Joshua B. Fisher

Chapman University Rises Nearly 10% in U.S. News & World Report Rankings Chapman University has once again advanced in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings of America’s Best Colleges, climbing 11 spots nationally. The new ranking continues Chapman’s upward trajecto...

news.chapman.edu/2025/09/23/c...

Nice!

Featured on the cover of @globalchangebio.bsky.social is a thermal image of Elaeocarpus Grandis taken at @jcuofficial.bsky.social Daintree Rainforest Observatory. In this species we find that populations originating from warmer climates have narrower leaves with higher rates of water loss.

New PhD position in Plant Ecophysiology🌳 Study how atmospheric & soil drought shape tree carbon & water relations at the VPDrought experiment in Switzerland. Start Jan 2026. Apply here: m.refline.ch/273855/1759/... @wslresearch.bsky.social

The Gifford Fire is the largest fire thus far this year in California. Captured by ECOSTRESS.

Data visualized by high-school student Krishiv Jaini

Phoenix just hit the hottest Aug day in recorded history. ECOSTRESS saw it a couple days before with temps of 124F/51C at 9.20AM.

Data visualized by high-school student Kaitlin Cho.

Happening now! Largest fire in France in nearly a hundred years. Captured by ECOSTRESS.

Data visualized by high school student Bill Chen.

Compilation of fires burning in Portugal as captured by ECOSTRESS.

This image was a collaboration from multiple high school students piecing together the individual fires.

Bill Chen Kaitlin Cho Krishiv Jaini Taara Reddy Ray Schaffer Lucas Zaninovich

Sending ❤️ to Portugal, half of which is on fire right now. This fire, outside of Serabigões, captured by ECOSTRESS a few days ago.

Interesting volcanic activity happening at Hawai’i, captured by ECOSTRESS. Volcanic activity here seems to have accelerated anomalously since Dec.

Image captured by 16-year-old Shreyas Chatterjee working with me this summer.

Interestingly, some areas of the burn zone had low evaporative stress, and these areas did not burn. These images were compiled by 16-year-old, Justin Reinman, who lost his school in the fire. Justin is working with me on a detailed analysis of the evaporative stress for the fire.

Progression of Evaporative Stress from ECOSTRESS leading up to the Palisades fire in LA earlier this year. Things start off generally alright, then those winds smacked into LA and fast-dried the veg, which fueled the uncontrollable fires.

One of my students, Bill Chen, was looking at the Airport Fire in SoCal from last year using ECOSTRESS. Interesting to see the topographic variability in the temperatures.

Do We Need Another Green Revolution? As the global population grows, we’ll have to find ways of feeding the planet without accelerating climate change.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Hydrosat picked up this scorching heatwave sweeping Europe yesterday. Surface temperatures exceeding 67C/150F! It’s great that we can now capture these temps at high resolution globally and with increasing frequency towards daily as we continue to get our constellation online. Stay safe out there!

Assessment of spatial autocorrelation and scalability in fine-scale wildfire random forest prediction models - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Assessment of spatial autocorrelation and scalability in fine-scale wildfire random forest prediction models

Another new paper published today using ECOSTRESS again to predict wildfire—this time burn severity—one week before occurrence across New Mexico. This paper also outlines a framework for using machine learning with these data and applications.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@drwkid.bsky.social

New paper using ECOSTRESS and machine learning that predicted Australia’s black summer fires a week ahead of occurrence, mostly using high resolution water use efficiency and evaporative stress data.

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Hydrosat poised to launch second thermal-infrared satellite SAN FRANCISCO -- Hydrosat announced plans June 5 to gather thermal-infrared imagery with a second satellite launching later this month on the SpaceX Transporter-14 rideshare. VanZyl-2 has four times the imaging capacity of VanZyl-1, Hydrosat's first spacecraft launched in August. VanZyl-1 observes 2 million square kilometers daily. “On our VanZyl-2 satellite we are able to image 8 million square kilometers per day,” Pieter Fossel, CEO of Washington-based Hydrosat, told…

Hydrosat poised to launch second thermal-infrared satellite

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hydrosat announced plans June 5 to gather thermal-infrared imagery with a second satellite launching later this month on the SpaceX Transporter-14 rideshare. VanZyl-2 has four times the imaging capacity of VanZyl-1,…

Inspired by @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social and @ohdearz.bsky.social, here's what the White House proposed budget cuts to NASA would do to the entirety of the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Bloodbath is right.

Graph of carbon dioxide designed as the painting of "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai.

"The Great Wave" of carbon dioxide (CO₂) #ClimateChange #ScienceArt

Graphic produced by robbieandrew.github.io

YouTube video by Josh Fisher Holland Hatch graduation commencement speech at Chapman University 2025

My student, Holland Hatch, graduated today, won the top award for our major, and was selected to give the commencement speech. She’s traveled with me to Costa Rica & New Mexico serving key leadership roles. In short, she’s been amazing. I will miss her and wish her the best.

youtu.be/ErEM0vdYk-4

Riddles in the Dark In the dense and biodiverse San Emilio ForestGEO plot of Costa Rica, every tree tells a story. Not just above ground, but deep below the surface. Discover how different trees adapt to their environmen...

Please delight yourselves in the magic of belowground research! wur.yuja.com/V/Video?v=89... Amazing video produced by the team of @moniqueweemstra.bsky.social from Wageningen University

Currently in Costa Rica with a NASA team flying drones over my elevated CO2 sites.

NASA/Milan Loiacono

Interesting!

NASA Satellite Images Could Provide Early Volcano Warnings  - NASA Scientists know that changing tree leaves can indicate when a nearby volcano is becoming more active and might erupt. In a new collaboration between NASA and

Some of my recent work in here:

NASA Satellite Images Could Provide Early Volcano Warnings
www.nasa.gov/earth/natura...

New paper on the latest in science and applications synergies between high-resolution soil moisture and ET!

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

YouTube video by Schmid College, Chapman University Fieldwork Research at Chapman University

www.youtube.com/watch?v=13up...

A Diverse New Generation of Scientists Observes Earth from Above - Eos Project-based learning and a modular class design help students from various backgrounds and universities gain hands-on experience with environmental remote sensing.

The evidence- and project-based approach of instructional materials designed for “Observing Earth from Above,” offers a model for STEM education that can transform students’ attitudes toward science.

eos.org/science-upda...

Work led by Robert Bogue linked to our ELEVATE project using geological CO2 as a natural FACE experiment. Trees got greener with more CO2. Biological CO2 sensors and data loggers!

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Today I went to the OC Fire Authority Headquarters and Emergency Command Center. We learned about their critical information needs and how we can integrate our technology into their decision-support systems to optimize fire management and emergency response.