◽  
Future Mission ◽  
Early Results ◽  
Dense Sampling ◽  
Wide Swath

<p>The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) was launched on May 4, 2019 to the International Space Station and has been taking measurements since August. OCO-3, like its predecessor OCO-2, makes hyperspectral measurements of reflected sunlight in three near-infrared bands. However, one of the unique features of OCO-3 is its ability to scan large contiguous areas on the order of 80 km by 80 km using a pointing mirror assembly. This capability, known as snapshot area mapping (SAM) mode, is being used to look at cities, forests, volcanos, and multiple other areas that are of interest to the carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) scientific communities. For example, OCO-3 can measure column-mean CO<sub>2</sub> (XCO<sub>2</sub>) over the entire Los Angeles, CA basin during the span of only two minutes. With several hundred SAMs having been collected so far and upwards of 25 possible per day, there is a wealth of data to investigate for scientific features and for any potential instrument biases. Additionally, this type of dense sampling will be a proof-of-concept for multiple future wide-swath CO<sub>2</sub> missions. Here, we present several OCO-3 SAM mode measurements and discuss interesting features, XCO<sub>2</sub> results, and future mission plans.</p>

scholarly journals New ECOSTRESS and MODIS Land Surface Temperature Data Reveal Fine-Scale Heat Vulnerability in Cities: A Case Study for Los Angeles County, California

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glynn Hulley ◽  
Sarah Shivers ◽  
Erin Wetherley ◽  
Robert Cudd
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Temperature Data ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Heat Vulnerability ◽  
Surface Temperature Data

Rapid 21st century urbanization combined with anthropogenic climate warming are significantly increasing heat-related health threats in cities worldwide. In Los Angeles (LA), increasing trends in extreme heat are expected to intensify and exacerbate the urban heat island effect, leading to greater health risks for vulnerable populations. Partnerships between city policymakers and scientists are becoming more important as the need to provide data-driven recommendations for sustainability and mitigation efforts becomes critical. Here we present a model to produce heat vulnerability index (HVI) maps driven by surface temperature data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) new Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) thermal infrared sensor. ECOSTRESS was launched in June 2018 with the capability to image fine-scale urban temperatures at a 70 m resolution throughout different times of the day and night. The HVI model further includes information on socio-demographic data, green vegetation abundance, and historical heatwave temperatures from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor onboard the Aqua spacecraft since 2002. During a period of high heat in July 2018, we identified the five most vulnerable communities at a sub-city block scale in the LA region. The persistence of high HVI throughout the day and night in these areas indicates a clear and urgent need for implementing cooling technologies and green infrastructure to curb future warming.

Early Comparison of OCO-3 XCO2 Measurements with TCCON

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthaeus Kiel ◽  
Joshua Laughner ◽  
Annmarie Eldering ◽  
Brendan Fisher ◽  
Thomas Kurosu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Near Infrared ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Kennedy Space Center ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Target Mode ◽  
Infrared Spectral ◽  
Kennedy Space

<p>The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) was successfully launched on May 4, 2019 from Kennedy Space Center via a Space-X Falcon 9. One week later, the instrument was installed as an external payload on the International Space Station (ISS). OCO-3 extends NASA’s study of carbon and measures the dry-air mole fraction of column carbon dioxide (XCO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere from space.</p><p>These space-based measurements are compared to ground-based observations from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). TCCON is a global network of high-resolution ground-based Fourier Transform Spectrometers that records spectra of the sun in the near-infrared spectral region. From these spectra, accurate and precise column-averaged abundances of atmospheric constituents including CO2 are retrieved. TCCON data are tied to the WMO scale and serve as the link between calibrated surface in situ measurements and OCO-3 measurements.</p><p>OCO-3’s agile 2-D pointing mirror assembly (PMA) allows the instrument to stare at a TCCON station as it passes overhead - providing information about the quality, biases, and errors in the OCO-3 data. Here, we show early comparisons between the OCO-3 XCO2 dataset collected during target mode observations and coincident TCCON measurements and discuss site-dependent biases and its potential origins.</p>

Utopian Visions in United States Urbanism

Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 164) (4) ◽  
pp. 157-186
Author(s):  
James M. McCutcheon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
New World ◽  
New Technology ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Central Park ◽  
Garden Cities ◽  
Oneida Community ◽  
The City

America’s appeal to Utopian visionaries is best illustrated by the Oneida Community, and by Etienne Cabet’s experiment (Moreana 31/215 f and 43/71 f). A Messianic spirit was a determinant in the Puritans’ crossing the Atlantic. The Edenic appeal of the vast lands in a New World to migrants in a crowded Europe is obvious. This article documents the ambition of urbanists to preserve that rural quality after the mushrooming of towns: the largest proved exemplary in bringing the country into the city. New York’s Central Park was emulated by the open spaces on the grounds of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. The garden-cities surrounding London also provided inspiration, as did the avenues by which Georges Haussmann made Paris into a tourist mecca, and Pierre L’Enfant’s designs for the nation’s capital. The author concentrates on two growing cities of the twentieth century, Los Angeles and Honolulu. His detailed analysis shows politicians often slow to implement the bold and costly plans of designers whose ambition was to use the new technology in order to vie with the splendor of the natural sites and create the “City Beautiful.” Some titles in the bibliography show the hopes of those dreamers to have been tempered by fears of “supersize” or similar drawbacks.

Los Angeles in the 1930sThe WPA Guide to the City of Angels

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federal Writers Project of the Works ◽  
David Kipen
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
The City

Review: Urban Latino Cultures: La Vida Latina en LA by Gustavo Leclerc, Raúl Villa, and Michael J. Dear (eds.)

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Catherine S. Ramirez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crime Wave ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The City ◽  
History Of Los Angeles

Throughout the twentieth century (and now the twenty-first), the specter of a Latina/o past, present, and future has haunted the myth of Los Angeles as a sunny, bucolic paradise. At the same time it has loomed behind narratives of the city as a dystopic, urban nightmare. In the 1940s Carey McWilliams pointed to the fabrication of a “Spanish fantasy heritage” that made Los Angeles the bygone home of fair señoritas, genteel caballeros and benevolent mission padres. Meanwhile, the dominant Angeleno press invented a “zoot” (read Mexican-American) crime wave. Unlike the aristocratic, European Californias/os of lore, the Mexican/American “gangsters” of the 1940s were described as racial mongrels. What's more, the newspapers explicitly identified them as the sons and daughters of immigrants-thus eliding any link they may have had to the Californias/os of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or to the history of Los Angeles in general.

Városutópiák környezetpszichológiai és szimbolikai elemzése

2003 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edit Lippai ◽  
Andrea Dúll
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Jersey City ◽  
The City

A városépítészet egész történetét végigkísérik a „Jó város - jó társadalom” elképzelések, vagyis az utópiák. A jelen tanulmányban néhány, a szépirodalomban megjelent ideális, tökéletes, kívánt városelképzelést, vagyis eutópiát elemzünk környezetpszichológiai és szimbolikai szempontból. A városok tényleges téri-társadalmi szerkezetének és folyamatainak, valamint ezek mentális-érzelmi leképezodésének vizsgálata egyidos a környezetpszichológiával. A kutatást Kevin Lynch (1960) úttöro vizsgálatai alapozták meg, amelyeket „A város képe” (The Image of the City) címu klasszikus könyvében publikált. Lynch három amerikai város - Boston, Los Angeles és Jersey City - lakosságának reprezentatív mintáin végzett kutatásában a lakók mentális térképeit vizsgálta. Kutatásának eredményei szerint az emberek fejében él egy kép a városukról (image of the city), ami a városlakó orientációs bázisa és egyúttal esztétikai-formai struktúra. Összehasonlítva a három amerikai városról alkotott mentális térképeket, Lynch rájött, hogy bizonyos környezeti elemek általános térkép-jellegzetességnek tekinthetok: utak (paths), határok (edges), lakónegyedek (districts), csomópontok (nodes), iránypontok (landmarks). Az utópiák három csoportra oszthatók: idobeli (múlt- és a jövobeli), térbeli (négy világtáj irányában, illetve magasban vagy mélyben levo) és abszolút (képzeletbeli) utópiákra. Az általunk elemzett idobeli utópiák: Atlantisz, Mennyei Jeruzsálem, Minas Tirith és Diaspar, térbeli utópiák: Nekeresd, Napváros, Eldorado és abszolút utópia: Elefántcsonttorony. Ezeket a városutópiákat ebben a munkában kulturális városképeknek tekintettük, és ily módon elemeztük fizikai, észlelheto elemeiket. Vizsgálatunk során arra az érdekes felfedezésre bukkantunk - természetesen Lynch munkájáról nem is tudva -, hogy az utópiák megalkotói pontosan az általuk empirikusan feltárt fenti szempontok alapján írták le információikat az általuk tökéletesnek tartott városról. Elemzésünk eredménye szerint leírhatók a vágyott város ismérvei általában: 1. széles, jó alapanyagból készült sugárutak, 2. jól elkülönített határok és szélek, amelyek védenek, s tagolják a város szerkezetét és 3. a városon belül tágas tereket, kerületeket fognak közre, valamint 4. a csomópontokban a vizuális tájékozódást segíto jellegzetes és látványos tereptárgy van. A városok lakóit többek között közös szimbólumrendszer és a kommunikáció adott, megszokott módja kapcsolja egymáshoz. Az utópikus városok szimbolikus „kognitív térképeinek” funkciója - a valós városokéhoz hasonlóan - az lehet, hogy keretet és biztonságos kapaszkodót nyújtanak egy ideális világban, megteremtik az arról való közös kommunikáció lehetoségét, és ily módon kifejezik, létrehozzák és fenntartják az emberek vágyott tökéletes helykötodését és helyidentitását.

Wastewater treatment and risk assessment in ocean outfall evaluations

1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (10) ◽  
pp. 309-316
Author(s):  
William F. Garber
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Advanced Treatment ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Ocean Outfall ◽  
Treatment And Disposal ◽  
The City

Past evaluations of the success of wastewater treatment and submarine outfall placement and operation have considered only a limited number of parameters affecting the marine and onshore environments. Important questions regarding the best allocation of available funds have not been adequately addressed. The relative contamination of the sea from airborne and landwash contaminants has not been considered. Neither has the increased air pollution deriving from the energy required for advanced treatment. Similarly, regular epidemiological studies to evaluate actual changes in morbidity arising from drastic changes in treatment and disposal have not been made prior to very large committments of funds. Most importantly, little attention has been given to the relative ranking of all environmental risks within a catchment area. The net result is that, when all factors are considered, the very large expenditures and increased energy use for sanitary wastewater treatment and outfall disposal will have a net negative effect on the physical and societal environment. The City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Metropolitan area can be used to illustrate this probability.

The New Age for Sewer Planning at the City of Los Angeles

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (12) ◽  
pp. 1353-1359
Author(s):  
Mario Dimzon ◽  
Fernando Gonzalez ◽  
Ali Poosti ◽  
Adel Hagekhalil ◽  
Erick Heath ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
New Age ◽  
The City

The Resilient City

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Oklahoma City Bombing ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
The City

In 1871, the city of Chicago was almost entirely destroyed by what became known as The Great Fire. Thirty-five years later, San Francisco lay in smoldering ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. Or consider the case of the Jerusalem, the greatest site of physical destruction and renewal in history, which, over three millennia, has suffered wars, earthquakes, fires, twenty sieges, eighteen reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religious faith to another. Yet this ancient city has regenerated itself time and again, and still endures. Throughout history, cities have been sacked, burned, torched, bombed, flooded, besieged, and leveled. And yet they almost always rise from the ashes to rebuild. Viewing a wide array of urban disasters in global historical perspective, The Resilient City traces the aftermath of such cataclysms as: --the British invasion of Washington in 1814 --the devastation wrought on Berlin, Warsaw, and Tokyo during World War II --the late-20th century earthquakes that shattered Mexico City and the Chinese city of Tangshan --Los Angeles after the 1992 riots --the Oklahoma City bombing --the destruction of the World Trade Center Revealing how traumatized city-dwellers consistently develop narratives of resilience and how the pragmatic process of urban recovery is always fueled by highly symbolic actions, The Resilient City offers a deeply informative and unsentimental tribute to the dogged persistence of the city, and indeed of the human spirit.

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