In the fall of 2018, NASA initiated a year-long program to evaluate how observations derived from Earth-orbiting, small-satellite constellations could augment observations from the agency’s fleet of orbiting Earth science missions. NASA awarded contracts to three companies (Planet, DigitalGlobe, and Spire) that met criteria within a public Request for Information (RFI), including: non-geostationary orbits; consistent, global coverage; and satellites designed and operated by non-governmental entities. These datasets are now being evaluated by existing NASA-funded researchers to help determine their utility for advancing NASA’s science and applications development goals. In the fall of 2019, NASA plans to issue another public RFI to continue its observation evaluations with the on-ramping of additional qualified vendors.  At this town hall, the NASA Earth Science Division will provide a status update on the pilot activity, answer questions about data access, on-ramps for other constellation owners, and answer questions from the community.

For much of the past year there have been numerous headlines citing the impact of the deployment of 5G technologies on weather forecasting. The FCC has moved forward with auctions of two different passive remote sensing bands that are critical inputs to numerical weather prediction. The proposal to share spectrum with GOES satellites has also advanced, increasing risk of interference to real-time GOES information to non-NOAA users. Last fall's World Radiocommunication Conference in Egypt also set the international rules around spectrum for the deployment of 5G. This Town Hall will feature international experts from across the enterprise who will highlight these recent challenges and the implications and actions for the weather enterprise moving forward.

Some of the most extreme events that endanger and take lives and damage property are volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, other seismic activity, tsunami, and their associated hazardous and detrimental environmental effects. The volatile Ring of Fire around much of the Pacific Basin has been historically the origin of the majority and most severe events. These phenomena have been extremely difficult to predict in order to provide timely and meaningful warnings for the people and property affected. Some progress has been made in using satellite observations to support the monitoring and understanding of such events. Panelists from the US and partnering nations will discuss how satellite observations from advanced national and international satellite systems might be used to improve the monitoring and understanding of these phenomena in order to eventually predict and warn of oncoming events.

Social media have become a primary mode of communication in all aspects of life, including science.  The panel will consist of scientists and science journalists who are adept at this mode of communication.  In opening remarks, each panelist will provide guidelines about how to best use social media, with an emphasis on Twitter, to communicate information on climate and climate change with high accuracy to a broad audience. These opening statements will be followed by questions from and discussions with the attendees.  The goal is to encourage and enable more atmospheric scientists to interact with the public and news media in clearly communicating science - including a basic understanding of scientific processes as well as interpreting new results and observations.