AMS Short Course on Remote Sensing Methods and Applications in Air-Sea Interaction, 9 February 2003, Long Beach, California
The AMS Short Course on Remote Sensing Methods and Applications in Air-Sea Interaction, co-sponsored by the AMS Committees on Air-Sea Interaction and Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography, will be held on 9 February 2003 preceding the 83rd AMS Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.
The course will review basic principles of remote sensing measurements, with an emphasis on the best uses and the limitations of the measurements. Methods for making comparisons between remote and in situ measurements will be presented, along with examples of applications of the data to research in air-sea interaction and atmosphere-ocean coupling.
The goal of the course is to provide sufficient background information and hands-on experience for the novice in remote sensing to determine which of the available products are of use for solving a particular problem, how to validate the data against more conventional measurements and products, and how to take advantage of remotely sensed data to answer scientific questions.
Measurements will be from both active and passive instruments and will include sea surface temperature, sea level anomalies, wind stress, precipitation, and surface fluxes. In situ data will include measurements from the Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array. Computer demonstrations and hands-on problem-solving will facilitate communication between the participants and the instructors.
A luncheon will be provided during this short course.
For more information, contact Kathryn Kelly, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, (Tel: 206-543-9810; email: kkelly@apl.washington.edu).
AMS Short Course National Weather Service Goes Digital, 9 February 2003, Long Beach, California
The AMS Short Course, National Weather Service (NWS) Goes Digital, sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the NWS will be held on 9 February 2003, preceding the 83rd Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.
This course is intended to provide information and details on NWS activities and plans for digital forecast product generation, and the provision for public access to these products from a national digital forecast database. These digital forecasts are those prepared by NWS forecasters, rather than direct model output. The NWS is implementing changes in its policies, products, and operations as new workstation technology and software is utilized for digital forecasting. A high level overview of interactive forecast preparation concepts will be presented to describe the digital forecast process at NWS forecast offices. The current transition in product generation will be addressed-a transition from the traditional, manual methods of forecast preparation and text product dissemination to the modernized generation of products in gridded format from a common digital database.
Forecast preparation concepts such as methodologies for initialization of weather element forecast grids from model data and guidance products and an overview of the algorithms and tools available for gridded forecast editing will be presented, as well as the methodologies for product collaboration and intersite coordination of gridded forecast weather elements which the NWS is adopting in order to provide consistent and seamless forecast products. The activities and plans for a National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) comprised of mosaics of local products generated at NWS forecast offices, and national scale products issued from NWS National Centers will be discussed. Specific details and future plans for NDFD data format, the mechanisms for retrieval of gridded forecast data, and the approaches and methodologies for web services will be provided. The vision for new products in the Marine, Public and Fire Weather, Aviation, Climate, and the Hydrological Services Areas will be presented, illustrating future plans for new products to be made available in the NDFD.
This course is designed to present information on NWS digital forecast capabilities and plans for access of digital products to the private meteorological services, the military services, emergency managers, the universities and research community, the print and broadcast media, and Federal agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration. It will address the role of the public and private sectors in the digital forecasting era, and the potential value of NWS digital forecasts to our partners and customers. A brief overview will be provided of the results from the National Academy study of the roles of the public and private sectors in the provision of weather services.
A luncheon will be provided during this short course.
For further information on this short course, please contact Jamie Vavra, Marine and Coastal Services, NWS, 1325 East-West Highway, Room 13112, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3285 (Tel: 301-713-1677 x 111; email: Jamie.Vavra@noaa.gov)
AMS Short Course on Technical Writing in Scientific Publications and Proposals, 9 February 2003, Long Beach, California
The AMS short course on Technical Writing in Scientific Publications and Proposals will be held Sunday, 9 February 2003, preceding the 83rd AMS Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.
Do you write sentences like "Comparison with available laboratory and field observations will be made to guide and verify models"? If so, this course can help you. Our writings are our main scientific product, legacy, and marketing tool. What impression does your writing make? Is it clear, concise, and direct? Or is it vague and slow like the example above? This course will raise your awareness to the elements that contribute to good or poor technical writing.
The course will open with a review of the common grammar and punctuation errors that occur in scientific writing. Topics in this module will include sentence structure, pronoun and comma usage, misplaced modifiers, and proofreading tips. The second module will review technical writing for the sciences and its objectives. The specific focus of this module is on creating scientific publications and proposals. Topics will include using active voice, avoiding nominalizations, using first-person pronouns, and trimming the fat. The third module will deal with the peer-review process for both journal manuscripts and scientific proposals. Topics will include submission and review ethics; the general characteristic of accepted and rejected papers and proposals; and negotiations among authors, reviewers, and the editor or program manager.
The intended audience is anyone within the AMS community who must write reports to describe research results or proposals to obtain research funds. Graduate students, especially, might find the course useful because, besides writing, it will cover the manuscript submission and review process and include an overview of AMS publications practices. Scientists for whom English is not their first language should also benefit from this course.
For the first module, the instructor will be Diane Andreas, a consultant and trainer who has taught workshops and short courses on grammar, punctuation, proofreading, and business writing for over 15 years; for the second module, Ed Andreas (USA CRREL), a frequent contributor to AMS journals who has won several awards for technical writing in competitions held by the Society for Technical Communication; and for the third module, Dave Whiteman (PNNL), a former editor of Journal of Applied Meteorology who lectures on the peer-review process.
Between the morning and afternoon sessions, the course will feature a luncheon with Ken Heideman as the guest speaker. Ken is the AMS Director of Publications; his talk will describe what happens at AMS once the journal editor forwards an accepted paper to headquarters. Topics might include what the author can do to facilitate production of her paper, what copyright protection provides, why pay page charges and what happens when you cannot, and hardcopy versus electronic publication.
Students should bring a short sample of their writing (e.g., one paragraph) that is double-spaced in at least 24-point type on a single transparency page. The class will critique some of these samples during the course, and the instructors will provide email critiques of all submitted samples within two weeks after the course.
For further information, please contact Ed Andreas (Tel: 603-646-4436; e-mail: eandreas@crrel.usace.army.mil).
AMS Short Course on the Fundamentals of Boundary Layer Wind and Temperature Profiling using Radar and Acoustic Techniques, 8-9 February 2003, Long Beach, California
The AMS Short Course on the Fundamentals of Boundary Layer Wind and Temperature Profiling using Radar and Acoustic Techniques is being offered by the AMS Measurement Committee and will be held from 8 to 9 February 2003, preceding the 83rd AMS Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.
The first day will be devoted to a brief review of the history of profiling and an introduction to both acoustic and radar profiling techniques. This will be followed by operational considerations including profiler siting, interference sources, installation, and maintenance (both hardware and software). The first day will be concluded by data collection, validation and quality control discussions. The second day will be devoted to discussing data applications, observations, analyses, and regulatory requirements. Applications will range from basic wind and temperature profiling to the introduction of new methods such as retrieving humidity profiles or turbulence information. Examples of current profiler networks and how modelers and forecasters are using data from these systems will be presented. Experts in the field of radar and acoustic profiling from the research, private and academic community will be on hand to answer questions and lead discussions. Attendee participation and interaction will be encouraged throughout the course. At the completion of the course each attendee will be given course materials, an extensive reference list, as well as a list contacts throughout the profiler community with which to communicate and interact in the future.
Lunch will be provided on Saturday with a guest speaker speaking on "Current Profiler Networks: Future Needs and Plans".
For further information on this short course, please contact Daniel Wolfe, NOAA/ETL, 325 Broadway MC R/ET6 Boulder, CO 80305 (tel: 303-497-6204; email: Daniel.Wolfe@noaa.gov).
AMS Short Course on Exploring and Using Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Data, 9 February 2003, Long Beach, California
The AMS Short Course on Exploring and Using Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Data, sponsored by the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) will be held Sunday, 9 February 2003 preceding the Annual AMS Meeting in Long Beach, California.
The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) views the Earth like no other instrument. Viewing the sunlit Earth simultaneously at nine widely spaced angles, MISR collects global images with high spatial detail in four spectral bands at every angle. These images are carefully calibrated to provide accurate measures of the brightness, contrast, and color of reflected sunlight.
The change in reflection at different view angles affords the means to distinguish different types of atmospheric particles (aerosols and smoke), cloud forms, and land surface covers (vegetation). Combined with stereoscopic techniques, this enables construction of 3-dimensional models and more accurate estimates of the total amount of sunlight reflected by Earth's diverse environments.
MISR provides new types of information for scientists studying Earth's climate, such as the partitioning of energy and carbon between the land surface and the atmosphere, and the regional and global impacts of different types of atmospheric particles and clouds on climate.
This Short Course is intended for new and experienced MISR data users. An overview of the mission and capabilities of the instrument including case studies showing some of the many uses of MISR data will be presented. Participants will learn about the scientific applications, calibration, geometry and analyses of the MISR measurements. This short course will also focus on the available data products and tools (both MISR and GIS) to view and analyze the data, as well as how to obtain the products. Computers will be available for a hands-on experience. A luncheon will be provided.
Course instructors will include David Diner, the MISR Principal Investigator, Nancy Ritchey, from the ASDC, and others.
Please visit the NASA Langley ASDC short course web site for more information http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/PRODOCS/misr/workshop/index.html or contact Nancy Ritchey, Atmospheric Sciences Data Center, NASA LaRC, MS 157D, 2 South Wright Street, Hampton, VA 23681-2199. (tel: 757-864-9813; fax: 757-864-8807; email: n.a.ritchey@larc.nasa.gov)
