Scientists who observe the Earth from space say data they collect show that climate change is affecting the planet's landscape.

With a goal of sharing that data with the public, a forum titled "Changing Landscapes Observed from Space" will open to the public Nov. 8 at Howard Community College.

"It surprises people to learn about the impact on land use changes," said Jim Irons, a Kings Contrivance resident who is deputy director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Beltsville.

"Some people don't understand or don't want to hear about the impact on the local environment and on our quality of life," he said. "We want to talk about why we're concerned by explaining to the public what we do and why we do it."

The forum will cover changes to the urban, agricultural and forest landscapes and to the Chesapeake Bay watershed; it is the fourth such event since 2011 to focus on an aspect of NASA's climate change studies.

The half-day program will be sponsored by two citizen advocacy groups, Transition Howard County and Howard County Climate Change, along with the science, technology and engineering division of Howard Community College. Registration opens at 8:30 a.m. and the program will run from 9 a.m. to noon.

Irons, who spoke Tuesday at HCC at a land use forum geared toward students, has worked for 38 years at NASA, which launched its first Landsat satellite in 1972.

Landsat is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Irons is the project scientist for Landsat 8, which was launched in 2013.

Edward Hilsenrath, a Fulton resident and retired NASA atmospheric scientist who is helping organize the event, said many people associate NASA with the journey to Mars, the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope, and don't fully understand the scope of NASA's earth science research, which has a budget of $2.5 billion.

"Few people have an idea of what NASA does in its earth science program," he said.

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NASA comes to Howard Community College for forum on climate change data