Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor:Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Anne Siefken
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William H. Hooke, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP) Office, will join the American Meteorological Society (AMS) as senior policy fellow and associate director of the Society's Atmospheric Policy Program. Hooke will work out of the AMS Washington, D.C., office beginning 5 June 2000.
The AMS Atmospheric Policy Program, underway since October 1999, is a unique initiative designed to foster research, education, and discussion about issues and policies related to the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences.
After almost 33 years of federal service, Hooke will retire on 3 June 2000. His NOAA tenure includes 20 years of research and research management in Boulder, Colorado. The last three of those years he led what is now NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory, which played a pivotal role in systems development for the National Weather Service Modernization. He moved to Washington in 1987, where he was Deputy Chief Scientist of NOAA until 1993.
For the past five years, while directing the U.S. Weather Research Program, he also chaired the White House National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Natural Disaster Reduction. In that role he coordinated the efforts of 19 federal agencies to reduce losses from extreme events, and led a major partnership bringing together the federal government, insurers, nongovernmental organizations, and academia to highlight these issues for policymakers in the Executive Branch and Congress. No stranger to academia, Hooke served 17 years as an adjoint faculty member at the University of Colorado in Boulder, teaching and advising graduate students.
Hooke holds a bachelors degree (honors) from Swarthmore College and bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago. An AMS Fellow, he has been a member of the AMS for three decades, serving on the council and the executive committee.
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Congressman Vernon Ehlers (R-Michigan) recently introduced three bills aimed at reforming our nation's K–12 science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. The bills are the National Science Education Act, the National Science Education Enhancement Act, and the National Science Education Incentive Act. Additional information and full text of the bills may be found on Ehlers' Web site at: http://www.house.gov/ehlers/issues/science/.
Ehlers, vice chairman of the House Science Committee and author of Unlocking Our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy, believes the current inadequacy of American students in math and science, as demonstrated by several international tests, can jeopardize the future well-being of America.
Highlights of the bills include easing the financial burden of prospective science and math K–12 teachers by providing a tax credit, which will pay for part of their college education. In addition, the bills support teachers by instituting quality summer professional development programs. Another provision calls for grants to place science master teachers in elementary schools. These master teachers will train teachers in use of hands-on science and math teaching materials and will support them in ordering and maintaining science teaching equipment.
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Under the Budget Resolution passed on 13 April, the appropriations bills funding the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Education are likely to have more money, although it is too early to tell how it would be distributed among various programs within these bills. The $1.8 trillion plan would, depending on how the math is done, lead to flat funding or significant cuts in most FY01 domestic programs. The White House warns of an average 10% reduction for domestic programs, saying that the plan would "dramatically cut" science and technology spending.
An American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) analysis released on 14 April calculates that the resolution would mean $515 million less for nondefense R&D than that requested by the president, although it would be 5.3% over the current year.
The Budget Resolution was the subject of several presentations made in mid-April at an AAAS colloquium. A senior Senate Budget Committee staffer warned, "it's going to be a brutal year." She added, however, that the final congressional number was higher than the limit previously agreed to by the president. Commenting on NSF and NASA, she cautioned that they will be competing with HUD, VA, and EPA, and said, "there are a lot of tradeoffs that must be made . . . it is a fine line that we all walk."
Neal Lane, assistant to the president for Science and Technology, was the keynote speaker at the colloquium. He took direct aim at the budget resolution, and called on the science community for its assistance. He stated: "The president's S&T budget plots a bold course of strategic growth and prosperity through discovery. Many people, especially the president and the vice president, worked very hard to present this $3 billion increase to Congress with the hope—even the expectation—that we could work with the membership on a bipartisan basis to see it successfully enacted.
"That is why it is especially galling this year to find ourselves, yet again, confronted with congressional budget resolutions that threaten our ability to adequately fund the S&T investments needed to carry our nation into the twenty-first century. There are members of Congress, in both parties, who are trying to help. I particularly want to acknowledge the efforts of Congressmen Rush Holt and Vern Ehlers and Senator Edward Kennedy, who have worked to add $1 billion for R&D to the Budget Resolutions. But the Budget Committee Chairmen have established shortsighted spending priorities and budget ceilings that could translate into severe cuts for many vitally important programs.
"If allowed to proceed unchecked, Congress could stall our progress toward national goals and toward balance in a healthy R&D portfolio precisely at the moment in history when we can best afford to invest in America's future. As of today, the Republican's budget plans reduce the discretionary accounts by $17 billion below the president's request. And Mr. Domenici and Mr. Kasich indicated that they would spend more on defense (about $500 million higher than the president requested), and would equal or beat the president's request on education, veterans' medical care, and NIH. The result is that all the rest of nondefense discretionary spending must be cut deeply in order to meet the ceiling imposed by the Budget Committee Chairmen—our estimates show this will need to be on the order of a 10% cut. Clearly, as President Clinton recently stated, a budget that shortchanges critical national priorities, like R&D, is not the best path for our nation. The American people agree with the president on this.”
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While there was concern, and at times criticism, about NASA during two recent appropriations hearings, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin was able to maintain support for the space agency during public hearings on NASA by the House and Senate VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies appropriations subcommittees
Recent losses of Mars missions have raised questions about Goldin's trademark "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy. Russia's decision to reoccupy Mir, while straining to meet its obligations to the International Space Station, cast new doubt on the troubled partnership. And the grounding of the U.S. space shuttle fleet for a significant amount of time last year did not help the situation.
The subcommittee chairmen have their concerns. At the 6 April House hearing, chairman James Walsh (R-NY) told Goldin that the past year "has been very difficult for the space agency and the American taxpayer." He described his "serious doubts" about the Russians, and said that he would not allow them to hold the station program "hostage indefinitely." Walsh charged that
NASA ignored the fundamentals in the Mars program, and told Goldin that NASA "cannot claim the Mars program is 'better.'”
Senate chairman Christopher Bond (R-MO), on 13 April, decried the escalating cost of the space station, and described it as "a poster child of bad government and poor decision making." He said he was "very disturbed" about risks to the shuttle fleet, and said of the Mars failures, "these losses could have been easily avoided."
Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the chairmen and members of the two appropriations subcommittees have soured on NASA. Goldin has been saying for years that NASA would fail in some of its missions, and so these disappointing outcomes have been, to some degree, expected. In addition, his straightforward statements to the two subcommittees that he accepts responsibility, saying to Walsh, "I'm at fault; we didn't know the boundary," and to Bond, "I, Dan Goldin, pushed too hard," helped to reduce criticism. Subcommittee members on both sides seemed to concur that while the boundaries of "faster, cheaper, better" may have been stretched too far, that the basic approach remains sound.
Goldin also had an effective strategy in discussing the FY01 request. As opposed to laying the blame for the failed missions on funding problems, he declared, "I believe we should not throw money at these challenges" and that the problems were "not a license to turn on the funding spigot." He told Walsh that he would not be asking for "an additional nickel" above the administration's request unless there was an overwhelming and compelling need for more money. While later saying that NASA might need more funding, Goldin's strategy of not asking for more money over the request laid the foundation for his main message: that the FY01 request must be fully funded. On his end, Walsh, in his opening remarks, spoke of either adding significant new money to the NASA request or canceling some projects. Bond, in his opening, said "Despite the rosy optimism of some, we have a number of hard funding decisions to make," citing NASA's "significant increase," VA medical care, and HUD programs.
Committee members discussed a range of other issues. Mikulski praised NASA's space science work, lauding the "Living With A Star" initiative that will study the sun. She gave high marks to the administration's nanotechnology initiative. She expressed worry about a proposed $100 million cut in earth science funding by 2005. About this cut, Goldin assured Mikulski that "we needed to take a pause," saying that the future program would be robust. Mikulski was not entirely satisfied, replying "it's not a pause that refreshes." Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) wanted to know if space propulsion research funding was "sufficient," Goldin telling him that up until this year "it has been very thin."
Goldin told both subcommittees, in looking at NASA's record, that "this is a world-class performance by any reasonable standard." While committee hearings only present the public side of congressional thinking, the reactions of the appropriators suggest that few would take great issue with him.
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The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the areas of weather, climate, water resources, atmospheric environment and related natural disaster prevision and prevention. This document was signed during the Seminar on "Confronting Natural Disasters: A Matter of Development" held during the Annual Meeting of the Bank's Boards of Governors in New Orleans from 23–29 March.
The memorandum of understanding aims at enhancing collaboration between IDB technical units and relevant WMO Departments or Offices, in particular the Technical Co-operation Department and the Regional and Subregional Offices in Asuncion, Paraguay, and San Jose, Costa Rica. The WMO and IDB have a productive relationship of institutional cooperation through the preparation of feasibility studies, capacity building, and the organization of joint technical workshops.
The WMO also signed a memorandum of understanding with the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) for the development of cooperative activities in the fields of water resources, renewable energy, mitigation of natural disasters, environment monitoring, physical oceanography, human resources development, and information technology in the South Pacific.
The agreement will permit, among others, the exchange of scientific knowledge on the assessment of water resources, the development of hydrological networks and services (including data collection, processing, and exchange), natural disaster management, training, and national capacity building.
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LifeMinders.com has acquired WITI CORP., a provider of wireless custom weather forecasts, for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced 31 March. The acquisition makes WITI’s personalized forecasts available to LifeMinders’ 12.5 million members and its business partners’ customers. The weather forecasts will be part of a broad range of personalized wireless alerts and messages to be offered by LifeMinders following the acquisition.
WITI Corp. is a spin-off of the Boulder-based UCAR Foundation, the exclusive agent for technology commercialization for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), in Boulder, Colorado, a consortium of over 60 universities offering Ph.D.s in the atmospheric sciences.
WITI Corp. worked closely for several years with scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to convert weather information produced by the National Weather Service into hourly forecasts targeted by zip code. NCAR researchers study all aspects of atmospheric and oceanic science, including weather, with an eye to improving predictions. The UCAR Foundation transfers NCAR know-how to the public through private sector enterprises such as WITI Corp. NCAR is managed by UCAR under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation.
WITI Corp. offers personalized forecasts for more than 120 000 locations within the United States. The company led the way in wireless weather forecasts when it launched its Weather Window service in 1998. WITI Corp. expanded its offerings to include two new services: Alert2Go, wireless weather alerts and messaging used by leading radio stations, and NOWAlert, a similar service for television stations. Today radio and television stations offering WITI products serve more than 5 million households.
Large and fast-growing, LifeMinders.com (NASDAQ:LFMN) is a member-based e-marketer and provider of business-to-business outsourcing solutions. The company sends highly personalized e-mails each week to more than 12.5 million LifeMinders.com members. A free service, the company helps its members keep track of various areas of their lives, such as family, entertainment, home, automobiles, and personal finance. Its LifeMinders Today messages contain WITI’s daily weather forecasts by zip code. Additional information on the company is available at http://www.lifeminders.com.
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Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) in Boulder, Colorado, now have one of the fastest weather research supercomputers in the world. The new supercomputer, known as JET, was designed and built entirely using the LINUX operating system. It will assist researchers in improving existing weather forecast models and in developing new ones.
One high-resolution short-term weather forecast model FSL will be testing is the Weather Research and Forecast Model (WRF), a collaborative model development effort between FSL, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and several universities.
Developed by High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi) of Arlington, Virginia, the high performance computing system runs one third of a trillion arithmetic computations per second at the present time, a computing system 20 times more powerful than FSL's previous computer capability. By the year 2002, the HPTi supercomputer will be capable of processing in excess of 5 trillion arithmetic operations per second.
HPTi developed the supercomputing system in cooperation with its four core teammates: Compaq Computer Corporation, Patuxent Technology Partners (PTP), the University of Virginia, and Myricom. Compaq is providing the Alpha processors, which are the core computational components, PTP is providing an integrated storage solution from its background in Storage Area Networks, and the University of Virginia will focus on the application of advanced cluster technologies. Myricom is the provider of the "interconnect" that enables the high performance processors to talk to each other simultaneously.
One project that will derive great benefit from the acquisition of the HPTi supercomputer is the North American Atmospheric Observing System, or NAOS, which is a program to design an improved upper-air observing system for the next century. The accuracy of current weather forecasts is limited to a great extent by incomplete knowledge of current conditions. The high performance supercomputer will allow scientists to conduct experiments with computer forecast models to optimize the design of future atmospheric observing networks with respect to cost and forecast accuracy.
NOAA officials say that 40% of the new computer system will be used for the WRF effort, 40% for NAOS, and the remaining 20% will be available for other NOAA research labs to use for developing ocean models and other modeling efforts.
Additional information on FSL and HPTi is available on the Internet at http://www.fsl.noaa.gov and http://www.hpti.com.
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Results from a recently completed study of the climate of the past century suggest that interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice system may have played a prominent role in the global warming of the early twentieth century, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.
Using computer models run on high performance supercomputers, scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, conducted a set of six experiments to explore possible causes for the warming in the first half of the century. Their findings were published in the 24 March issue of the journal Science.
"It has been known for some time that the planet has warmed over the last century, with most of the warming concentrated in two distinct periods —from 1920 to 1944, and from 1970 to the present," said Thomas Delworth, research meteorologist. "While previous studies have concluded that the more recent warming is the result of increasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, the causes of the earlier warming are less clear."
Delworth and Thomas Knutson used a comprehensive computer model of the earth's climate system. They incorporated the effects of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosols that have been observed over the last century.
In one of the experiments they were able to replicate the characteristics of the observed global warming, including the warmings in the two distinct periods (1920–44 and 1970–present), and the strong high-latitude warming during the earlier period. Since they did not include the effects of changing volcanic and solar activity, the model results support the hypothesis that an early century warming could have occurred in the absence of such changes.
"The fact that only one of the experiments reproduced the early century warming suggests that internal variability of the coupled ocean–atmosphere system, such as fluctuations of the heat transported northward in the Atlantic Ocean over many decades, may have played a very prominent role in early century warming," Delworth said.
While an early twentieth-century warming as strong as the observed one was present in only one of the experiments, all the experiments, and the observations, show a rapid warming during the late twentieth century with the latter warming encompassing much of the globe.
The researchers also noted that the study further demonstrates the ability of computer models used for studies of global change to reproduce the essential characteristics of past climate variations, thereby increasing the confidence that can be placed in using such models for studies of future climate change.
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The United States has just experienced the warmest January–March period ever according to 106 years of record keeping compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center. The latest data also show that June 1999–March 2000 was the warmest June–March on record. NOAA Administrator D. James Baker and FEMA Director James Lee Witt released the latest figures at an Earth Week (19 April) news conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"Our climate is warming at a faster rate than ever before recorded. Ignoring climate change and the most recent warming patterns could be costly to the nation. Small changes in global temperatures can lead to more extreme weather events including, droughts, floods, and hurricanes," NOAA Administrator D. James Baker said.
At the news conference, FEMA reported that damage from more frequent and severe weather calamities and other natural phenomena during the past decade required 460 major disasters to be declared, nearly double the 237 declarations for the previous 10-year period and more than any other decade on record. Financially, comparing a 3-year period of 1989–91, and 1997–99, the federal costs of severe weather disasters rose a dramatic 337% in the latter part of the decade.
The record-breaking warmth for January–March 2000 averaged 41.7°F, 1.0°F warmer than the previous record set in 1990. During this period, every state in the continental United States was warmer than its long-term average; 30 states from just west of the Rocky Mountains to New England ranked much above average. Oklahoma, Iowa, and Wisconsin each had the warmest January–March period on record with Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska experiencing their second warmest.
Warmer than normal conditions during the first half of March contributed to the overall warmth of the three-month period. Many locations across the Upper Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes, and Northeast set records for the earliest date with temperatures reaching 80°; and a few sites set all-time March warm temperature records during this period. Buffalo, New York, reported their harbor water temperature at the end of March equaled the record warmest (39°) set in 1998.
During January–March 2000 drought continued to have serious impacts in the Midwest and Mississippi Valley. This was the third driest such period for Louisiana and the fifth driest for Mississippi. The northern and central Rockies and central Plains had near record wet conditions.
Weather and temperature statistics, compiled by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, are available on the center's World Wide Web site at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which consists of the world's leading climate researchers, recently released a draft of the latest scientific assessment on the science of climate change, projected impacts and vulnerability, and options for mitigation. The early draft, released in mid-April, notes that human beings have “discernibly” influenced the planet’s climate and the earth’s surface is likely to warm at least 2°F and as much as 9°F by the end of the twenty-first century.
The IPCC’s previous report, released in 1995, concluded that the balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate. According to an 18 AprilWashington Post article, “The preliminary draft of the new assessment is somewhat more definitive, indicating that global warming since 1860, somewhere between 0.7° and 1.5°F, about 0.2°F higher than the 1995 estimate, is ‘exceptionally unlikely to be soley natural in origin.’”
The draft report released in April is one of three parts. Draft reports of the other two parts are expected in May. The final version of all three reports is scheduled to be approved in January 2001 and published shortly thereafter. The three parts of the report focus on: 1) the quality of scientific research and data underlying the assessment of climate change; 2) copy with impacts of warming; and 3) mitigating global warming.
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Lightning-induced forest fires in Canada in 1995 were, at times, the largest source of summertime carbon monoxide pollution more than 2000 miles away in the eastern United States. The fires burning in northwestern Canada sent plumes of carbon monoxide to the eastern seaboard and southeastern United States, according to researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), adding to the mix of human-induced air pollution.
The study, published in the 14 April issue of Science, marks the first time scientists have been able to show that forest fires that often occur naturally in high latitude northern regions can have an atmospheric impact as far away as the midlatitudes of the United States.
Data from the field experiment centered on Nashville, Tennessee, and covered several eastern states in the region.
Lead author Gerhard Wotawa, of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Vienna and a visiting scientist at NOAA’s Aeronomy Laboratory, and coauthor Michael Trainer, also from the Aeronomy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, traced the winds backwards from the eastern states. They found that high periods of carbon monoxide in the region occurred in air that had originated during the specific fire episodes in Canada.
“For certain periods…, the northern high latitude fires were the biggest source of the carbon monoxide pollution in the eastern U.S. region we studied,” said Wotawa. Carbon monoxide levels were about doubled when the plumes of the forest fires passed through the region. Sometimes, he explained, higher ozone concentrations also accompanied the plumes.
Forest fires burned more than 17 million acres in Canada during 1995, an area about half the size of Florida. Forest fires have been increasing in remote areas of North America during the last decades due to prolonged drought periods or climate variability, scientists said. Extreme forest fire conditions in North America occurred two times in the 1980s and three times during the 1990s, they reported.
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The EPA is accepting nominations for its 2000 Climate Protection and 2000 Stratospheric Ozone Protection Awards. Nominations will be accepted through 31 May.
The EPA established the Climate Protection Awards Program in 1998 to recognize exceptional leadership, personal dedication, and technical achievements in protecting the earth’s climate. Awards are presented to companies, organizations, and individuals that have demonstrated their commitment to greenhouse gas reduction through pollution prevention, technical innovation, stewardship, recycling, and product introduction. More information about the program is available on http://www.epa.gov/appdstar/body_awards.html.
The Stratospheric Ozone Protection Awards Program was established in 1990 to recognize exceptional leadership, personal dedication, and technical achievements in eliminating ozone-depleting substances. Awards are presented to companies, organizations, and individuals that have demonstrated their commitment to protecting the ozone layer. To date, awards have been presented to 412 individuals and organizations from 29 countries. More information about the program can be found on http://www.epa.gov/ozone/awards/00awards.html.
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The Ocean Science Division (OSD) of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia has recently opened access to its large databases of physical oceanographic data for to a wider science community. Until last month the data was only available to Canadian users.
There are three databases—Climate, Sea Surface Temperature, and Ocean Data Inventory—that share a common user interface and www/database technology with a single entry point at http://www.maritimes.dfo.ca/science/ocean/database/data_query.html, according to an article in the March issue of Earth System Monitor.
The Climate Database is an assembly of all available hydrographic data (temperature and salinity) for the area 35°–80°N and 42°–100°W. The database is updated monthly and contains more than 525 000 profiles with 15 million individual observations from 1910 to the present.
The Sea Surface Temperature Database is based on the JPL multichannel sea surface temperature 18-km dataset. The product consists of weekly global 18-km gridded temperatures derived from the daytime NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). Data are geo-referenced and stored as discrete data for the area 35°–67°N and 35°–72°W. The database consists of 4 million individual observations from 1981 to the present. The database will be extended in the next few months to include chlorophyll data from SeaWIFS as biweekly composites on a 9-km grid.
The Ocean Data Inventory is an inventory of current meter and thermographic time series data held by Bedford. It includes data from U.S. and Canadian agencies and universities, as well as the private sector. Unlike the Climate and Sea Surface Temperature databases and the Ocean Data Inventory does not contain individual data observations, but includes monthly statistics for temperature, salinity, and currents. For temperature and salinity, the statistics include the mean, maximum, minimum, and standard deviation for each month of data. For current data, the statistics include maximum speed (without regard to direction), mean speed, and direction and the principal axis components for the data as observed and with the tide removed.
Accessing the data requires an Oracle plug-in, called Jinitiator, which is available on the Ocean Science Web site.
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The Great Lakes are at the lowest water levels since 1965 and may reach new records this year unless there is an extremely wet spring and summer, according to NOAA scientists.
“The lakes have not been this low since March 1965, and I’m concerned that recent growth of the Great Lakes shipping industry might evaporate with the water levels,” said Commerce Secretary William Daley in a press statement last month. “The near record low lake levels hurt shipping, but recreational boaters and marine operators suffer too.”
Lakes Michigan and Huron have experienced a drop in levels of 2.9 feet over the past two years, the largest such drop in 140 years of record. The unprecedented drop in levels over the past three years ended a 30-year run of above average and high lake levels, according to Frank Quinn, senior hydrologist at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During the summer of 1986, Lake Michigan spilled over its banks and washed some lakefront homes off their foundations, he said.
A long-term cause of the drop in water level is that despite recent La Niña climate patterns, the region has experienced an overriding, long-term warming trend, which means less ice and more evaporation in winter months, according to the experts. Contributing more recently are hotter temperatures and lower amounts of rainfall, they explained.
Because the lakes are at low levels—in the cases of Huron and Michigan as much as 18 inches below average—commercial shippers cannot fully load their freighters for fear of running aground in channels and ports. Recreational boaters may have difficulty finding docking space, especially if the craft has a deep fixed keel.
Lower levels mean that the lake freighters that carry iron ore, coal, and limestone between Great Lakes ports such as Duluth, Minnesota, South Chicago, and Toledo, Ohio, cannot travel fully loaded. According to the Lake Carriers’ Association, an organization that represents 11 companies with 60 flag vessel operators on the Great Lakes, the lower levels mean each vessel forfeits between 70 and 270 tons of cargo for each one inch reduction in loaded draft.
“We are losing 8000 to 9000 tons per trip because of the lower levels,” said Glen Nekvasil, communications director for the association. “A major utility in the Great Lakes area burns about 22 000 tons of coal a day, so you can see what the loss of nearly half that amount can mean.” The association reports a 6.5% decrease in shipments of iron ore, coal, and stone in 1999, compared to 1998.
The shoreline of the five Great Lakes—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior—touches eight states and the Canadian province of Ontario.
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A new iceberg about the size of a small island calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, on 2 April. The iceberg, named B-18 and measuring about 4 miles wide and 11 miles long, has moved slightly westward since detaching from the Ross Ice Shelf. B-18 is located in the vicinity of latitude 78°, 03 minutes S; longitude 159°, 22 minutes W.
The iceberg is being tracked by the National Ice Center, located in Suitland, Maryland, a tri-agency center with representation from the U.S. Navy, NOAA, and the U.S. Coast Guard. The center tracks icebergs using remotely sensed data provided in-part by satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Defense. Its mission is to provide worldwide operational sea ice analyses and forecasts tailored to meet the requirements of U.S. national interests.
Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted. The quadrants are divided counterclockwise in the following manner:
A=0–90°W longitude (Bellinghausen/Weddell Sea)
B=90°W–180° (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea)
C=180°–90°E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkesland)
D=90°E–0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)
When an iceberg is first sighted, the National Ice Center documents its point of origin. The letter of the quadrant, along with a sequential number, is assigned to the iceberg. For example, A-38 is the 38th iceberg the ice center has found in the Antarctica in Quadrant A.
An image of B-18 is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.natice.noaa.gov (Click on Iceberg B-18 on the top left of the page).
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In response to the 1998 Executive Order for Coral Reef Protection, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Oceanographic Data Center is developing a Coral Reef Data and Information Management System to collect, archive, distribute, and preserve marine data through a newly established Web site.
The system will integrate biological data from reef ecosystem monitoring and research programs with interrelated chemical, biological, and physical data of surrounding marine areas.
According to an article in the March issue of Earth System Monitor, the data will include inter alia quantitative and descriptive biology of coral reef communities, including measurements of species occurrences, numbers, life stages, pathology, productivity, and nonbiological measurements. Additionally, data from in situ measurements, laboratory studies, remote-sensed data, and digital videotapes and photographs will be archived and made available through the Web site.
The Web site is available through the data center’s homepage at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov.
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Daily river forecasts and flood stage information from the nation's largest river basins are now available on a single Internet site called River Watch. The Weather Service's River Watch homepage combines river information from more than a dozen weather service offices and makes them available to anyone with access to the Internet.
River Watch contains water level data, flood stage parameters, and forecasts for all of the Mississippi River Basin's main stem rivers including the Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers, as well as the upper and lower Mississippi.
For more details and the actual forecasts, log onto River Watch at http://www.riverwatch.noaa.gov.
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Scientists have taken a giant step forward in better understanding the atmospheric cleansing process that removes many pollutants and gases involved in ozone depletion and climate change. This new insight will help scientists more accurately predict the future state of the atmosphere.
In a paper that appeared in the 21 April issue of Science, scientists from government and university laboratories say that a dramatic decline in human releases of the industrial chemical methyl chloroform in recent years has provided an unprecedented opportunity to gain a much clearer picture of the process by which the atmosphere cleanses itself of this gas and many other trace gases.
Methyl chloroform is a human-made chemical that was used extensively in the past as a solvent and degreasing agent. However, it contributes significantly to ozone depletion in the stratosphere. As a result, its production was severely limited by international regulations and voluntary reductions by companies in the mid-1990s, causing emissions to decline very rapidly from 1996 to 1999. In the absence of strong emissions, insights into the processes by which gases are removed from the atmosphere are now possible.
Until now, an understanding of the environmental effects of trace gases in the atmosphere relied heavily upon accurate measurements of atmospheric concentrations and releases of methyl chloroform to the atmosphere. But because emissions of methyl chloroform are now quite small, the conclusions in the present study hinge primarily on accurately measuring the rate of change of this gas in the atmosphere. This task, says Stephen Montzka, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of the paper, is much easier than determining the true concentration of methyl chloroform in the global atmosphere, and knowing exactly how much of this chemical is released to the atmosphere each year from human activity.
Methyl chloroform is removed from the atmosphere primarily by chemical reaction with the hydroxyl radical, one of the most important and potent atmospheric cleansing agents or oxidants. Because many gases involved in regulating global climate and ozone are also eliminated from the atmosphere by the hydroxyl radical, these results provide an improved understanding of the behavior of a wide range of pollutants in the atmosphere.
The authors from NOAA, the University of Colorado, and Harvard University came to their conclusions by analyzing measurements they made of methyl chloroform in air samples over the past eight years. These samples were collected at 10 remote sites across the globe to provide a picture of how the concentration and distribution of methyl chloroform changed as human releases diminished.
They also found that average concentrations of the hydroxyl radical are higher in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere. This result is opposite of what is calculated by many atmospheric models in use today. These models generally suggest that higher levels of this important oxidant should be found in the Northern Hemisphere as a result of more pollution there.
For more information, visit the CMDL Web site at http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov.
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A team of international scientists who completed the biggest field study of its kind in the Arctic found there was a 60% loss of ozone at 60 000 feet near the North Pole last winter, the coldest on record. The ozone loss is one of the worst measured at that altitude in the Arctic, according to the researchers, and raises the question of whether or not climate change may delay recovery of the earth’s life-shielding ozone layer.
“Last winter’s results have heightened concerns that ozone levels over the north polar region may continue to decline despite the benefits of international agreements to stop production and release of ozone-destroying chemicals,” said Dr. Hanjurg Jost of NASA’s Ames Research Center, California.
More than 350 researchers from the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, and Japan took part in the combined NASA/European Union-sponsored field program. Researchers measured ozone, other atmospheric gases, particle amounts, and air motions in the Arctic stratosphere, the atmospheric layer between roughly eight and 50-km altitude.
From November 1999 to March 2000, investigators used spacecraft; large, small, and long-duration balloons; and ground-based instruments to gather data. The aircraft and large balloon launch teams were based in Kiruna, Sweden. Researchers used a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ozone instrument aboard NASA’s high-altitude ER-2 aircraft to measure ozone losses in the lower stratosphere.
The 60% losses between January and mid-March are comparable to the large ozone losses in the lower stratosphere during several winters in the mid-1990s. Total ozone losses throughout the depth of the atmosphere were slightly reduced because ozone losses were smaller above 60 000 feet (20 km). Observations by NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer-Earth Probe showed an area of low ozone over the polar region during February and March. The total polar ozone for the first two weeks of March was 16% lower than scientists observed during the same period in the early 1980s.
Cooling of the atmosphere likely will increase ozone loss during Arctic winters in the coming decades, even as chlorine and bromine levels decrease as a result of the Montreal Protocol, according to scientists.
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Scientists have discovered a new source for some of the large-scale eruptions on the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. These eruptions are a key ingredient of strong geomagnetic storms that can cause bright auroras, damage sensitive satellite instruments in space, and even disrupt power generation and transmission by inducing strong electric currents below the surface of the earth.
Writing in the 15 April issue of Geophysical Research Letters, Dr. Josef I. Khan of University College, London (UK), and Dr. Hugh S. Hudson of the Solar Physics Research Corporation in Tucson, Arizona, report that shock waves launched from solar flares can cause CMEs elsewhere in the solar corona. They found that such mass ejections do not emanate from structures directly above the eruptive flare, a more common pattern, but rather from off to one side.
Khan and Hudson are both currently based at Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in Kanagawa, where they conducted their investigations using the Yohkoh ("sunbeam") satellite. Studying X-ray images of the sun, they examined very large hot loops of solar material that sometimes connect sunspot regions in the sun's northern and southern hemispheres. They found that such loops, known as interconnecting X-ray loops, could simply disappear suddenly, ejecting huge amounts of material.
The researchers say the association between these disappearing loops and solar flares is novel and interesting. Scientists debate the relationship between CMEs and other phenomena, including solar flares and prominence eruptions. Solar flares release large amounts of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, while prominence eruptions are the ejection of large suspensions of cool material in the sun's hot outer atmosphere, or corona. Some, but not all, prominence eruptions and CMEs are associated with flares.
There is, however, a clear relationship between prominence eruptions and CMEs on the one hand and X-ray brightenings seen in the corona below these ejections. The question before scientists is what causes what, and which therefore is the more important phenomenon physically. Khan and Hudson found that for the events they studied, and contrary to the normal pattern, the flare is not located directly below the CME. It is, rather, located off to one side, in a sunspot region outside the structures that erupt to become part of the CME. Put another way, the mass ejected in the CME does not come from the structures directly above the flare.
Khan and Hudson, studying Yohkoh X-ray images, were able to determine fairly accurately the timing of the disappearance of the interconnecting loops. They found that the solar flare occurs before the loops disappear and, therefore, before the start of the coronal mass ejection. Further, by studying these X-ray data and simultaneous data from radio telescopes, they found evidence for shock waves. In every instance they examined, they found that the interconnecting loops disappear when the shocks cross their vicinity.
These observations led to a new scenario Khan and Hudson have put forward to explain some CMEs. A shock wave generated by the flare crosses a large interconnecting loop, causing it to become unstable and erupt. This ejects hot X-ray material, which becomes a significant fraction of the coronal mass ejection. The researchers acknowledge that this hypothesis requires further exploration, and they recognize that it does not apply to all CMEs, only the type they reported.
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Every other Sunday a former military transport plane, packed with scientists and specialized instruments, flies out of Colorado toward the brutal cold of the Arctic Circle to scrutinize an annual springtime rise in lower-atmosphere ozone levels. The researchers are measuring for the first time an array of chemicals that could shed light on ozone production, atmospheric cleansing, and pollution transport in the northern latitudes. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) leads the February–May mission.
As people use more fossil fuels, ozone plumes form in polluted cities and drift around the world, and background levels continue to rise in the lower atmosphere. Scientists are worried that an overburdened atmosphere may lose its ability to adequately cleanse itself. The peculiar chemistry of the Arctic spring is key to understanding ozone and pollution processes across the northern latitudes.
Ozone levels in the Arctic troposphere (lower 8 km, or five miles, of the atmosphere) increase from 30–40 parts per billion (ppb) in winter to 50–60 ppb in the spring—about half the concentration above Los Angeles on a bad day. Meanwhile, in the stratosphere above, the returning springtime sun triggers chemical reactions that deplete ozone, creating a smaller, northern version of the Antarctic ozone hole.
Why these springtime highs and lows? Scientists suspect that some ozone sinks from the stratosphere into the troposphere, but how much? As springtime weather changes circulation patterns, ozone and ozone-producing compounds travel into the far north from the polluted regions of northern and central Europe. To what extent does this influx speed up the chemical processes that accompany the return of sunlight? Scientists believe measurements of 20 or so chemical species throughout the troposphere will provide answers. Already they have found surprises in the levels of important compounds.
To complicate matters more, at ground level scientists have found ozone-empty bands about 30 miles across. To explore these areas, the C-130 coasts 100 feet above Hudson and Baffin Bays and the Arctic Ocean, sampling chemistry occurring over the ice and open leads. The NCAR researchers and their colleagues hope to find the crucial data to explain why ozone builds up in the lower atmosphere even as it vanishes entirely from some surface areas.
Back at NCAR the measurements are helping scientists to fine tune their atmospheric chemistry models to better understand the chemistry and dynamics of the Arctic's lower atmosphere as winter gives way to spring.
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Scientists have taken a major step forward in their quest to predict space weather, a term covering various events originating on the sun that can seriously affect communications and electric power transmission lines on Earth and even modify the orbit of satellites. These solar events are expected to increase this year as the sun approaches solar maximum in its 11-year cycle of sunspot activity.
One source of space weather is in fact the sudden increase in sunspot activity, which can potentially change the orbit of satellites. This is caused by increased ultraviolet radiation, which heats Earth's upper atmosphere and changes its density. Large objects like the International Space Station could thereby be moved into new orbits, where they might collide with space debris, whose orbits would also be changing. While all of these orbits can be calculated and satellites maneuvered out of danger, it would clearly help for scientists to have maximum advance knowledge of severe space weather.
Writing in the 1 May issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union, Jean-Loup Bertaux and colleagues at the Aeronomy Service (Service d'Aeronomie) of France's National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) report a method they have devised of detecting active regions, or sunspots, on the far side of the sun, before they rotate to its Earthward side. Since the sun's rotational period is 27 days, this can allow up to two weeks' advance warning of strong solar winds.
The technique, described in the GRL paper, is to make use of Lyman alpha radiation, a spectroscopic line in hydrogen atoms floating freely in space. Although the sun constantly emits Lyman alpha radiation, its active regions can be thought of as projectors, beaming this radiation in stronger and more concentrated streams. Hydrogen atoms in space then function as screens illuminated in their ultraviolet spectrum by the Lyman alpha radiation.
Lyman alpha is detected by the SWAN (Solar Wind ANisotropies) instrument aboard the SOHO (SOlar Heliospheric Observatory) satellite, which maintains an apparently fixed position between the earth and the sun. SWAN scans the whole sky and is thus able to detect strongly illuminated regions of hydrogen atoms in space beyond the far side of the sun. By tracking the movement of these strongly illuminated regions, scientists can in effect see around the corner and predict when the sunspots producing strong radiation streams will rotate around and face toward the earth. This will provide more time to take corrective action in advance of heavy solar weather they may produce.
SOHO is a joint mission of ESA and NASA, stationed at 1.5 million km (930 000 miles) from the earth, near the so-called Lagrange point L1, where the gravity of earth and sun balance each other.
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Scientists have discovered that two parallel layers of gas deep beneath the solar surface actually are speeding up and slowing down in a strange, synchronous pattern, leading to the theory that this discovery might help them unravel the origin and operation of the solar cycle.
Scientists have found that as the sun rotates on its axis one gas layer gradually spins faster while the other reduces speed. They are at a loss, however, to explain the phenomenon, which occurs in regular 12- to 16-month cycles.
Writing in the 31 March issue of the journal Science, Stanford research physicist Jesper Schou and postdoctoral fellow Rasmus Larsen point out that these unusual but predictable changes in rotational speed only occur above and below a section of the sun known as the interface layer or tachocline. Schou is part of an international team of researchers using satellite and ground-based observatories to monitor the sun.
Located 135 000 miles below the solar surface, the tachocline separates the sun’s two major regions of gas: the radiative zone, which includes the energy-generating core, and the convection zone near the surface.
Solar experts believe the tachocline may be the source of powerful magnetic fields that produce strong solar flares and solar winds and create sunspots that mysteriously appear during the 11-year solar cycle.
No one knows how the sun’s enormous magnetic fields are generated or why they reverse polarity from positive to negative every 11 years. But the discovery that the area surrounding the tachocline varies its rotation in a regular pattern could be a clue to solving the mystery.
Theorists visualize a dynamo inside the sun, where movement of electrically charged gas generates a magnetic field. Because magnetic fields are produced by moving electric charges, relative motions between neighboring layers of electrified gas supposedly drive the dynamo. As the years pass, so the theory goes, the magnetic field becomes too strong for the gas to hold. As a result, the magnetic field breaks out to the solar surface, creating active regions with sunspots and magnetic explosions. The changes now observed are at the right depth for the dynamo.
The discovery that the inner sun spins at different rates at different latitudes is consistent with earlier studies showing that the surface of the sun also rotates at different speeds. For example, it takes about 25 days for the surface of the sun to rotate on its axis, but at the poles, surface rotation requires roughly 33 days. That is because the sun is made of gas, so different parts of its surface spin independently, unlike the surface of Earth, Mars, and other solid planets.
The puzzling different speeds of the gas layers may somehow be related to the mysterious forces that generate the sun’s magnetic field and the 11-year sunspot cycle, scientists believe.
“For the interior to change speed every 11 years would make sense,” Schou said. “But a 1.3-year period was unexpected. We don’t know what it means, but isn’t it interesting?” And practical, too, because if researchers can determine what drives the sun’s magnetic field, they also may be able to forecast solar flares and winds that can knock out satellites, increase the risk of radiation to airline passengers and astronauts, and cause power outages on earth.
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NOAA and NASA plan to launch the GOES-L weather satellite from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 3 May. Launch window for the advanced Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite opens at 2:27 a.m. EDT. When placed in service, the satellite will monitor hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, flash floods, and other severe weather from a location 22 300 miles above the equator.
GOES-L (which will become GOES-11 in orbit) will be placed in a parking orbit and on standby to replace one of NOAA’s existing operational geostationary satellites, GOES-8 or GOES-10, explained Gary Davis, director of NOAA’s Office of Systems Development. He said that while both GOES-8 and GOES-10 are operating fairly well, NOAA believes that with the hurricane season approaching, launching the spare at this time would be prudent.
GOES-8 was launched in April 1994 and overlooks the East Coast out into the Atlantic Ocean from a position at 75°W over the equator. GOES-10 was launched in 1997 and overlooks the West Coast out into the Pacific, including Hawaii, from a position of 135°W Longitude.
GOES-L was built by Space Systems/Loral and will be launched on an Atlas IIA rocket, built by Lockheed Martin. The launch will mark the first time the spacecraft will be launched on an Atlas IIA.
GOES-L will be parked in a position over the central United States (105°) and can be moved into an operational location in two days, officials said.
Davis said GOES-8 is running well and has enough fuel to continue for another couple of years. GOES-9, he said, failed after three years when the momentum wheels had a lubricant starvation problem. In addition to the two operational U.S. geostationary weather satellites, Japan, Europe, and India each operates a geostationary weather satellite for a total of five worldwide, officials said.
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As it celebrated a year in orbit in April, Landsat-7 continues to provide spectacular data to a wide variety of “earth customers,” according to NASA officials. Since being declared operational last July, they said, the spacecraft has gathered more than 90 000 images, covering most of the earth’s surface multiple times.
Landsat-7 is the latest in a series of earth observation satellites that began with Landsat-1 in 1972. Unlike its predecessors, Landsat-7 can create global maps of the earth in record time due to technology advances developed by NASA.
Landsat-7 has provided images of most major U.S. cities, as well as timely images of the recent devastating floods in Mozambique, the flood damage in North Carolina from Hurricane Floyd, and the drought conditions that plagued the eastern United States last summer. The imagery also has been used to monitor volcanic eruptions in Alaska, Hawaii, Italy, Mexico, and Central America and has documented receding glaciers in Alaska and the Alps, deforestation in the Tropics, and wildfires in Siberia and Australia.
Farmers and commodity brokers have used Landsat-7 data to assess and predict crop yields locally, regionally, and globally. Scientists from NASA’s partner agency, the USGS, are using Landsat-7 to determine the amount and condition of dry biomass on the ground, a potential fuel source for wildfires, and to provide a synoptic view of the landscape simultaneously with the outbreak of infectious diseases.
The USGS Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, processes, archives, and distributes all Landsat data to researchers and the public. Every 16 days, Landsat-7 flies over the same geographic area and can document ground-cover conditions of the entire globe on a seasonal basis.
The spacecraft is controlled from a mission operations center at Goddard. NASA controllers will continue to operate the spacecraft until 1 October 2000, when control will be turned over to the USGS.
More information on Landsat-7 can be found on the Internet at http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov and http://landsat7.usgs.gov.
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NASA released the first images from its latest earth observation spacecraft, revealing dramatic visualizations of climate and other conditions in the atmosphere and on the oceans and promising a “new era” in climate research. They also announced that the spacecraft has completed its on-orbit checkout and verification and is “open for business.”
The 11 442-pound, $1.3 billion satellite, named Terra, is armed with a suite of five high-tech instruments and circles the earth at an altitude of 438 miles 16 times a day. Launched in December, the spacecraft “will help us examine practically every aspect of our changing world from space,” extolled Dr. Ghassem Asrar, NASA’s associate administrator for earth science. The data it will provide, scientists hope, improved understanding of the way land, sea, and air interact with each other and with clouds, vegetation, and airborne compounds to influence global climate. Terra formerly was known as EOS-AM1.
The five instruments aboard Terra will operate by measuring sunlight reflected by the earth and heat emitted by the earth. This “radiant energy” is collected by the instruments and focused into specially designed detectors sensitive to selected regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from visible light to thermal infrared. The information collected by the detectors is transmitted to earth and processed by computers into data and images.
The instruments will collect approximately 1 trillion bytes of data per week. That information will be distributed to about 1000 participating scientists worldwide and eventually to the general public. The first major science results are expected within a year.
The Earth Observing System series spacecraft are the cornerstone of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term coordinated research effort to study the earth as a global system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. More than two dozen other satellites are expected to join Terra in the future, according to NASA.
Images of Terra’s first results can be found on http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov or http://terra.gsfc.nasa.gov.
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Five new commemorative postage stamps were unveiled at Goddard Space Flight Center on 10 April in a ceremony to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The daylong celebration featured remarks from members of the Maryland Congressional delegation, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, Goddard Center Director Al Diaz, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science Ed Weiler and others.
Postmaster General William J. Henderson unveiled the new stamps, which feature the Eagle Nebula, the Ring Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, the Egg Nebula and Galaxy NGC 1316, all taken by Hubble over the past 10 years.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April 1990 and deployed on 25 April. Although initially impaired by a flaw in its main mirror, causing its images to be blurred, corrective optics were installed in 1993 during a first servicing mission and the universe suddenly snapped into sharp focus.
In its first 10 years, the 12.5-ton earth-orbiting telescope has studied 13 670 objects, has made 271 000 individual observations and has returned 3.5 terabytes of data, which have been archived as a scientific treasure for future generations of astronomers. Its scientific achievements have resulted in more than 2651 scientific papers.
Hubble’s photographic hall of fame includes the deepest view ever of the universe in visible light; a peek into the environs of super massive galactic black holes; the majestic birth of stars in monstrous stellar clouds, planetary systems forming around other stars; extraordinary arcs, shells and ribbons of glowing gas sculpted by the deaths of ordinary stars; mega-megaton blasts produced by the impacts of a comet into the cloud tops of Jupiter; the surface of mysterious Pluto, and galaxies at the edge of space and time.
A second servicing mission took place in 1997 and a third in December 1999. Future servicing missions are planned for 2001 and 2003.
Named after U.S. astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, who early in this century discovered galaxies beyond our Milky Way and made the first rough measurements of the expansion rate of space, the Hubble will be decommissioned in 2010 and replaced by the Next Generation Space Telescope.
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Shukri A. Wakid has been named Chief Information Officer of the National Weather Service. The appointment was effective 10 April.
In the position, Wakid assumes the role of managing the information technology improvements that will help strengthen the agency’s weather, water, and climate forecasting, officials said. Kelly explained that Wakid will help NWS “beyond modernization into an era that builds on and improves our evolving technological capabilities.”
As CIO, Wakid will oversee computer security, standards, and information technology policy and planning. He is a pioneer in the development of ISDN technology, which speeds up Internet access. He brings a string of accomplishments to his new position. He was CIO for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and also headed the NIST Information Technology Laboratory, where he managed IT services and research programs.
In the early 1980s, Wakid designed telecommunications networks and developed Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) programs as Bell Laboratories. He also was an atomic physics researcher at NASA and the University of Pittsburgh. He was named one of the nation’s top 25 communications visionaries by Communications Week magazine and earlier a “newsmaker” by Data Communications magazine for his pioneering work in ISDN.
In 1991, Wakid received the Federal R&D 100 Award, the Department of Commerce Silver Medal Award in 1992 and the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive in 1993.
Wakid graduated a Rockefeller Fellow from the American University in Beirut in 1967 and in 1971 he earned his Ph.D. in Atomic Physics from Louisiana State University where he was a Fulbright-Hays Exchange Fellow.
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