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TRW, Inc. has been awarded a systems engineering, management, and sustainment services contract, potentially worth $119 million, from the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The new contract will help the agency provide a more complete weather picture—from earth to space. AFWA supplies weather services and products worldwide.
For the next five years, TRW will serve as prime contractor providing systems engineering, management, and sustainment (SEMS) services to consolidate air force weather system contracts to reduce the costs of maintaining individual weather systems. The contract also calls for TRW to modernize and enhance existing systems to enable AFWA to improve mission support.
Work on the program is expected to begin in September in Omaha, Nebraska. The modernization effort also benefits Department of Defense civilians and National Intelligence Community civilian agencies by providing improved tropical cyclone direction and intensity tracking, analyses of high-level winds, and severe storm aircraft alerts.
With headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, AFWA runs the strategic center for weather for the U.S. Air Force and supplies all weather-related information to the air force, army, and many civilian agencies. AFWA derives information from satellites and other sources and analyzes it to provide predictions used by DoD, government agencies, and military units in the field.
TRW, Inc. provides technology products and services for aerospace, information systems and automotive markets worldwide. The company celebrated its 100th year of operation in 2001. For more information, visit http://www.trw.com.
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RS Information Systems (RSIS) has been awarded a $10 million contract to support the Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) of the National Weather Service (NWS) in Silver Spring, Maryland. The company was also awarded a $10 million contract to support NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) ground-breaking work on the effect of tropical rainfall on global climate.
Over the five-year contract with the National Weather Service, RSIS will support the development and maintenance of hydrometeorological applications at the laboratory, including systems administration, configuration management, quality assurance, testing, and Web development and maintenance.
The MDL is part of the NWS Office of Science and Technology. The laboratory conducts and sponsors applied research and development for the improvement of weather analysis and forecasting. It collaborates with other laboratories and centers in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and elsewhere and seeks to identify new techniques in response to NWS objectives. The contract was awarded through COMMITS, a contract vehicle of the Commerce Department.
Through the NASA contract, RSIS will operate and maintain Goddard’s Tropical Rainforest Measuring Mission’s Science Data and Information System, in Greenbelt, Maryland, the first mission dedicated to measuring tropical and subtropical rainfall through microwave and visible infrared sensors, including the first spaceborne rain radar.
According to NASA, tropical rainfall accounts for more than two-thirds of global rainfall. It is the primary distributor of heat through the circulation of the atmosphere. Understanding rainfall and its variability is crucial to understanding and predicting global climate change.
The RSIS support for the NASA contract will be provided by its Science and Engineering Division, which has nearly 20 science and technology services contracts with NASA and NOAA.
RSIS, based in McLean, Virginia, provides information technology services, systems engineering, science support, and management consulting to a range of government agencies and commercial clients.
More information on the company is available at www.RSIS.com.
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The United States Climate Change Science Program will hold the comprehensive Workshop on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, from 3 to 5 December 2002, in Washington, D.C., to receive comments on a discussion draft of its strategic plan for climate change and global change studies.
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program incorporating the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and the Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) is jointly sponsored by 13 government agencies. The workshop will review the USGCRP/CCRI plans with emphasis on the development of short-term (2–5 years) products to support climate change policy and resource management decision making.
The U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990 initiated the USGCRP that continues today as a major sponsor of global change research. In June 2001 President George W. Bush directed the USGCRP agencies to develop the focused CCRI with the goal of accelerating the USGCRP research activities in the next 2 to 5 years, to assist in the development of public policy and natural resource management tools related to climate change issues. When finalized, the draft strategic plan reviewed during and after the workshop will provide the principal guidance for the U.S. global change and climate change research programs during the next several years, subject to revisions as appropriate to respond to newly developed information and decision support tools.
The workshop responds to the president’s direction that the U.S. global change and climate change science programs must be objective, sensitive to uncertainties, and well documented for public debate. The U.S. global change and climate change research programs must consistently meet the highest standards of credibility, transparency, and responsiveness to the scientific community, as well as to all interested user groups and our international partners. To assure the continued scientific credibility of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the workshop will provide a comprehensive review of the discussion draft of the strategic plan. The workshop discussions, supplemented by written comments submitted during a 30-day post-workshop period, will be reflected in the final strategic plan.
Complete details are available on the AMS website at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams.
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The National Academies is now accepting applications for the 2003 Science and Technology Internship Program of the National Academies. The National Academies program—consisting of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council—is designed to engage graduate and postdoctoral students in science and technology policy, and to familiarize them with the interactions among science, technology, and government. As a result, students in the fields of science, engineering, medicine, veterinary medicine, business, and law develop essential skills different from those attained in academia, which will help them make the transition from being a graduate student to a professional.
This year, the internship program will comprise three sessions:
To apply, candidates should submit an application and request that their mentor fill out a reference form. Both are available on the Web at http://national-academies.org/internship. The deadline for applications is 1 November for the winter program, 1 March for the summer program, and 1June for the fall program. Candidates may apply to all three programs simultaneously.
Additional details about the program and how to join our mailing list are also available on the Web site. Questions should be directed to internship@nas.edu.
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The University of Colorado at Boulder has approved a new research center that will assist decision makers with complex scientific problems, such as those involved with water scarcity, global climate change, and homeland security.
The Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, created within the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, has been in development since the summer of 2001, and was officially approved by the university in August 2002. With six full-time staff members, 10 students—both graduate and undergraduate—and several affiliated faculty members, the center is working on issues such as drought, global climate change, flood damage, technology transfer, and national security.
“Scientific research of great intellectual value is too often not very usable by decision makers when they have to make choices that will have profound impacts on our lives,” said Roger Pielke Jr., the center’s director and associate professor of environmental studies. “The center hopes to address this need by producing useful information to assist decision makers in both public and private settings and expand the choices available to them.”
The center serves as a focal point on the CU–Boulder campus and beyond for students, faculty, and researchers who are interested in connections between science and policy. It disseminates its research to decision makers in both public and private settings through a variety of avenues, including extensive use of the Internet, online newsletters, talks, and presentations to decision makers.
“In order to make good policies, decision makers need to know the nature of the problem, which is where we come in,” said Bobbie Klein, managing director of the center. “They also have to be aware of how effective the policies were in the past.”
Education is also an essential part of the center’s mission. The center is host to Global Climate Change and Society, a summer program sponsored by the National Science Foundation that incorporates students from various fields and educational institutions around the country. The students gather for eight weeks each summer to assess the power and limits of scientific knowledge for the resolution of societal problems.
The center also places graduate students in internships and provides research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students. And the it is partnering with the Boulder Valley School District on the creation of an outdoor environmental science classroom at Flatirons Elementary School.
CIRES is a joint institute of CU–Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For more information about the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, visit http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now accepting nominations for the NOAA “David Johnson Award for Outstanding Innovative Use of Earth Observation Satellite Data.”
The award is presented by the National Space Club, in honor of the first administrator of what was to become the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). This award is given to young professionals who have developed an innovative use of earth observation satellite data (alone, or in combination with nonsatellite data) that is, or could be, used for operational purposes to assess and/or predict atmospheric, oceanic, or terrestrial conditions.
A committee of eminent professionals in the field will select the recipient for this award by December 31, 2002. The nominee must be a United States citizen, national, or permanent resident, and not more than 40 years of age.
The National Space Club must receive nominations with the complete application package by 1 December 2002.
A complete nomination will include the following:
Completed applications should be mailed to: Mark Morrison, c/o National Space Club, Lockheed Martin Corporation, 1725 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22202. Applications may also be e-mailed to mark.e.morrison@lmco.com. For more information, please call (703) 413-5607.
The award will be presented in March 2003 at the annual Goddard Memorial Dinner, held near Washington, D.C., and hosted by the National Space Club.
For additional details contact Jane D’Aguanno in the Office of the Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services at (301) 713-3385, fax (301) 713-1249, or e-mail to Jane.Daguanno@noaa.gov.
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Almost the entire federal appropriations process for FY03 has ground to a halt as of this writing, with only bills related to the military, homeland security, and legislative branch appropriations on a track to be presented to the president for signature in the near future. None of the other appropriations bills among the 13 mandated by law are near ready for the two Houses to agree to duplicate language in a conference committee (to reconcile the differences in their bills) that would then return the bills to both chambers to be acted on; if both Houses passed the duplicate bills, they would then be sent to the president for final enactment into law.
The reason for this logjam is the war on terrorism, the sudden reemergence of deficits, and the upcoming elections, which shortens the legislative season. Congress is currently scheduled to adjourn on 8 October to campaign. It is unlikely that bills other than those noted above will pass before then. That means Congress will be required to pass at least one and probably two continuing resolutions to ensure that the federal government agencies continue to be funded into the new fiscal year beginning 1 October.
Another reason the bills are not moving is that members of some of the appropriations subcommittees regard their funding allocations as too small, in some cases even less than the administration has proposed. This is especially true in the House, and most especially true with respect to the Labor–Health and Human Services bill, with the House version offering funding distinctly less than that provided for in the companion Senate version. Appropriators on that House subcommittee, and more moderate members of the Republican majority, would like the see the allocation increased, while more conservative Republicans are resisting the idea. The result is impasse, and the House Republican leadership has mandated that there will be no movement on most of the other bills until the impasse over Labor–Health and Human Services is settled.
Time, though, is short. After 8 October, Congress will go home to campaign; there are then firm commitments in November, including freshman orientation, overseas fact-finding trips that have already been scheduled, as well as leadership selection and the Thanksgiving holiday. This means that if Congress is to act on all the appropriations bills (it is already too late to finish them before Congress leaves Washington to begin campaigning), it would probably have to do so for a few days in late November and then the first few weeks of December—in the form of a “lame duck” session. But that is an unappealing prospect, as many of the members voting on the appropriations will have either left Congress voluntarily or have been voted out of office.
While there is no firm decision as to how this will work out, it looks as if momentum is shifting toward a continuing resolution that would last into February 2003. The administration seems to be indicating that, if there were a continuing resolution, federal agencies will be funded at FY02 levels, plus a small inflationary premium. Then, when a new Congress returns to work in February, it would continue to work on the FY03 appropriations bills—more than four months late and in the middle of their work on FY04 appropriations.
Right now, though, no one on Capitol Hill knows for sure which direction the appropriations process will take.
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In good news for the science community at large, and those dedicated to major increases in funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), both the Senate Health, Education, Labo, and Pensions Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee passed a bill that would effectively authorize a doubling in spending on NSF. It is now up to the full Senate to decide whether they have the inclination—and time—to act on the bill. Senators Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Hollings (D-South Carolina), Mikulski (D-Maryland), and Bond (R-Missouri) introduced the bill.
It may well be that this is at best symbolically important. As reported earlier in the AMS Newsletter, the House also passed a “doubling” bill. The Senate’s bill is somewhat different, however, than the House bill, and even if the full Senate was to pass its version (it is relatively noncontroversial, but in the short time remaining in this Congress, there is still a lot of work to do), the two different versions would have to be reconciled in a “conference committee.” The differences are bridgeable; it is simply a matter of the availability of members’ time as the current session of Congress is scheduled to end on 8 October, and there are other, perhaps more important, measures to be considered in the relatively few legislative days remaining.
But, again, it is symbolic. The real funding decisions take place in the appropriations committees, but if the membership of both full Houses pass bills that show their intent through an authorization bill to double NSF funding over an approximately five-year period, that would be a powerful statement to the appropriators. So, even if the doubling bills are not signed into law in this Congress, its will has been expressed, and it is a tremendous victory for substantial increases in funding for nonhealth sciences.
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The Senate also included, as part of the NSF “doubling” bill mentioned above, legislation to institute a new approach to NSF math and science education. Formerly a freestanding bill (S. 1262), the National Math and Science Partnership Act (a version of which passed in the House of Representatives) substantially increases the authorized funding for NSF math and science education programs.
Unfortunately, the program would also effectively transfer funds that were formerly in a “teacher training account” into this new program. It would also alter requirements for nonprofit organizations eligible to receive funding in a way that would exclude from participation small- to medium-sized science and technology organizations like AMS. That is because the legislative language in the Senate bill would authorize NSF only to fund programs that involve a “partnership” between nonprofits and “local educational agencies” (for example, state educational agencies and local school districts); and colleges and universities. Nonprofit institutions would simply be excluded from the Senate bill as currently written.
It is unclear whether the full Senate will act on the bill by the end of this Congress, let alone, send it to conference committee (after reconciling its version with that of the House) and then to the president, to sign into law.
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The June through August 2002 summer season was much warmer and drier than average in the United States according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), in Asheville, North Carolina. For the contiguous United States, the average temperature was the warmest since the 1930s, and drought affected approximately half of the country throughout much of the summer. The global average temperature was the third warmest on record for the June–August season.
The average temperature for the contiguous United States was 73.9ºF (23.3ºC) during the June through August summer season (based on preliminary data), 1.8ºF greater than the 1895–2001 long-term mean, making it the third warmest summer since national records began in 1895. No state was significantly cooler than average and 17 states were much warmer than average. The warmest average summer temperature for the contiguous United States occurred in 1936 and the second warmest in 1934.
Twenty-nine states had significantly below-average precipitation, while the only states with a significantly wetter than average summer were in the upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota) and parts of the southern United States (Texas and Florida). Heavy rainfall alleviated drought, but led to severe flooding in southern and central Texas in early July, with damage estimates reported as high as $1 billion. Strong thunderstorms also brought widespread flooding to western Minnesota and North Dakota and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and crop losses in June.
The combination of generally warmer- and drier-than-average conditions in other parts of the United States led to persistent or worsening drought throughout much of the country. Although there was some drought relief in the Northeast during the spring and early summer, a return to below-average rainfall during July and August led to worsening drought there. In parts of the Southeast and the West, the current drought began as early as 1998. Conditions during the past 12 months continued to be remarkably dry in many areas. Six states (North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada) had their driest September through August (previous 12 months) since 1895, and five states (South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, and Wyoming) had their second driest such 12-month period in the 108-year period of record.
Moderate to extreme drought covered more than 45% of the contiguous United States during each of the past three months based on the Palmer Drought Index, a widely used measure of drought. The Palmer Drought Index uses numerical values derived from weather and climate data to classify moisture conditions throughout the contiguous United States and includes drought categories on a scale from mild to moderate, severe and extreme.
The most extensive national drought coverage during the past 100 years (the period of instrumental record) occurred in July 1934 when 80% of the contiguous United States was in moderate to extreme drought. Although the current drought and others of the 20th century have been widespread and of lengthy duration, tree ring records indicate that more severe and longer-lasting droughts have occurred in parts of the United States during the past 500 years. The severity of the 1930s drought was likely surpassed by the drought in the 1570s and 1580s over much of the western United States and northern Mexico, which lasted several decades in parts of the southwestern United States
Although the total costs of this year’s drought are not presently known, the drought diminished water supplies that led to the need for water restrictions in many cities, and contributed to an active wildfire season and extremely difficult farming conditions. More than 50% of range and pastures were classified as poor to very poor in 24 states by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in early September. Although production for some major crops will be lower than in recent years, some of the most productive areas of the nation’s corn and soybean growing regions have not been affected by this year’s drought.
NOAA’s Moisture Stress Index (MSI) provides historical perspective on conditions that are closely associated with national corn and soybean yields by measuring the percent of average crop productivity affected by drought (and catastrophic wetness) in the nation’s nonirrigated corn and soybean growing regions. Although this index does not include all possible weather-related conditions that can affect crop yield and production, lower MSI values reflect soil moisture conditions that are generally conducive to higher national yields while high MSI values indicate less favorable soil moisture conditions during critical phases of crop development.
The 2002 MSI showed that just over 17% of the average productivity for both corn and soybean crops was affected by severe drought (or catastrophic wetness) in 2002. The values, which are slightly higher than those recorded in 1999, are the highest since the mid-1990s and are indicative of less favorable growing conditions in 2002. However, MSI values in 1988 and 1983 indicate that 40% to 50 % of the average productivity of these crops was affected by drought. In those years, severe drought covered more of the primary corn and soybean growing regions than in 2002. The 2002 MSI values were also much lower than those during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, when much of the nation’s agriculture was devastated by years of warmer- and drier-than-normal conditions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the average yield in 2002 will be 9.3% lower for corn and 6.6% lower for soybean than in 2001.
The average global temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces during the June–August 2002 season (based on preliminary data) was 0.8ºF (0.5ºC) above the 1880–2001 long-term mean, the third warmest June–August since 1880 (the beginning of reliable instrumental records). The land surface temperature average was also the third warmest on record (1.2ºF above average), while the global ocean surface temperature was the fourth warmest on record, at 0.7ºF (0.4ºC) above average. The June–August land and ocean temperature was slightly cooler than in 2001 and 0.3ºF less than the record warmth recorded in 1998.
The season was marked by numerous extreme weather events throughout the world. More than 100 people were killed across Europe as heavy and persistent rainfall led to devastating floods in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Russia, and Romania. Monsoon rains also led to hundreds of deaths in northeastern India and Bangladesh, and heavy rainfall brought severe flooding to central China. This contrasts sharply with widespread and severe drought that persisted in other parts of India and China as well as much of North America and New South Wales, Australia.
National and global data are online at: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2002/aug/aug02.html.
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After months of developing in the tropical Pacific Ocean, El Niño is poised to influence fall and winter weather across the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The El Niño influence will be weaker than the very strong 1997/98 event, but will still impact temperature and precipitation patterns.
“El Niño will likely influence the fall and winter weather patterns,” said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The El Niño conditions that have persisted for months will be at moderate strength through the end of 2002 and into early 2003.”
With nearly half of the United States experiencing drought, the fall/winter outlook only offers “limited relief,” said retired Air Force Brigadier General Jack Kelly, director of the National Weather Service. “While some improvement in the drought is possible, namely across the Southwest and southern and central Plains states, it may not be enough to alleviate dry conditions entirely, particularly in the Northwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and the Ohio Valley.”
Overall, Kelly said forecasters expect El Niño’s fall and winter impacts to include drier-than-average conditions in the Pacific Northwest and mid-Atlantic states during fall, drier-than-average conditions in the northern Rockies and the Ohio Valley states during the winter, wetter-than-average conditions in the southern tier states during winter, and warmer-than-average conditions in the northern tier of the United States during winter.
According to the NOAA forecast issued on 13 September, the 2002 fall outlook includes the following.
The 2002/03 winter outlook includes the following.
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The season’s second tropical cyclone to reach hurricane strength provided an excellent case study for NOAA scientists. The storm gave hurricane hunters the opportunity to monitor and measure a tropical storm undergoing rapid intensification before making landfall in the Yucatan peninsula. Isidore made landfall a second time along the Louisiana coast on 26 September.
Since 1998, Peter Black of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division and Lynn K. Shay of the University of Miami have studied how areas of the ocean that have a deep layer of warm water near the surface play a significant role in allowing hurricanes to rapidly intensify, one of the most difficult situations to forecast and one of the most dangerous to residents along the coast. Their previous work focused on specific sources of deep warm water found in the loop current, and large-scale eddies that spin off from this source and traverse the Gulf of Mexico.
On 19 September, the scientists dropped a series of ocean probes known as AXBTs and AXCPs (airborne expendable bathyothermographs and current probes, respectively) from the two NOAA WP-3D hurricane hunter aircraft. The probes were released in the projected path of Isidore in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The probes measured the ocean temperature and currents down to 200 meters (about 600 feet), the depth at which hurricane winds usually churn up colder water and cool the overall temperature of water below the storm.
“The significance of Isidore being over the Gulf Stream loop current is that the warm water below extends to great depths, not allowing Isidore’s winds to cool the surface temperature thereby keeping the heat reservoir intact and allowing further intensification of the hurricane,” said Shay.
During the second phase of the study ocean probes were deployed both as Isidore passed over the same region, and then immediately afterwards. Black and Shay will measure the difference in the ocean temperature structure during all three of these phases. During the time Isidore passed over the array of ocean probes dropped the day before, NOAA and University of Miami scientists collected data that describes both the complete structure of Isidore and the ocean beneath the storm.
Marks notes that the ocean is not the only factor in hurricane intensity change. NOAA hurricane researchers also consider environmental data gathered around the storm by NOAA’s Gulfstream-IV jet (G-IV), a surveillance aircraft operated by NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center. Though the G-IV missions are designed to improved track forecasts for land falling hurricanes, an added benefit is measurement of the wind shear and environmental moisture and stability that can affect intensity. Wind shear is the difference in wind velocity at upper and low levels in the atmosphere. High wind shear, dry air, and low stability are associated with weakening of tropical storms. Direct measurements of these variables are unavailable over the Gulf of Mexico without use of the Gulfstream jet.
Black and Shay hope that data gathered during this study will enhance knowledge and predictability of major hurricanes, which translates into improved intensity forecast, increased warning time, and better preparedness in coastal regions.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed a new database that will allow emergency preparedness managers, meteorologists, and the general public a way to explore 150 years of information about tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea.
The Historical Hurricane Tracks tool, developed by the NOAA’s Coastal Services Center in partnership with NOAA’s Tropical Prediction Center, is an Internet-based application that allows the search and display of detailed tropical cyclone data and coastal population trends.
Found at http://www.csc.noaa.gov/hurricane_tracks, searches can be made using criteria such as storm name, U.S. ZIP code, U.S. state, county, or latitude and longitude. Tropical cyclone activity is archived as far back as 1851. The site also provides a searchable database of population changes from 1900 to 2000 for U.S. coastal counties affected by hurricanes and detailed text reports on the life history and impact of Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1958 to 2001. This is the first NOAA site that provides storm and population data side by side.
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Over warmer ocean waters, tropical storm clouds become thicker, more extensive, and reflect more sunlight back into space than they do over cooler waters, NASA researchers report.
Using data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, Anthony Del Genio, a physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York, and lead author of the study, and Del Genio’s coauthor, Columbia University’s William Kovari, were able to isolate raining cloud systems and compare the rain they produce with the water that stays in the clouds and reflects sunlight. The researchers found that storm clouds over warmer waters are denser and cover wider areas of the Tropics than those over cooler waters.
The study provides a clearer picture of the behavior of storm clouds than was previously available. It also runs counter to a recent theory that claims storm cloud cover lessens as tropical ocean temperatures rise, thus making climate more resistant to the warming that would occur with an influx of greenhouse gases.
A key observation was that, while warmer storm clouds do release more of their moisture as rain, as a theory known as “Adaptive Iris” states, such clouds also have more moisture to begin with and thus also form bigger clouds. These NASA researchers believe the theory is inaccurate because it does not take into account all the factors that come into play when storm clouds form over warmer tropical regions.
If the Iris theory were correct, there would be less cloud cover and less humidity and mostly greater heat loss to space, strongly countering the warming effects of an influx of greenhouse gasses. The TRMM satellite data, however, indicate that the climate is more sensitive to warming caused by increases in greenhouse gases.
The Adaptive Iris model claims that tropical clouds cool the earth, but to a much greater extent than Del Genio’s research indicates. The Iris theory predicts that clouds in the Tropics grow thinner and less extensive as temperatures rise, thus trapping progressively less heat.
According to the hypothesis, increased warmth in the Tropics would create more turbulent storm conditions and cause clouds to quickly drop their moisture as rain, thus leaving less water in the clouds and making them both thinner and less extensive. If this were the case, changes in tropical clouds could potentially cool the atmosphere as fast as greenhouse gas accumulation would heat it, making them a natural damper on global warming. However, such a claim is not supported by these satellite observations.
Scientists agree that the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will double compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels within the next few decades, but there is still widespread debate over how great an effect this influx of gases will have on the world’s climate. Although doubling the concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide would by itself raise the earth’s temperature, the change in atmospheric composition may also trigger other effects that could amplify or diminish this temperature change.
“It’s not just the heat the greenhouse gases themselves will trap,” said Del Genio. “We have other factors to worry about. Clouds are one of the most influential climate factors, and one of the most difficult to understand.”
All clouds both trap heat and reflect solar energy. They hold heat in like a blanket, preventing it from escaping the earth, and their white upper surfaces also reflect sunlight back into space before it can warm the atmosphere. The net effect can either heat or cool the planet, depending on how thick, wide, and high in altitude the clouds are.
Del Genio emphasizes that although their work should not be used to directly predict climate change, it will allow scientists to develop more accurate climate models that can be used with greater confidence.
The research appears in the 15 September issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate.
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Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham have submitted a progress update on federal climate change science and technology programs in a letter to President Bush. The update, from the cabinet level Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration, jointly chaired by Evans and Abraham, outlines steps taken in four key areas: federal climate research, technology development, voluntary emissions reduction, and collaborative international activities. The letter can be found at http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/climateletter.pdf.
The update details activities taken in response to President Bush’s initiatives to address global climate change. These initiatives include the Climate Change Research Initiative to accelerate science-based climate change policy development, and the National Climate Change Technology Initiative to advance energy and sequestration technology development. The update also addresses the president’s call to increase international cooperation to engage and support other nations on climate change and clean technologies and his plan for increased incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“President Bush directed us to advance the science of climate change study so policy makers can make critical decisions on how to address this looming global issue,” said Evans. “This letter provides an important update on the progress made in meeting the president’s climate change goals and objectives.”
Work by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other government agencies are leading to the rapid development of improved climate research, monitoring and decision tools that will provide useful information on climate change issues in a timely way. Continued investments in ocean and atmospheric observation systems and efforts to gain international cooperation in expanding these systems are playing a significant role in enabling scientists to better characterize and understand complex global climate systems and processes.
“We’re engaged in a landmark scientific endeavor to create new technologies and forge new programs and processes that will reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate the risks associated with climate change,” said Abraham. “With the help of partners in the public and private sectors, we are making progress in developing clean technologies and gaining critical knowledge on sequestration processes.”
The current state of U.S. climate change technology research and development is also being catalogued with the intent to foster public/private partnerships, strengthen basic research, and promote cutting-edge technologies. Of significant interest are hydrogen-based energy systems, biofuels, low-speed wind turbines, fuel cells, zero net energy building, carbon dioxide capture and geologic sequestration, and agricultural land management.
Active U.S. support and participation in collaborative international activities directed at climate change will remain a key focus of the Committee of Climate Change Science and Technology Integration. “With the U.S. continuing to lead all nations in research and development of climate-change technology, we will maintain our support of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” said Secretary Evans.
The update also notes numerous interagency bilateral climate dialogues in progress including joint climate change programs, scientific research, and technical discussions in Australia, Canada, Central America, the European Union, India, Italy, Japan, and China.
To determine the full scope of research conducted by the federal government, an interagency inventory of climate and global change research programs will be completed later this month. Further, an updated strategic plan for U.S. global climate change research is being developed with a draft report available for public comment in November 2002. The plan will be subject to a comprehensive review during a three-day workshop on U.S. Climate Change Science in Washington, D.C., 3–5 December 2002. A final strategic plan is expected to be published in April 2003. For more information on the climate science workshop, please visit http://www.climatescience.gov.
The Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration was established by President Bush in 2001 to coordinate federal interagency programs in climate change science and technology development. The secretaries of the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Energy jointly lead the committee with regular participation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council of Environmental Quality. For more information on the committee, please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html.
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A new study using a computer climate model to simulate the last 50 years of climate changes, projects warming over the next 50 years regardless of whether or not nations curb their greenhouse gas emissions soon. If no emission reductions are made and they continue to increase at the current rate, global temperatures may increase by 2°–4ºF (1°–2ºC ). But if the growth rate of carbon dioxide does not exceed its current rate and if the growth of true air pollutants (substances that are harmful to human health) is reversed, temperatures may rise by only 1.4ºF (0.75ºC).
“Some continued global warming will occur, probably about 0.9ºF (0.5ºC) even if the greenhouse gases in the air do not increase further, but the warming could be much less than the worst case scenarios,” says James E. Hansen, lead researcher on the study at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), in New York. The research was a collaborative effort among 19 institutions, including seven universities, federal agencies, private industry, and other NASA centers, and was funded by NASA. The results appear in the September issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres, published by the American Geophysical Union.
The GISS SI2000 climate model provided a demonstration that global temperature change of the past half-century was mainly a response to climate forcing agents, or imposed perturbations of the earth’s energy balance, according to the researchers. This was especially true of human-made forcings, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which trap the earth’s heat radiation just as a blanket traps body heat; thus causing warming.
The computer model’s ability to simulate the past 50 years of global temperature change provided confidence in understanding the causes behind the climate changes that occurred over that time period. The sensitivity of the SI2000 model to a climate forcing is comparable to that of other climate computer models. Model results from 1951–2000 are in close agreement with observed changes: the surface has warmed by about 0.9ºF (0.5ºC), while the upper atmosphere [10–15-mile (15–25-kilometer) altitudes] has cooled by about 2ºF (1ºC).
The climate model then simulated global temperature change during the next 50 years, under two contrasting assumptions for future growth of human forcings. The first assumption for the emissions of greenhouse gases was the “business-as-usual” scenario, in which greenhouse gases continue to increase rapidly. This scenario leads to an accelerating rate of global warming, raising global temperature to levels that have not existed during the past 700,000 years.
In the “alternative” scenario, in which air pollution is decreased and fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are stabilized, further global warming is limited to 1.4ºF (0.75ºC) over the next 50 years. Hansen cautioned that the alternative scenario would not be easy to achieve. It requires that the world begin to reverse the growth of true air pollution (especially “soot” and the gases that control surface ozone, including methane) and also that we flatten out and eventually begin to decrease carbon dioxide emissions.
The climate forcing agents that Hansen and his coauthors included in their climate simulations were 1) long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and the chlorofluorocarbons; 2) stratospheric aerosols (fine particles) from volcanic eruptions; 3) variations in the sun’s energy, indicated by sunspots; 4) ozone changes, both at the surface (a pollutant) and upper atmosphere (protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays); 5) stratospheric water vapor, and 6) lower-atmosphere air pollution aerosols, including black and organic carbon (soot) and sulfates.
Achievement of stable carbon dioxide emissions, as required in the alternative scenario that yields minimal climate change, is likely to require some combination of increased energy efficiency, a growing role for renewable energies, capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions, and/or increased use of nuclear power, says Hansen.
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A NASA researcher has found that the amount of sea ice that moves between Greenland and Spitsbergen, a group of islands north of Norway, is dependent upon a “wave” of atmospheric pressure at sea level. By being able to estimate how much sea ice is exported through this region, called Fram Strait, scientists may develop further insights into how the ice impacts global climate.
This export of sea ice helps control the thermohaline circulation, a deep water ocean conveyor belt that moves warm, salty water poleward and cold, fresh water toward the equator. The thermohaline circulation is one of the primary mechanisms that maintains the global heat balance.
Don Cavalieri, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, discovered a link between the transport of sea ice through this region and the position or phase of the longest sea level pressure wave circling the earth at polar latitudes.
Until now, scientists have had inconsistent results when trying to identify the mechanism behind this transport of sea ice. The North Atlantic Oscillation, in particular, was unable to explain the changes in sea ice transport through Fram Strait.
Sea level pressure is made up of high and low pressure systems as any weather map will show. The large-scale semipermanent highs and lows define the longest pressure waves, which are called planetary waves because they extend thousands of miles and circle the world. The longest wave, called wave 1, is made up of one ridge (high pressure) and one trough (low pressure). It turns out that wave 1 is the dominant pattern at polar latitudes. Because these planetary waves are so dominant in wintertime atmospheric circulation, their amplitudes (strength) and phases (position) provide useful information on large-scale wind patterns and thus on sea ice transport.
The Icelandic Low is the primary weather system in the North Atlantic. At times this low pressure system extends northeastward into the Barents Sea. When this happens a secondary low pressure system may develop in the Barents Sea region. It is the counterclockwise circulation around this secondary low pressure system in the Barents Sea that drives sea ice through the Fram Strait. Whenever this secondary low pressure system exists, wave 1 shifts eastward and is said to be in its eastward phase, as opposed to a westward phase.
When wave 1 is in its westward mode, the Icelandic Low is more intense and localized, no longer extending to the Barents Sea. Because of the position of the Icelandic Low relative to the Fram Strait, the winds are more westerly, and less ice is forced southward through the strait.
Variations in the phase of wave 1 between these two extreme modes also seem to control the cycle of Arctic Ocean circulation, which reverses from clockwise to counterclockwise (or anticyclonic to cyclonic, respectively) every 6 or 7 years.
Cavalieri used simulations for the 40-year period (1958–1997) from two computer models to obtain a record of the volume of sea ice that moved through Fram Strait. The two models each showed a similar correlation between the eastward phase of wave 1 and movement of sea ice through the strait, with the exception of two anomalous years between 1966 and 1967. When those years were removed, one ice–ocean model, using monthly surface wind and air temperature data, found that the wave 1 eastward phase explained 70% of Arctic ice export through Fram Strait, while the other model, which used daily surface wind and air temperature data, accounted for 60% of the sea ice export.
Cavalieri also used Northern Hemisphere monthly sea level pressure grids to obtain phase and amplitude information for wave 1.
The paper appeared in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The study was funded by NASA’s Cryospheric Sciences Research Program.
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Over the next decade, forecasts of spectacular northern lights and other solar-generated events will become as commonplace as today’s thunderstorm predictions, say scientists meeting last month to plan the first five years of accelerated space weather research. To aid the effort, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will provide a computer model of the earth’s upper atmosphere and unique information on solar dynamics, both from NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory.
The NCAR contribution will be part of a more comprehensive research model that will mimic space weather, from solar explosions to auroras (southern and northern lights) to geomagnetic storms on the earth. The new technology will help scientists understand solar–terrestrial activity and eventually predict when and how it will affect activities on the earth. They expect to produce space weather forecasts similar to today’s daily weather forecasts by the end of this decade.
The National Science Foundation is funding the multi-institutional effort, called the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM), with a $20 million grant over five years. NCAR’s share, $3.3 million, will fund new research and modeling efforts on the sun and in the upper regions of the earth’s atmosphere, known as the ionosphere and thermosphere, as well as educational activities.
“In space weather we’re about where weather forecasters were forty years ago,” says NCAR director Tim Killeen, a principal investigator for CISM. “But we have the advantage that the computing power and the modeling know-how already exist. And now we’ve got the resources to make significant progress within just a few years.”
“The big solar energy blasts move fast and can have a huge impact on the ionosphere,” says NCAR scientist Stan Solomon. “With the planned CISM model, it’s within our technical reach to advance from the current system of alerts and warnings for these events to more precise numerical forecasts. These can give us enough lead time—hours to days—to prepare for possible disruptions to communications and navigation. And we’ll try to predict when and where people can see an aurora.”
The ionosphere and thermosphere are the final link in the space weather chain stretching from the sun to the earth. It is in these far upper regions that important solar–terrestrial effects occur. Satellite orbits can drop in altitude because of increased drag in the upper atmosphere during high solar activity and geomagnetic storms. Communications and navigation systems are disrupted by changes in the ionosphere in the earth’s polar and equatorial regions.
Large currents flowing in the ionosphere can induce currents in ground wires, disrupting power systems and telephone lines. The most dramatic manifestations of solar energy in the earth’s atmosphere are the brilliant blazes of color in polar skies, known as auroras.
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COSMIC, a satellite network now being developed through a U.S.–Taiwan partnership, will someday furnish round-the-clock weather data, monitor climate change, and improve space weather forecasts by intercepting signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Using atmosphere-induced changes in the radio signals, scientists will infer the state of the atmosphere above some 3,000 locations every 24 hours, including vast stretches of ocean inadequately profiled by current satellites and other tools. Nearly 100 scientists from over a dozen countries met in Boulder in late August to help plan the use of data from this $100 million mission, which will begin operations in 2005.
COSMIC is based on a system design provided by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, where the COSMIC Project Office is based. Taiwan’s National Science Council and National Space Program Office (NSPO) and the U.S. National Science Foundation are providing primary support for COSMIC.
With six satellite receivers, COSMIC will collect a global 3D dataset expected to improve analyses of both weather and climate change. By tracking temperature in the upper atmosphere up to 30 miles high, COSMIC could help clarify whether these regions are cooling due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases closer to the surface. COSMIC will also measure high-altitude electron density, potentially enhancing forecasts of ionospheric activity and “space weather.”
COSMIC’s satellites will probe the atmosphere using radio occultation, a technique developed in the 1960s to study other planets but more recently applied to the earth’s atmosphere. Each satellite will intercept a GPS signal after it passes through (is occulted by) the atmosphere close to the horizon. Such a path brings the signal through a deep cross section of the atmosphere. Variations in electron density, air density, temperature, and moisture bend the signal and change its speed. By measuring these shifts in the signal, scientists can determine the atmospheric conditions that produced them. The result: profiles along thousands of angled, pencil-like segments of atmosphere, each about 200 miles long and a few hundred feet wide.
Rather than replacing other observing systems, COSMIC will blend with them, filling in major gaps and enhancing computer forecast models. Many satellite-based products are like topographic maps that trace the contours of atmospheric elements in a given height range with high horizontal precision. COSMIC is more akin to a set of probes that drill through the depth of atmosphere with high vertical precision.
Radiosondes (weather sensors launched by balloon) have obtained vertical profiles since the 1930s. However, they are launched only twice a day in most spots, and few are deployed over the ocean. In contrast, the COSMIC data will be collected continuously across the globe. The GPS radio signals can be picked up by the low-orbiting COSMIC receivers even through clouds, which are an obstacle for satellite-borne instruments that sense infrared rays of the spectrum.
UCAR and colleagues began exploring the use of GPS-based observing systems in 1995 with the successful launch of a test satellite. Researchers in the United States, Germany, and Argentina have launched several other systems. All of these are research-based systems, with the data made available within days or weeks. COSMIC’s data will be available within three hours of the observations, making them a potential boon to everyday forecast operations. The COSMIC Project Office will serve as a clearinghouse for research use of the data from COSMIC and other GPS-based systems by scientists in the United States, Taiwan, and elsewhere.
UCAR is overseeing ground-based facilities, satellite payloads, launch services, and data processing structures for COSMIC. Orbital Sciences Corporation is responsible for spacecraft design. The first spacecraft will be built at Orbital’s facilities in Dulles, Virginia. The rest of the constellation will be built and tested in Taiwan, where the system’s mission control will be based. NSPO and Taiwan industrial partners will join in satellite system development. Other collaborators include NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Air Force, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Naval Research Laboratory.
Images of the expected global coverage from COSMIC compared to the current radiosonde network are available at online at http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2002/cosmic.html.
The COSMIC home page is http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu.
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A hiker stranded for three days in a snowstorm 11,000 feet up a Utah mountain was rescued in late September thanks to U.S. and Russian environmental satellites in the international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking Program, Cospas-Sarsat, and to the U.S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center. The rescue took place on 19 September.
Satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and by the Russian government, detected a distress signal from the hiker’s emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB). Hiker John Fawcett was caught in the blizzard, in which winds gusted to 100 mph. He had no food or shelter. His last resort was to set off the emergency signal to save his life.
Fawcett had purchased the EPIRB three years ago because he frequently hikes alone, and thought that someday the EPIRB might be useful. Its signal was detected by the Cospas-Sarsat system, and NOAA’s U.S. Mission Control Center notified the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The Air Force RCC coordinated the rescue response and dispatched the Utah Civil Air Patrol and the Duchane County Sheriff’s Department who sent search and rescue assets via air and ground. During the search, the Civil Air Patrol notified the Air Force RCC that the lost hiker was located with the transmitter device. The hiker was transported to the Duchane Airport by the county sheriff.
The Cospas-Sarsat system uses a constellation of satellites in geostationary and polar orbits to detect and locate emergency beacons on vessels and aircraft in distress. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA Satellite and Information Service) represents the United States in this program, providing satellite platforms and ground equipment, and operating the U.S. Mission Control Center.
NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) can instantly detect emergency signals. The polar-orbiting satellites in the system detect emergency signals as they circle the earth from pole to pole. Emergency signals are sent to the U.S. Mission Control Center at NOAA’s facility in Suitland, Maryland, then automatically sent to rescue forces around the world. Today there are 35 countries participating in the system. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the system.
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Driven by precise new satellite measurements and sophisticated new computer models, a team of NASA researchers is now routinely producing the first global maps of fine aerosols that distinguish plumes of human-produced particulate pollution from natural aerosols.
In the September issue of Nature, atmospheric scientists Yoram Kaufman, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and Didier Tanre and Olivier Boucher from CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) at the University of Lille, France, reported in a review paper that these global maps are an important breakthrough in the science of determining how much aerosol pollution comes from human activities. Aerosols are tiny solid or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere. The authors stated that the next step is to quantify more precisely the roles human aerosol pollution plays in the earth’s weather and climate systems.
“Plumes of smoke and regional pollution are distinguished by their large concentrations of small particles (less than 1 micrometer) downwind of biomass burning sites and urban areas,” Kaufman said. “These particles are important because, depending upon the type of particles produced, human pollution can either have a warming or cooling influence on climate, and they can either increase or decrease regional rainfall.”
Distinguishing small from large aerosol particles requires good understanding of how aerosols reflect sunlight at key wavelengths of the solar spectrum. For the first time ever, the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument flying aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites measures precisely the sunlight reflected by aerosols back to space every day over almost the entire planet, at wavelengths spanning across the solar spectrum (from 0.41 to 2.2 micrometers).
Aerosol plumes made up of smaller particles (less than 1 micrometer) reflect light at shorter wavelengths (blue light) much more strongly than plumes made up of larger particles (greater than 1 micrometer) which scatter and reflect light roughly equally at short and long wavelengths (blue, green, red, and near-infrared light). It is this basic understanding that helps scientists use MODIS data to distinguish human-produced aerosol.
However, there are exceptions to this rule. Kaufman noted that nature produces small particles too, while humans can generate large particles by changing land surface cover through agricultural practices and deforestation. Therefore, scientists need additional information—such as land use and fire activities, which are also observed by satellites, as well as information on population and economic activities—that is fed into advanced new computer aerosol models.
“Natural aerosols like salt particles from sea spray are typically widespread over larger areas and not particularly concentrated downwind of urban areas,” Kaufman observed. “Or, they are particularly concentrated downwind of obviously natural sources, such as the streams of dust originating from the Sahara Desert.”
Conversely, aerosols produced by humans are the result of urban pollution, industrial combustion, or burning vegetation. These plumes of pollutants appear in punctuated bursts of thick and concentrated plumes comprised of small particles. Or, they are concentrated downwind of regions obviously altered by human activities, such as deforested regions.
The authors find surprisingly good agreement between a new aerosol model (developed jointly by NASA Goddard and Georgia Tech) and the measurements now being made by the MODIS sensors. Examining global satellite images in concert with global-scale models and globally distributed ground-based measurements gives scientists the best tools they have ever had to estimate the effects of aerosol on climate and weather patterns around the world.
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