Fairbanks has hosted a German American scientist who will be presenting at a Chicago conference about satellite research in the Himalayas and Central and South America.

This sounds a lot global. NASA’s Alaska Satellite Facility is located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s Geophysical Institute.

Franz Meyer is the chief scientist at the Satellite Facility and a professor of remote sensing in UAF. He is among many other researchers at the American Geophysical Union annual conference.

Meyer explained that Meyer’s work is about satellites being used to map flood-prone areas.

Franz Meyer has the ability to see through clouds and monitor during day and nights. These datasets are being used primarily for ecosystem stability monitoring, disaster management, food security, and food security in Central and South America, respectively. You can see that there is a local interest in local food security. These events can have a significant impact on the availability of local food resources and livelihoods. It is possible to determine how many people are affected and the population. On a global level, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Foreign Agricultural Service are our partners in these projects. To understand the impacts of weather events upon agriculture, they need to be able to determine market prices and food availability for different crops. It can have global consequences on the prices and availability for certain resources.

Casey Grove – Tell me why this particular satellite is so valuable for your work.

Franz Meyer – Radar remote sensing can be useful, because microwave wavelength signals can penetrate through the atmosphere even in cloudy conditions. This is a great tool for Earth observation. These radar systems were placed on satellites, and they took images and looked at the surface. Repeated observations can be used to monitor changes in the earth’s environment. This includes changes in the structure, such as urban sprawl, deforestation and agriculture growth. We can also closely examine surface displacement. Think of active volcanoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes or permafrost domes as examples of ground movement in these areas. The geophysical activity is causing the ground to move up and down. Radar is a great tool for measuring distances. By tracking the distances over time, radar can measure surface displacements on a millimeter- to centimeter-scale that are related to many natural hazards as well as a lot geophysical phenomena found here in Alaska.

Casey Grove – You betcha. Now I want to ask you why someone is based in Fairbanks and doing this type of work. Maybe that’s the technology, how satellites work and why Alaska Satellite Facility exists. But why? Fairbanks is the best!

Franz Meyer : This is partly due to the Alaska Satellite Facility. ASF was originally created as a ground station. We use a variety of NASA-owned communication antennas in order to communicate with Earth observation satellites. These satellites pass often over the pole so the farther north you are, the more you will see them. It makes sense to have a ground station in high latitudes. You can download more data, an uplink more commands, and it is easier to communicate with the satellites. Fairbanks, the most northern U.S. town with stable power, was chosen in the 1990s.

Casey Grove – Franz, I was curious about the blue dish that is on top of the Geophysical Institute. The Satellite Facility also uses other dishes. That’s a pretty iconic image at this point. It’s only part of the skyline when you look up at West Ridge, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Franz Meyer – That’s a great point, Casey. You know, Fairbanks and Alaskans recognize the blue dish at the top of the GI Building. It was added to the roof in 1990. There are currently four dishes in operation, but this one is most familiar to the majority. It was replaced several years ago and upgraded to have better broadband capabilities and to be able to download larger datasets. One of the most funny things that we learned from Fairbanks was to ensure that the dish is again blue. It was so famous that people refused to see it change. Fairbanks was a key input in making sure the new dish was blue. It is, of course, again.

Casey Grove – Why is it blue?

Franz Meyer. I wasn’t there at the time. However, my understanding was that the idea was to blend it in with the sky and make it less visible. People didn’t like the idea of this dish being on the building at first. That helped to alleviate some people’s concerns. However, I believe it is now an established part in Fairbanks’ skyline.

Casey Grove : Yes. So, we talked about the Alaska Satellite Facility’s past and what you have been doing here. Now, we will be presenting at the AGU conference. What is the future of ASF? You know what, in the short term, what are your hopes and dreams?

Franz Meyer : Yes, ASF. We have been working hard over the past few years to prepare ourselves for a large-scale mission that NASA is launching. NISAR is the name of a mission. This mission is a collaboration between NASA India. It will be launched in 2024. It will provide unprecedented data to monitor dynamic signals across the globe. It will provide unimaginable data volumes. It will deliver approximately 50 petabytes per year. To put it in perspective, NASA’s archives currently hold more data than NASA has. This mission will deliver over 50 petabytes of data per year for three years. All these data will be held by ASF. We are also NISAR’s downlink station, so some data will be brought down from Fairbanks directly into our archives.