Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor: Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Marcie Weber
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More colorful than ever, the new BAMS will be on its way to readers this month. With the January 2002 issue, BAMS, or The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, premieres a new format and a new mission to help the AMS connect with its diverse scientific community as well as with the growing public that depends on it.
The restructuring of the journal, now in its 83rd year, is a realization of planning begun more than two years ago by the Society’s governing Council and successive panels of distinguished members chaired first by Brad Colman, of NOAA, and then Thomas Schlatter, also NOAA, both past members of the AMS Council. The new BAMS aims to help the AMS reach new constituents and better serve its diverse community of researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, students, military personnel, civil servants, and more. The new format aims to stimulate communication within the Society as well as about it “BAMS strives to be a publication of such editorial appeal that each issue substantially engages and extends the society and the community it serves,” the committee decided. BAMS, the membership journal of the AMS, has 12 000 subscribers.
“Our first priority is to serve the members with the new BAMS. They are the subscribers,” says Jeff Rosenfeld, who has been guiding the transition to the new format since taking over in May as Editor in Chief. “BAMS will reach out to them by reflecting the diverse work they do. It will help members to communicate with one another about their ideas, concerns, and hopes for the field. It will feature their diverse experiences, and not just about their research. Ultimately this kind of communication will be able to serve subscribers by making their successes and aspirations accessible to interested readers outside the Society.”
Among the new sections in BAMS this year is “Nowcast,” which Rosenfeld hopes will be a thought-provoking selection of news and ideas from members. The section features accessibly written summaries of upcoming papers in the field, reports on interesting presentations at AMS scientific meetings and chapter gatherings, and unusual tidbits from recent news about weather and societal developments. Rosenfeld says the selection of news is particularly geared toward the Society’s members.
“BAMS—and particularly “Nowcast”—should be food for thought for scientists and the people they work with. It should be about the ways their work matters in the world,” Rosenfeld says.
“Nowcast” also opens up new opportunities for shorter articles from members, including essays and nontechnical discussions about education, the weather business, forecasting, or other issues of interest to members. For instance, the January issue features a short, colorfully documented article by NWS meteorologist Jeff Waldstreicher about an ocean effect snowstorm in New England. This is meant to be the first in a series of discussions of interesting situations that forecasters face, Rosenfeld says. The issue also features a short discussion of the future of university education by staff from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and an interview with Stanley Changnon of the Illinois Water Survey about his 50 years studying societal impacts of climate and weather. The profile is integral to the new publication, Rosenfeld says. “BAMS is the place to talk about what it means to be a scientist who studies the atmosphere, the oceans, and related realms that so obviously define our world. I’m encouraging people to see BAMS as a place to mentor and be mentored—to pass on wisdom about this complicated profession.”
“Nowcast” incorporates some of the more popular features from the old Bulletin format, such as “Chapter News.” Former sections about AMS business have been collected in another new section, called “45 Beacon” (the Society’s historic address in Boston).
“I had members tell me how much they loved the old chapter news. Over and over the theme was: what are their peers doing and talking about? So Rachel Medwid-Thomas [the BAMS assistant editor] and Kelly Garvey [the AMS chapter contact] have been working with members to focus their reports from the field and tell us what’s going on that’s unusual,” Rosenfeld said. “As a magazine about a profession, BAMS has to help members keep up with their field, and even “Chapter News,” in its brief and informal way, helps them do that as well as our new reports on upcoming meetings.”
Longtime AMS designer David Gershman reworked the look of BAMS to reflect the new editorial direction, which includes a mandate for much more color in the traditional scientific articles, meetings reports, and commentaries. The look is not all that Rosenfeld intends to change within the more technical sections of BAMS, though he emphasizes the continuity of the new BAMS and its older style, which continues to lead its field in terms of frequency of scientific citations.
“One of the great things about BAMS is that it has always featured essential ideas and projects. The research in this field has great potential to affect a lot of people—not just members of the AMS,” Rosenfeld. “Just because the work is getting increasingly sophisticated doesn’t mean it won’t fascinate people from other specialties or disciplines. I want people to sit up and take notice of what’s going on, because down the road it is going to affect them, not to mention fascinate and inspire them.”
Rosenfeld sees the process as one of making readership a priority for authors. “Authors have always sent articles to BAMS because they were looking for wide readership. I’m working with authors to help make their articles as direct and accessible as possible. Soon I think readers will see that the main contributions take less time to read. That alone will garner more attention for this worthy research.”
In addition to the new Editor in Chief, BAMS has a new board of editors to handle the peer reviews and shape the scientific content of the publication. Ed Zipser, who heads the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah, is chairman of the new board, which includes experts from various fields represented by the AMS. Rosenfeld expects that this diversity of scientific expertise at the helm of BAMS will create a vital publication. “The publication has never had so many different areas, like biometeorology, atmospheric chemistry, and new technologies, specifically represented in its structure before. We should, in turn, be able to make it as multidisciplinary—and interdisciplinary—as our core sciences themselves have become. In a way the new BAMS structure simply helps the publication stay in tune with the new opportunities and purposes of atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic, and related sciences.”
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Final plans for the first AMS WeatherFest, a special 3-hour science and weather fair dedicated to teaching you about the fascinating field of meteorology, are coming together.
WeatherFest is an afternoon of activities designed to promote public science literacy and enrich the science experiences of area families, students and teachers. WeatherFest, part of the American Meteorological Society’s 82nd Annual Meeting, will take place on Sunday 13 January 2002 from 12 noon to 3 P.M. at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. WeatherFest is free and open to the public.
WeatherFest events include hands-on science experiments, exhibits, and science presentations by many leading experts in the field. Throughout the afternoon scientists will offer opportunities to make tornadoes in a bottle, learn about lightning dynamics, talk with hurricane hunters and storm chasers, learn about weather support for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and much more. Visitors will be able to pick up a career guide and a few new books about some of Mother Nature’s most awesome storms.
WeatherFest will also host NASA’s Electronic Theater, presented by Frederick “Fritz” Hasler of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. Fly in from outer space to Orlando and Disney World; drop in on the Kennedy Space Center and Park City, Utah, site of the 2002 Olympics; and go back to the early weather satellite images from the 1960s and see them contrasted with the latest national and international global satellite weather movies including tornadoes and hurricanes from the 2001 season.
A complete WeatherFest program is available online at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams under the link for the AMS 82nd Annual Meeting.
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Jack Fellows, UCAR vice president of corporate affairs and the director of the UCAR Office of Programs; Pete Folger, AGU public affairs manager; and Bill Hooke, director of the AMS Policy Program had the opportunity to meet with Dr. John H. Marburger III, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Office of the President, last month. The main purpose of the courtesy call was to introduce Marburger to the work of UCAR, AGU, and the AMS, and begin exploratory discussion of issues important to our community and the nation. Marburger has been in the office for little more than one month.
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A draft AMS policy statement on “Free and Open Exchange of Environmental Data” is under consideration by the AMS Council. It has been posted to the AMS Web site for public comment.
The statement, and a link for providing comments, can be found at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams/POLICY/draftstatements.
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In an effort to build our relationship with Subaru of America, and meet some of the other groups sponsored by Subaru, Yale Schiffman and Melissa Ficek of the AMS Meetings Program, attended the first ever Subaru Partners Summit. The meeting was held at the Westin Long Beach, on 29 November 2001. They were joined by representatives from 16 of Subaru’s other partners. The partners are a diverse group representing outdoor recreation, scientific organizations, and health care.
The meetings presented an opportunity to meet all the Subaru partners and discuss what Subaru’s relationship has done for each group. AMS noted the support of the AMS Education Program as well as the scholarship program and the outreach activities—some of which already include other Subaru partners. Details about Subaru’s partnerships are available on their new Web site, http://www.subaru.com/outdoorlife/index.asp. A complete list of Subaru’s partners can be found on this Web site.
Attendees at the meeting were also given a sneak preview of Subaru latest addition to their car line, the Baja. As part of this focus group, the partners were allowed to examine this new vehicle and offer opinions. It was an interesting behind-the-scene look at how a new vehicle is brought to market.
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The practical application of basic research in science, engineering and technology includes the MRI, computer chips, laser eye surgery and stealth aircraft technology. These are but a few of the literally dozens—even hundreds—of the advances in science and technology that make life better and more secure and are the result of basic research funded by the federal government. But despite the continuing evidence of the value of these programs, funding levels have generally been inadequate in recent years, a trend that will probably continue as budgets are squeezed by competing program demands and tax cuts.
To help redress this imbalance of national priorities, a number of science, engineering and technology societies, as well as other institutions and corporations, have organized Congressional Visits Days (CVD). Over the course of 2 days, participants will come to Washington to be briefed on relevant issues by representatives of the executive branch and Congress. They will also visit their Congressional delegations to talk about the overall, crosscutting importance of federal support for science, engineering and technology research and how this support ultimately translates into applied sciences and services
CVD will take place 5 and 6 March 2002. There will be briefings on 5 March and a reception that evening at which two Members of Congress will receive the annual George E. Brown, Jr. Award for their efforts in support of the federal contribution to American science. Visits to participants’ Congressional delegations will take place on 6 March.
Last year, a number of AMS members in the Washington area were asked to participate. This year, the Society will be asking members who are serving, or have served, in an official capacity with AMS—past Presidents, current or former members of the Council, or AMS members on our boards and commissions. They will focus on issues of interest across the physical sciences, while connecting those issues to the atmospheric and relates sciences and services.
A “roundtable” discussion of the experience of three Society members who participated in the 2001 CVD will appear in the February 2002 BAMS.
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The AMS–NOAA–NASA Electronic Theater expanded its audience to school children in Madison, Wisconsin, recently, marking the first time it has reached out to the local community as part of a conference.
The activity, in Madison, was part of the AMS Satellite Conference. Presentations were made to 5500 middle and high school children from throughout the state and to 500 University of Wisconsin students, conference attendees, and area residents.
Developed by Dr. Fritz Hasler, Goddard Space Flight Center, the presentations were made on the huge AMS 18 foot by 72 foot screen using the latest computer graphics, HDTV, and projection technology in the main exhibit hall of the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace Convention Center.
The Space Science and Engineering Center, NASA, and the convention center provided five video projectors, including a 10,00 lumen super projector for the HDTV displays.
The Electronic Theater will be a part of the AMS WeatherFest and the 82nd Annual Meeting in Orlando.
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The Environment, Technology and Standards Subcommittee of the House Science Committee has unanimously passed and sent to the full Science Committee a bill (H.R. 2486) that would authorize funding for NOAA to create a new inland flood warning index.
Entitled the “Inland Flood Forecasting and Warning System Act of 2001,” the legislation is designed to ensure that the public better understands the dangers of inland flooding from hurricanes, major storms and other events that cause flooding. The program would be placed under the aegis of the U.S. Weather Research Program, with funding authorized at approximately $1.1 million per year.
The bill would improve flood forecast capabilities through research and modeling; develop, test, and deploy a new flood warning index to give fuller, clearer, and more accurate information about the risks and dangers posed by expected floods; train emergency management officials, NWS personnel, and others, regarding improved forecasting and risk management techniques, as well as the use of the flood warning index; and, finally, conduct outreach and education activities for the public and local meteorologists about the dangers and risk associated with inland flooding and the use and understanding of the index.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-North Carolina) and has the sponsorship of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the full Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York) and Ralph Hall (D-Texas), respectively.
While producing an accurate flood index is a difficult task, this effort is important in communicating with increased precision the potential dangers of flooding. It will be especially useful to state officials (prominently including emergency managers) to make judgments as to how to prepare and respond to potential inland flooding, often the real killer in severe storms. Immediate improvements in inland flood warning forecasts should result, with important refinements to be expected in future years.
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Gematronik GmbH, a Neuss, Germany, based company, announced that it has been awarded a contract from the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources of Venezuela to supply and install 8 weather radars for the Venehmet Program.
As a turnkey provider Gematronik will supply the klystron-based meteor 1500S S-Band Doppler radars for a countrywide radar network. The contract includes infrastructure and a comprehensive product processing, display, and radar control network. Deliveries will take place over the next three years.
“This project is a major achievement for us in the South American market. The radar network covers the basins of Venezuela and the Caribbean coastline,” said Gematronik International Sales Managers, Claudius Marschalik and Gabriele Kadner. “The purpose of the project is to improve precipitation measurements for meteorological and hydrological application. Amongst others the weather radar data are applied in hydrological forecasts (real-time flood alerts, precipitation warnings) and weather forecasts for public use and aviation.”
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Working from the world’s largest statistical base at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center, scientists project that 2001 will be the second warmest on record for the globe.
They also report that 2001 saw the fifth most active Atlantic hurricane season, drought in parts of the United States, and record cold in Siberia and western Asia.
Based on data collected through the year and depending on conditions during the last two weeks of December, the average annual global temperature is projected to be 57.8°F (14.4°C), which is 0.9°F (0.5°C) above the 1880–2000 long range average, making 2001 the second warmest on record.
The warmest year on record, 1998, occurred during a strong El Niño event and was 1.2°F (0.7°C) above the long-term average. Other years in the top 5 warmest are 1997, 1995, and 1990.
During the past century, global surface temperatures have maintained a rate of increase near 1.1°F/century (0.6°C/century), but this trend increased to a rate approaching 3.0°F/century (1.7°C/century) during the past 25 years.
Annual temperatures for the contiguous United States are expected to be near 54.0°F (12.2°C), which is above the long-term average (1895–2000) of 52.8°F (11.6°C). Warmer than average temperatures dominated much of the western half of the country throughout 2001, while the Southeast experienced cooler than normal conditions during the summer months. Nevada had its record warmest May, August, and fall months (September–November), and New Mexico also experienced its warmest fall months.
Nationally, 2001 had the second warmest November on record; 1999 was the warmest. Alaska had its warmest winter (December 2000–February 2001) on record with more than a 12.0°F (6.7°C) departure from the long term (1918–2000) average. U.S. temperatures have risen at a rate of 0.9°F/century (0.5°C) over the past 100 years.
Although the Atlantic hurricane season had a late start, there were 15 named tropical storms in 2001, of which 9 became hurricanes with 4 reaching major hurricane strength. This was the fifth most active season since 1871. On average, between 9 and 10 named storms form with 6 growing to hurricane strength and 2 developing into major hurricanes.
After more than 2 decades of below average activity, a tendency for greater activity has developed over the past 7 years. Scientists at NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division believe this may be due to a natural ocean cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Mode, a North Atlantic and Caribbean sea surface temperature shift between warm and cool phases. Each phase lasts 25 to 40 years.
Five or more major hurricanes (winds in excess of 111 mph) occurred in 1995, 1996, and 1999. Prior to 1995, five or more major hurricanes had not occurred in one season since 1964. A new record of hurricanes for November was set in 2001 as Michelle, Noel, and Olga were active during the month.
Although the hurricane season was above average for the fourth consecutive year, there were fewer tornadoes than average. Eight very strong to violent tornadoes (winds in excess of 158 mph) occurred between March and August. This was much less than the 1950–2000 average of 38.
As for drought, floods, and wildfires, NOAA officials reported the following:
Despite the warm surface conditions in 2001, officials said that satellite data indicate that temperatures averaged over the lower half of the atmosphere (lowest 8 km) were near average over the globe. Based on 11 months of data, 2001 ranks as the 10th warmest in the satellite record, which began in 1979.
Cooler than normal ocean temperatures throughout the eastern equatorial Pacific became more temperate through the year as the La Niña of recent years faded to neutral conditions early in the year.
Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere continued to average near record levels.
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The Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government announced that the OK-First Program, an Oklahoma-based initiative that empowers local public safety agencies to make lifesaving decisions, has won a distinguished 2001 Innovations in American Government Award and a $100,000 prize.
Established in 1996 by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey at the University of Oklahoma, the program provides up-to-the-minute weather data via specialized computer technology. With access to this timely information, emergency management teams can close roads and bridges before they become dangerous, alert rescue crews about storm movements and take other proactive measures to ensure public safety during severe weather. OK-First was established under the direction of Kenneth Crawford, AMS Fellow and 2002 Cleveland Abbe Award winner.
“From tornadoes, winds and hail to drought and wildfires, Oklahoma’s citizens are better protected as the result of OK-First,” said former Oklahoma Senator David L. Boren, now president of the University of Oklahoma. “Everyone involved in this program is proud to receive this award recognizing our world-leading weather information system.”
“Severe weather accounts for hundreds of deaths in the U.S. every year,” said Gail Christopher, executive director of the Institute for Government Innovation. “But thanks to OK-First’s innovative approach, Oklahoma stands as a symbol of preparedness.”
This level of preparedness is paying huge dividends. For example, on 3 May 1999, when an outbreak of 70 tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma and Kansas, a major tornado ripped through the town of Stroud, destroying three major businesses. Certain fatalities were avoided, however, when an emergency worker used OK-First to evacuate a shopping mall before the storm hit.
“While we cannot control the weather, OK-First demonstrates that innovative thinking can help government respond to it more quickly,” said Stephen Goldsmith, faculty director of the Innovations in American Government Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “It’s important that we continue to harness this type of public-sector creativity to improve the lives of American citizens nationwide.”
Celebrating their 15th anniversary, the Innovations in American Government Awards focuses on the quality and responsiveness of American government at all levels and helps foster the replication of innovative approaches to meeting the challenges facing government.
The awards—a program of the Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government—are administered in partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government. The Program was founded by the Ford Foundation to identify and promote excellence and creativity in the public sector.
This year, the National Selection Committee chose five winners instead of its usual 10, marking perhaps the most competitive field in the program’s 15-year history. The four other winners are as follows:
The Council for Excellence in Government is a national, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization whose members have served as senior public sector officials. Its mission is to improve the performance of government by strengthening results-oriented management and creative leadership in the public sector, and build understanding in government by focusing public discussion on its role and responsibilities.
For more information on the Innovations in American Government program and this year’s winners, please visit http://www.innovations.harvard.edu.
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A new study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has found that cotton yields are likely to increase in the southeastern United States if carbon dioxide levels continue to rise as projected this century and if farmers adapt their agricultural practices to the resulting climate change. The findings were presented San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) last month.
The researchers entered various scenarios into their computer models to simulate the effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere on cotton crop yields. If CO2 emissions increase at their present rate, many scientists believe that the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to double compared to preindustrial levels by the year 2060.
Along with climate change, atmospheric CO2 enhances plant growth by stimulating photosynthesis. In one scenario, adaptations to farming practices resulting from a lengthened growing season, elevated CO2-induced climate change, and enhanced plant growth were all factored into model simulations. The results predict that cotton yields would increase by as much as 26%–36%.
“Cotton is a very important economic crop for U.S. agriculture,” says NCAR’s Linda Mearns, a coauthor of the study. “This is the first time impacts of climate change on cotton production have been examined at this level of detail on a regional scale.” Nevertheless, explains NCAR coauthor Ruth Doherty, these cotton model projections are simplistic. For example, the climate models project climate change based on an instantaneous doubling of CO2, when in reality such increases would occur gradually over this century, possibly changing the outcomes. Still, in most of the scenarios there was a trend towards increased cotton yields in the future.
Two climate models were used in the study—a large-scale global climate model that used 300 kilometer by 300 kilometer (186 mile by 186 mile) grids, and a finescale regional climate model that used 50 kilometer by 50 kilometer (31 mile by 31 mile) grids. A climate model is a simplified mathematical representation of the earth’s climate system, including data on the physical, geophysical, chemical, and biological processes that govern the climate system. Finescale models with higher resolution may be more accurate, but in order to gain information about the future regional climate, results from the global model must be used to initialize and control the regional model.
Using these two models, three scenarios were simulated. The first scenario simply looked at the impact that climate change resulting from an instantaneous doubling of CO2 would have on cotton yields in the southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, northern Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and part of Tennessee. For this scenario the finescale model predicted a decrease of 10% in cotton yield over the region, while the large-scale model showed a 4% increase in yields.
When the climate change resulting from CO2 doubling was combined with the potential for enhanced cotton plant growth as a result of greater carbon availability, the finescale model showed a 5% increase in yields, while the large-scale model predicted a 16% increase.
Finally, when the first two factors of CO2 doubling and enhanced growth were combined with farming adaptations, such as planting crops earlier to take advantage of a longer growing season, the finescale model predicted a 26% increase, and the large-scale model predicted a 36% increase.
The research is part of a larger project that examines the impact of different spatial scales of climate change scenarios on yields of corn, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, and cotton in the southeastern United States. The findings will be published next year in a special issue of the journal Climatic Change. NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funded the study. NCAR’s primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.
A color graphic illustrating possible future cotton yields in the southeastern United States may be downloaded at the NCAR news site, http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2001/cotton.html, or at the NASA Goddard Top Story site, http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011210cottonclimate.html.
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Beginning next summer, 150 scientists from NASA, other government agencies, academia, and industry will start an investigation of cirrus clouds in Florida with the objective of reducing uncertainties in forecasts of the earth’s future climate.
The project will focus on studies of high, tropical cirrus clouds, composed of tiny ice crystals that float at altitudes from 20 000 feet (6067 meters) to 55 000 feet (16 683 meters). Scientists will take measurements from a variety of aircraft and ground instruments for four to six weeks beginning in July. Analysis and reporting are expected to take two years.
Eric Jensen, project mission scientist from Ames Research Center in California, said, “Our objective is to find out how ice clouds affect global warming. The combination of measurements and computer modeling studies will improve our understanding of how cirrus may change in response to climate change. For example, as the surface heats up and thunderstorms become more intense, will larger, thicker cirrus clouds be formed?”
“Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in computerized global climate models, “ he continued. “We want to measure the ice crystal sizes, cloud optical depths and the heating or cooling of the Earth’s surface caused by tropical cirrus clouds, particularly those generated by intense storms.” Optical depth is a measure of the visual or optical thickness of a cloud.
The effort is called the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers–Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL-FACE).
Most of the flights will be over southern Florida with occasional flights over the ocean, Jensen said. Six aircraft types will carry instruments. The NASA ER-2 from Dryden Flight Research Center in California; the Proteus aircraft from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia; the WG-57 from Johnson Space Center, Texas; a Citation aircraft from the University of North Dakota; a P-3 aircraft from NOAA; and a Twin Otter from the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in California.
Satellites being used in the study will be GOES, Terra, and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).
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After nearly a year in the Pacific Ocean that included studying climate systems that affect the weather and climate variability across the globe, probing submarine volcanoes that vent superheated plumes into the northeastern Pacific, and exploring the deep Astoria Canyon off the Oregon coast, the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown will return to its home port in Charleston, South Carolina, in mid-December.
Since it left Charleston last January, the ship transited the Panama Canal twice and circumnavigated the Pacific Ocean from southern latitudes to the Bering Sea, and from the U.S. west coast to the East China Sea and Sea of Japan. Scientists representing many organizations and disciplines worked aboard during the year, studying global climate variability, greenhouse gases, underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents, and geologic, physical, and biological processes that affect the growth and populations of fish stocks off the Pacific Northwest and in Alaskan waters.
In addition, Ronald H. Brown recovered, deployed, and repaired deep ocean moorings in the North Pacific and Gulf of Alaska that detect and warn of tsunamis and geologic events, and others in the eastern Equatorial Pacific that provide oceanic and atmospheric data essential to the study and prediction of El Niño and La Niña events.
During the year, Ronald H. Brown hosted more than 260 scientists from the United States and 18 foreign countries.
Ronald H. Brown is a state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessel that was commissioned in Charleston in 1997. The 274-foot ship is operated and managed by NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which includes civilians and officers of the NOAA Commissioned Corps, one of the nation’s seven uniformed services. The largest ship in the NOAA fleet, Ronald H. Brown is equipped with state-of-the-art atmospheric, meteorological and ocean sensors, and data collection systems to handle a broad range of research objectives. It carries one of only three ship-mounted Doppler radar systems in the world.
The ship will be in Charleston for repairs, crew training and leave taking for just one month. It sails in mid-January, beginning its 2002 research schedule with a voyage to Brazil. Research projects in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea follow. The ship will return to Charleston many times during the year to exchange scientific parties and begin new projects.
For more information about Ronald H. Brown, visit http://www.moc.noaa.gov/rb.
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Thanks largely to a network of more than 11 000 volunteer weather observers across the country, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has placed interactive daily snowfall maps and data online.
Maps of the nation and each state show snowfall for the most recent 1-, 2-, 3-, and 7-day period, as well as current snow depth maps of the states and the nation. Users can also access maps showing snowfall for the month to date and the season to date.
The snow data are made available from Cooperative Observers across the United States who call in their observations to NOAA’s National Weather Service each morning. Their observations are taken at nonairport locations, including sites representative of where people live, work, play and grow their food. Locations include national parks, mountain-top resorts, urban and suburban neighborhoods, and rural farm sites. These volunteers donate more than one million hours each year to collect the weather data that become our national climate records. The data, some dating back to the 1890s, are housed at NCDC’s Asheville center. The data are available at http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/snow/snow.html.
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The Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) has updated the “Trends Online” section “Global and Hemispheric Temperature Anomalies–Land and Marine Instrumental Records.”
These data were corrected for nonclimatic errors, such as station shifts and instrument changes. The resulting data have been used extensively in various Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and the global-mean temperature changes evident in the record have been interpreted in terms of anthropogenic forcing and natural variability.
Trends in annual mean temperature anomalies for the globe show relatively stable temperatures from the beginning of the record through about 1910, with relatively rapid and steady warming through the early 1940s, followed by another period of relatively stable temperatures through the mid-1970s, then another rapid rise similar to that earlier in the century.
The 2000 global mean temperature anomaly was +0.29°C above the 1961–90 mean temperature. This is somewhat cooler than the anomalies of the previous three years, but 2000 still ties with 1991 as the sixth warmest year in the global record and the eight warmest years of the global record have all occurred since 1990. They are 1998, 1997, 1995, 1990, 1999, 2000 and 1991 (tie), and 1994.
Further information is available at http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/jones.html.
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The Second Annual National Severe Weather Workshop will be held at the National Center for Employee Development Marriott Conference Center in Norman, Oklahoma, 1 and 2 March 2002.
The nation’s top severe weather experts will discuss their latest research findings and forecasting techniques at the workshop, designed for emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, storm spotters and other weather enthusiasts. The event is sponsored by NOAA’s National Weather Service, Central Oklahoma Chapter of AMS/National Weather Association, and the Oklahoma Emergency Managers Association.
In its first year, the workshop attracted more than 200 attendees from 20 states.
“This is a unique national event where emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, researchers and forecasters from around the country will get together to discuss how they can better protect the lives of American citizens,” said Joseph Schaefer, director of the Storm Prediction Center.
Sponsor and vendor opportunities are available for businesses to promote their products or services during the event. More information about the workshop is available online at http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/nsww2002 or by calling (405) 579-0771.
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The launch of a new research satellite last month will provide scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other institutions with an unprecedented view of the upper regions of the earth’s atmosphere. Improved knowledge of the region—known as the mesosphere and lower thermosphere/ionosphere—could bolster communications networks, ensure that satellites stay on course, and provide scientists with greater insight into human influences on the atmosphere. NASA launched the satellite aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on 7 December 2001.
TIMED (which stands for Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics) is designed to obtain a global picture of the portion of the atmosphere from about 40 to 110 miles (60 to 180 kilometers) above the earth’s surface. This complex region, greatly influenced by the sun, is too high for ground-based instruments to probe in much detail. The TIMED satellite will provide the first comprehensive picture of temperature, wind, and chemical composition there.
“We’re looking at weather at the edge of space,” says NCAR’s Stanley Solomon, a principal investigator for TIMED. “This interface between the earth’s atmosphere and space is an extraordinarily variable and dynamic region.” With TIMED, Solomon believes that scientists will move to nowcasting the upper atmosphere—that is, reporting with some accuracy on current conditions. In a few years, scientists may be able to provide 1-hour forecasts of upper-atmosphere weather.
TIMED measurements will provide important information on such upper-atmosphere phenomena as gravity waves, airglow and auroral emission rates, noctilucent clouds, and ion drifts, besides basic information about high-level global winds and temperatures.
The area that TIMED is exploring is profoundly affected by the sun’s magnetic field and radiant energy. Yet it is the least-understood region of the atmosphere. Ground-based instruments can detect only a small portion of it, and sounding rockets provide just a brief picture of the region before falling back toward the earth.
The TIMED spacecraft is designed for a 388-mile (625 kilometer) circular orbit around the earth. The spacecraft’s four instruments will measure solar radiation, auroral energy inputs, temperature, pressure, key gases, and other characteristics of the upper atmosphere.
The mesosphere and lower thermosphere/ionosphere are attracting the interest of scientists because of their important impacts on orbiting vehicles and communications systems. For example, when upper atmospheric temperatures rise, the resulting expansion pushes molecules to higher altitudes. This increased density exerts an added drag on satellites and slows down their orbits. Changes in the ionosphere can disrupt radio waves and affect the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition, bursts of solar radiation can affect astronauts working on the space station.
The upper atmosphere may also provide a window into the impacts of human-generated emissions of methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases on the lower atmosphere—some of which have been linked to global warming.
Knowledge of the upper atmosphere lags behind that of the lower atmosphere by many decades. Scientists lack the data to provide satellite operators with even the crudest of forecasts about winds, temperatures, and other conditions in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere/ionosphere.
Scientists in NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory and Atmospheric Chemistry Division are playing key scientific roles. A number of federal agencies and universities are taking part in the mission. NCAR’s primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.
For more information, visit http://www.timed.jhuapl.edu or http://tidi.engin.umich.edu/main.html; for visuals, http://www.timed.jhuapl.edu/press2/images.htm.
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Earth science researchers, using high-resolution maps of carbon storage, suggest that forests in the United States, Europe, and Russia have been storing nearly 700 million metric tons of carbon a year during the 1980s and 1990s.
Scientists hope to understand to what extent carbon is stored in the earth’s forests because of the need to account for the fate of carbon released into the earth’s atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. The NASA-sponsored research seeks to improve the understanding of the role that “sinks” play in sequestering carbon and the impact climate change has on agriculture, rangelands, and forests.
Right now scientists have inferred that there is a sink of one to two billion tons of carbon into the land regions of the Northern Hemisphere, which corresponds to some 15% to 30% of the global annual industrial carbon emissions.
“A critical challenge for Earth scientists is to reduce the uncertainty in this estimate and to derive its geographical variation,” said Compton Tucker, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
The researchers exploited high-resolution coverage data of the northern forests available through NOAA weather satellites. Using detailed forest inventory data from 171 provinces in six countries, they derived and validated relationships between forest “greenness” measured from satellites and the “hands-on” measurements of the amount of carbon contained in the woody biomass of the forests. The relationship obtained allowed them to produce high-resolution maps of carbon stocked in about one-and-a-half billion hectares, an area about one-and-a-half times the size of the United States, in northern forests located above the 30th parallel.
U.S. forests soaked up 140 million tons of carbon a year. With the exception of Canada’s boreal forests, which were losing carbon, most northern forests were storing carbon. Russia, the country with the most forests in the Northern Hemisphere, accounted for almost 40% of the biomass carbon sink.
Researchers suggest a longer growing season from climate warming in the north, fire suppression and forest regrowth in the United States, better forest management in the Nordic countries, and declining harvests in Russia as possible reasons why some forests are storing carbon.
They also suggest that increased incidence of fires and infestations as possible reasons why some Canadian forests are losing carbon.
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The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, was renamed at a ceremony on 1 December 2001 to honor the memory of Richard Hagemeyer, the U.S. Tsunami Program manager and former director of NOAA’s National Weather Service Pacific Region.
Operated by the National Weather Service, the center will bear the name of the 51-year NOAA weather service veteran, who died 25 October.
Hagemeyer also served as the U.S. representative to the International Coordinating Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific at the time of his death. He chaired the 25-member-state organization for several years.
Hagemeyer, an AMS Fellow, was a strong supporter of the AMS education programs. He and his wife Helen established a unitrust and a named undergraduate scholarship. The $3,000 scholarship is awarded annually to students entering their final year of undergraduate study. In addition, contributions are currently being received from family and friends in memory of Hagemeyer.
Established in 1948, the PTWC is the operational center for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific, and provides warnings for Pacific basin teletsunamis—tsunamis that can cause damage far away from their source—to almost every country around the Pacific rim and to most of the Pacific island states. As the Hawaii Regional Tsunami Warning Center, PTWC provides a more rapid warning for local tsunamis generated in Hawaiian waters.
During his half-century with NOAA’s National Weather Service and its predecessor the U.S Weather Bureau, Hagemeyer managed multimillion dollar budgets and hundreds of employees. In these capacities, he amassed knowledge and experience that furthered tsunami research and warning systems around the world.
At the time of his death, Hagemeyer was director of NOAA’s National Weather Service Pacific Region and, for the past 19 years, oversaw weather services in Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He was the only civilian member of the U.S. military’s Pacific Command Meteorological Group.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hagemeyer was a longtime resident of Hawaii Kai. He was known for having a genuine affection for the people who worked for him and the communities they served throughout the Pacific. He took pride in expanding meteorological training opportunities for Pacific Islanders, and ensuring that the jurisdictions he served received the benefits of the most advanced technology available.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning Program seeks to mitigate tsunami hazards. Research and development activities focus on an integrated approach to improving tsunami warning that factors in remote sensing with model and data assimilation to produce a tsunami forecast guidance.
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AMS Fellow Richard Somerville has been named one of the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturers for 2002–03.
Sigma Xi was founded in 1886 as an honor society for science and engineering. Today, it is an international research society whose programs and activities promote the health of the scientific enterprise and honor scientific achievement. There are nearly 75 000 Sigma Xi members in over 500 chapters at colleges and universities, industrial research centers and government laboratories. The Society has its headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
There are many long-standing programs of the Society, which continue to be central to the Society’s overall mission. These include American Scientist magazine, the 75-year-old Grants-in-Aid of Research Program, a number of prestigious prizes and awards, and the College of Distinguished Lecturers.
The College of Distinguished Lecturers provides an opportunity for local Sigma Xi chapters to host visits from outstanding individuals who are at the leading edge of science. These visitors can thereby communicate their insights and excitement to a broad range of scholars and to the community at large. The AMS supports the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer program by nominating a member of the Society as a lecturer, and providing funding for additional subsidies. William Hooke, director of the AMS Atmospheric Policy Program, is a 2001–02 Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer and is currently making presentations across the country.
Since 1979, Richard Somerville has been Professor of Meteorology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. His current research emphasis is the role of clouds in the climate system. Somerville earned a B.S. from The Pennsylvania State University in 1961 and a Ph.D. from New York University in 1966, both in meteorology. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change, which was awarded the Louis J. Battan Author’s Award for 2000 from the AMS. He is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the AMS. Somerville was also awarded the Walter Orr Roberts Lectureship in Interdisciplinary Sciences for 1999 by the AMS, “in recognition of significant contributions to the understanding of atmospheric processes.”
As part of the Sigma Xi program, Somerville will give presentations at local Sigma Xi chapter meetings and supported events between July 2002 and June 2003.
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Four times yearly, top officials at NOAA hold a briefing and answer questions about the state of the agency, its activities and directions. On 18 December, the last briefing of the year was held in front of a packed group in the Ronald Reagan Building as the recently sworn in Administrator of NOAA, Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, was introduced by outgoing Acting Administrator Scott Gudes (who will return to a Senior Executive Service (SES) position at NOAA).
Because the primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss NOAA’s final FY02 appropriations, most of the meeting was handled by Gudes, but Lautenbacher was introduced by Gudes and said a few words to the group, most especially focusing on introducing some of his top staff, including new Chief of Staff Scott Rayder.
In a gesture of continuity that will be of special interest to members of AMS, Lautenbacher mentioned the presence of Dr. Robert White in the audience. White, who continues to work closely with AMS in its Washington office, served on the Stratton Commission in the late 1960s, was a cofounder of NOAA, and was its first administrator in the early 1970s.
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AMS Fellow Michael King, senior project scientist for NASA’s Earth Observing System, (EOS), has been named winner of the Nordberg Award. The Nordberg award is given annually at the Goddard Space Flight Center to someone who best exhibits the characteristics of Dr. Nordberg’s career—broad scientific perspective, enthusiastic programmatic and technical knowledge on national and international levels, wide recognition of peers, and substantial research accomplishments in understanding earth system processes.
The award is named for William Nordberg (1930–76), a Goddard Space Flight Center scientist who pioneered remote sensing to investigate the earth and its environment. He led an instrument team in developing an electrically scanning microwave radiometer, flown first on Nimbus-5 in 1972.
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