March 03, 2009

Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole{at}nasa.gov

Jonas Dino/Rachel Prucey
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-5612
jonas.dino{at}nasa.gov

Jennifer Greeson
Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif.
202-354-2968
jegreeso{at}cisco.com


RELEASE: 09-046

NASA, CISCO PARTNERING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MONITORING PLATFORM

WASHINGTON -- NASA and Cisco Inc. announced Tuesday a partnership to
develop an online collaborative global monitoring platform called the
"Planetary Skin" to capture, collect, analyze and report data on
environmental conditions around the world.

Under the terms of a Space Act Agreement, NASA and Cisco will work
together to develop the Planetary Skin as an online collaborative
platform to capture and analyze data from satellite, airborne, sea-
and land-based sensors across the globe. This data will be made
available for the general public, governments and businesses to
measure, report and verify environmental data in near-real-time to
help detect and adapt to global climate change.

"In the past 50 years, NASA's expertise has been applied to solving
humanity's challenges, including playing a part in discovering global
climate change," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames
Research Center. "The NASA-Cisco partnership brings together two
world-class organizations that are well equipped with the
technologies and skills to develop and prototype the Planetary Skin
infrastructure."
Cisco and NASA will kick off Planetary Skin with a series of pilot
projects, including "Rainforest Skin," which will be prototyped
during the next year. Rainforest Skin will focus

on the deforestation of rainforests around the world and explore how
to integrate a comprehensive sensor network. It also will examine how
to capture, analyze and present information about the changes in the
amount of carbon in rainforests in a transparent and useable way.
According to scientists, the destruction of rainforests causes more
carbon to be added to the atmosphere and remain there. That
contributes significantly to global warming.

"Mitigating the impacts of climate change is critical to the world's
economic and social stability," said John Chambers, Cisco chief
executive officer. "This unique partnership taps the power and
innovation of the market and harnesses it for the public good. Cisco
is proud to work with NASA on this initiative and hopes others from
the public and private sectors will join us in this exciting
endeavor."

NASA provides continuous global observations of our home planet using
a constellation of spacecraft, as well as airborne and in situ ground
observations to monitor the health and well-being of Earth. NASA's
investment in Earth observations and climate change research is
greater than that of all other nations combined.

Cisco will bring its experience and expertise in networking
technologies and advanced innovation to the project. Cisco's Internet
Business Solutions Group has a unique combination of business acumen,
scientific, economics and policy understanding. Its experts will
conduct complex data analysis and modelling, and share an in-depth
knowledge of the next generation Internet Protocol architectures to
determine how to best prototype, replicate and scale a Planetary Skin
to millions of participants.

Cisco is also working on the Planetary Skin program with the United
Nations, multi-lateral development banks, businesses, international
government agencies, universities, think tanks, non-governmental
agencies and foundations. Planetary Skin participants will pool their
unique skills, assets and technologies to develop the decision
support capabilities to effectively manage natural resources such as
biomass, water, land and energy; climate change-related risks such as
a rise in sea level, droughts and disease proliferation; and new
environmental markets for carbon, water and biodiversity.

For more information about Planetary Skin and how to partner with
this
project, visit:

http://www.planetaryskin.org

For more information about NASA and its programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

For more information about Cisco Inc., visit:

http://www.cisco.com

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