Key Research Projects
- Interpretation of satellite-measured greenness variation of Amazon forests.
This project thoroughly examines all issues related to the use of satellite-data from the latest sensors like NASA's MODIS to study the changes in vegetation greenness of Amazon forests, which constitute one of the most important biomes of our planet. This will help answer questions about the vulnerability of these forests to climatic anomalies like drought (e.g., 2005 and 2010 droughts) - a topic very germane to the changing carbon stocks in the face of ongoing and future climate change. Further information can be found on NASA Earth Exchange.
- Understanding the response of the physical climate system to reductions in anthropogenic climate forcings (e.g., CO2 reduction) with climate models.
This project assesses how the physical climate system - temperature, precipitation, sea-ice etc. - will respond to a reduction of CO2 after an initial increase (e.g. doubling from 350ppm to 700ppm), which is relevant to ongoing and future climate change. This research utilizes state-of-the-art climate models such as the NCAR CAM and CLM. Further information can be found here.
- Assessing decadal variations in food production in the semi-arid tropics.
This project studies variations in food production in countries of the semi-arid tropics such as India during the last three decades, using satellite-data and models. A key focus of this research is to track the recent deceleration in food production in countries like India and link these to unsustainable practices such as over-exploitation of groundwater, which is an important theme related to food security of billions of people. Further information can be found here.
- Charaterizing canopy structure using hyperspectral and multi-angle satellite data.
This project utilizes a variety of data - multi-spectral, multi-angle data, lidar data and hyper-spectral data, along with field measurements - to map large-scale vegetation structure from space. This effort will be useful in studies of quantifying biomass and its dynamics in a changing climate. Further information can be found here.
- Creating long-term data-sets of planetary greenness using multi-sensor satellite data.
This project utilizes advanced remote sensing theory with data from mutliple sensors - AVHRR and MODIS - to generate long-term data-sets of planetray greenness. Among others, a key focus of this project is to monitor and map the health of vegetation globally, and at frequent intervals (daily, weekly, monthly), which is crucial for understanding climate-vegetation interactions in the short and long-terms. Further informations can be found here.
- Development of a denoising algorithm to study fault-displacement during earthquakes using satellite data.
- Development of novel image processing methodologies using soft-computing tools.