Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor:Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Anne Siefken
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Robert Serafin, former director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has been voted president-elect of the American Meteorological Society. He will serve as president in 2001.
A native of Chicago, Illinois, Serafin earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Notre Dame, a master's degree from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from the Illinois Institute of Technology, all in electrical engineering, with a doctoral specialty in radar meteorology.
He began his career at Hazeltine Research Corporation in Plainview, New York, where he worked on the design and development of high-resolution radar systems. After 10 years at the Illinois Institute of Technology and IIT Research Institute, he joined NCAR in 1973 to lead NCAR's Doppler radar meteorology development, as manager of the Field Observing Facility. In 1983 Serafin became director of the Atmospheric Technology Division, which is responsible for all of NCAR's observational research and research-support facilities, used by scientists in universities and laboratories throughout the world. In 1989 he was appointed director of NCAR.
The holder of three patents, Serafin has published more than 50 technical and scientific papers. He established the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology and was its coeditor for several years. He has served on several National Research Council (NRC) panels and committees and chaired the NRC committee on the National Weather Service modernization. He also chairs a committee that advises the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Air Force, and the National Weather Service on the nation's Doppler weather radar system. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the AMS, and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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The Clinton Administration has requested a $77 193 000, or 12.1%, increase in the FY01 budget for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), proposing a total expenditure of $712 991 million.
NIST is one of several programs under the Department of Commerce Technology Administration, and under the proposal NIST would receive 98.8% of the technology administration’s new budget.
NIST’s budget has three major components: Scientific and Technical Research and Services (STRS), Industrial Technology Services (ITS), and Construction of Research Facilities.
The largest program within STRS is the Measurement and Standards Laboratories. The laboratories’ budget would increase $55.08 million or 19.9%, to $332.3 million. A much smaller program within STRS is the Baldrige National Quality Program. That program would realize a $288 000 or 5.9%, to a total of $5 191 000.
The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is the major program within ITS. It would realize an increase of $32.8 million, or 23%, to $175.4 million. The FY01 budget includes $31.8 million in new funding to enable ATP to expand its efforts while continuing multiyear projects selected in previous years. The new funding would provide $65 million in new awards. Also, within ITS is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which would receive an increase of $9.9 million or 9.6%, to $114.1 million. A new initiative within ITS is the Institute for Information Infrastructure, for which $50 million is requested. The institute will be established to support research and technology development to protect critical information and telecommunications infrastructures from attack and other failures. Of the requested funding, $45 million will be allocated for research grants to universities, industry and government agencies; $4 million for administration, and $1 million for the transfer of new technology to other federal agencies. Construction of Research Facilities would decline from $106.8 million to $35.8 million.
The administration requested no funding for the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), noting that the Commerce Department has proposed legislation to cease NTIS operations by the end of FY00. The NTIS collection of scientific and technical information would be transferred to the Library of Congress, effective 1 October 2000.
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EARS Remote Sensing, in Delft, Netherlands, has developed a system for monitoring of the earth surface energy and water balance. The system generates image maps of rainfall, net radiation, and actual evapotranspiration based on hourly Meteosat reception and produces yield and desertification related products. The system covers the Euro–Mediterranean region and Africa. Products are on a 10-daily, monthly or yearly timescale and have the full Meteosat resolution (5 km subsatellite). A Meteosat database to generate products retrospectively is available from 1993 on.
The EWBMS data may be used for regional water balance studies and water distribution planning, or in studies of the fate of agro-chemicals. The satellite data products are also suitable for drought and desertification monitoring, locust early warning, and crop yield forecasting.
Interested users and researchers may apply for free EWBMS data products during the next six months for evaluation and testing. Please visit the EWBMS Web site for more information: http://www.ears.nl/ewbms/ or contact Andries Rosema or Erik van Putten: e-mail, ears@ears.nl, tel. 31-15-2562404, fax 31-15-2623857.
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Landmark Communications, Inc. and Litton Industries, Inc. recently announced that Landmark Communications will acquire Weather Services International Corp. (WSI) from Litton. WSI is a provider of weather presentation systems and weather data. The purchase price is approximately $120 million in cash, subject to adjustment as of the closing.
"We're delighted with this acquisition," Landmark chief executive officer, John O. "Dubby" Wynne said. "The Weather Channel and our television stations have been WSI customers for years, and we have a very high regard for their team and their products. We look forward to helping WSI to grow its technology and forecasting abilities so that it can continue to provide outstanding service and products to its customers.
Michael R. Brown, Litton chairman, president and chief executive officer, said "The sale of WSI Corp. is consistent with Litton's strategy to grow shareholder value by focusing management and financial resources on our core business areas. WSI's value and growth potential can be best realized through alignment with Landmark Communications—a company dedicated to complementary businesses.
WSI (http://www.wsicorp.com) will continue to operate from its suburban Boston headquarters as a separate business under Mark Gildersleeve, president, who has been leading WSI for the past nine years.
The transaction is subject to Hart–Scott–Rodino antitrust approval.
Landmark Communications (http://www.landmarkcom.com) is a privately held multimedia company with national and international interests in newspapers, broadcasting, cable programming, interactive media, and other forms of communication. Landmark, based in Norfolk, Virginia, employs more than 5000 people in 20 states and Europe. Landmark owns The Weather Channel Networks, which include The Weather Channel, with headquarters in Atlanta; http://www.weather.com; El Canal del Tiempo, broadcasting to Latin America; and O Canal do Tempo, serving Brazil. It owns CBS-TV affiliates NewsChannel 5 Network in Nashville,Tennessee, and KLAS TV in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Travel network, based in London.
Litton is one of the nation's leading shipbuilders for the U.S. Navy and the largest builder of non-nuclear ships. Litton designs, builds, and overhauls surface ships for government and commercial customers, worldwide.
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from D. James Baker and Richard Anthes, under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere President, University Corporation Administrator, National Oceanic and for Atmospheric Research Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
The 25 January 2000 powerful snowstorm underscores the urgent need to learn more about the weather. Our National Weather Service, a unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has deployed the best weather service system in the world. But as good as it is, our system still needs to improve warnings of some important events. The strength and track of this intense storm was picked up with about nine-hours notice. That is not bad, but it is not enough.
It is not just one event that causes concern. The rapidly growing late January snowstorm followed closely two explosively growing storms that hit Europe in December, neither of which was forecast more than a few hours in advance. These storms inflicted losses totaling billions of dollars, both in property destruction and in business interruption.
What needs to be done to forecast these explosively changing storms? The answer lies in better observations, better understanding of the system, and better models on faster computers. We have a wonderful observational system with a network of satellites, radars, and surface instruments. But if we do not use this system more effectively, we will continue to suffer observational blind spots. Because water content is so important for storms, we need an improved picture of atmospheric humidity. Since our weather is affected by what happens over the oceans, we need more observations of the weather conditions over adjacent Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific waters.
To use these observations, we must develop a sharper understanding of the processes responsible for storm formation, intensification, track, and duration. We must accelerate the transfer of research understanding into operational forecast improvements. And we need to improve our computer capability. The new computer recently unveiled by the National Weather Service helped us do as well as we did for the Tuesday storm, but clearly more capability is needed. We also need a better knowledge of how weather impacts are communicated, how that information is used by government, private enterprise, and the general public, and the costs and benefits of such transactions.
To keep pace with growing national needs for timely, more reliable weather information requires the active involvement of all the nation's weather information deliverers. That is why NOAA is working in partnership with other federal agencies (the Navy, NASA, NSF, and FEMA), with more than 60 of the nation's research universities (through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), and with commercial meteorologists and end users to improve weather predictions and their use. The U.S. Weather Research Program is the partnership that focuses initially on hurricanes, winter storms, and related flooding. Over time it will address other weather events that adversely affect the citizens of our nation, including tornadoes, hail, high winds, and flash floods.
The forecast for long-term changes in weather offers no relief. With population growth and more migration to the coasts, the U.S. population has become more exposed to storms and floods. Insurance costs due to weather events are increasing dramatically every year. After a lull in hurricane landfalls lasting several decades, the United States appears to be re-entering a period when a more active hurricane season is likely. In his State of the Union address, the president noted that global warming could lead to more heat waves, droughts, and flooding. It is clear that our weather forecast and warning system has important gaps to fill to address these increasing needs. The U.S. Weather Research Program is aimed at these problems, and needs full support to make significant progress. To date, the program has had inadequate funding to address all of the priority needs. However, the national urgency of this task is the need to minimize weather threats to public safety and business in future years, which makes accelerating this collaboration a prudent and necessary investment.
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Lockheed Martin has built a new sounder that can measure earth's air temperatures from space with great precision. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is the result of nearly 10 years of research and development by Sanders' Infrared Imaging Systems in Lexington, Massachusetts, under contract to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The 390-pound instrument is scheduled for launch in December 2000 aboard NASA's AQUA spacecraft, which is an essential element of its Earth Observing System (EOS) mission.
A major advance in satellite remote sensing technology, AIRS promises to provide NASA and the world's scientific community with new and highly accurate data about the atmosphere, land, and oceans for use in climate studies and improved weather predictions.
Continuously measuring more than 2000 discrete infrared colors in the 3.7–15.4 micrometer range, AIRS' high-resolution spectrometer will precisely sample the earth's atmosphere from the ground up to as high as 30 miles. The system determines air temperatures and moisture profiles by observing the infrared signatures of carbon dioxide and water vapor. Because gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone, and methane absorb most strongly within specific wavelengths of infrared energy, and because this absorption increases as one looks deeper into the atmosphere from space, AIRS can "see" exact environmental conditions at different levels of the atmosphere. The very high spectral resolution—with data collected in many very narrow wavelength bands—not only allows scientists to determine the temperature and humidity at specific altitudes, but also derives an accurate vertical profile of the state of the lower atmosphere on a global scale.
From these measurements, climate experts will be able to study variations in the earth’s water and energy cycles. AIRS will provide new information about cloud types and cloud cover, and show how they are affected by changes in temperature, evaporation and condensation rates, and atmospheric circulation patterns. The information will also shed more light on how greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, industrial pollutants, and aerosols are trapped in earth’s atmosphere.
AQUA is the second of three spacecraft in NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) series. Scheduled to last for at least six years, the prime objective of the EOS mission is to make long-term observations to gain a better understanding of the complex processes affecting global environmental changes. Through EOS, scientists hope to gain significantly more insight into such threatening phenomena as ozone depletion, deforestation, desertification, and the greenhouse effect— and from that, suggest potential long-term remedies.
More information on AIRS is also available at http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov.
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Three factors, the thinning of the ozone layer, emissions from the Mt. Pinatubo volcano, and the influx of sulfate aerosols and greenhouse gases, may help explain why the lowest five miles of the earth's atmosphere has not warmed as fast as the earth's surface.
That's the conclusion of a group of 13 scientists presented in a paper in the 18 February issue of the journal Science. The difference in temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere has intensified the climate change debate. Some have pointed to the surface data as more reliable, while others have focused on satellite measurements.
During the 80th Annual Meeting of the AMS in Long Beach, California, in January, the National Research Council issued a report from a team of scientists that partly reconciles the differences in datasets and offers some explanation of why the temperature trends would be different. The paper in Science was prepared by lead author Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a team including Tom Wigley and Gerald Meehl, both of NCAR.
For the Science paper, the team examined three observational datasets and recent model studies. The data sources were a century of thermometer readings of sea surface and air temperatures a few meters above land; a half century of radiosonde measurements of troposphere and lower stratosphere temperatures, and two decades of global observations of tropospheric temperatures (up to 18 km) taken by a series of satellites that measure the upwelling microwave radiation from oxygen molecules.
Over the period, 1979–98, the surface data show a warming of 0.2°–0.4°C, while the radiosonde and satellite data show no warming or only a slight temperature rise (0.1°C.) in the lower troposphere over the same period.
Neither complicated problems with the measurements nor the climate's inherent variability over decades explains fully the temperature trend difference, according to the authors. In a comprehensive modeling study, they found that the loss of stratospheric ozone and, to a lesser extent, the influx of Mt. Pinatubo emissions in the stratosphere cooled the lower troposphere more than the surface. The model also took into account the buildup of greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols.
"This is a very complex problem with large uncertainties in the effects of human activities on the climate," said Wigley. "However, we have reasonable confidence that ozone depletion and the Mt. Pinatubo emissions are likely candidates for explaining at least part of the cooler temperatures in the lower to middle troposphere compared to the more intense warming at the surface."
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NOAA's National Climate Data Center (NCDC) Director and AMS member Tom Karl and colleagues at the center believe that there is only a 1-in-20 chance that the string of record high temperatures in 1997–98 was simply an unusual event.
Writing in the 1 March issue of Geophysical Research Letters, they note that the high temperatures rather indicate a change point, the start of a new and faster ongoing trend of global warming. Their research found evidence that the rate of global warming is accelerating and that in the past 25 years it achieved the rate of 2°C per century, as predicted. Karl and his colleagues focused particularly on 1997 and 1998, during which a string of 16 consecutive months saw record high global mean average temperatures.
This, they noted, was unprecedented because instruments began systematically recording temperature in the nineteenth century. Since the completion of the research, the data for 1999 were compiled. They found that 1999 was the fifth warmest year on record, although as a La Niña year, it normally would be cooler. Outside the band between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, 1999 was the second warmest year of the twentieth century, just behind 1998.
The researchers analyzed data from land-based and satellite instruments and concluded that the rate of warming since 1976 is clearly greater than the average rate over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To account for the string of record-setting temperatures, the average rate of global temperature increase since 1976 would have to be 3°C per century, they explained.
In its Second Assessment Report in 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected the rate of warming for the twenty-first century to be between 1° and 3.5°C. Karl and his colleagues already have observed over the past 25 years a rate that is between 2° and 3°C per century.
Karl and his colleagues are not ready to say with certainty that the rate of global warming has suddenly increased, because they recognize that unusual events sometimes happen. There is strong evidence, however, they note, that the faster rate of climate change since 1976 is human-induced. Given the steady increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and the length of time (ranging from decades to centuries) that they remain in the atmosphere, the researchers urge that studies be conducted to enable society to minimize the risks of climate change and prepare for perhaps even more rapid changes to come.
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The pilot attempting the first solo around the world balloon flight of 2000 is using information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Air Resources Laboratory to guide him on his journey. Kevin Uliassi, a professional balloon pilot and instructor, left Illinois aloft the J. Renee on 22 February for his third attempt at a solo global flight. The 20 000-mile trip around the world is expected to take from 10 to 20 days.
Since 1981, the Air Resources Laboratory, one of NOAA's research laboratories, has provided trajectory and wind information to balloonists attempting manned long-distance flights. In 1997, the information went online through the Real-time Environmental Applications and Display System (READY) Web site, providing essential data electronically. READY was also used during the record-breaking around the world flight of Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in March 1999. The meteorologists for the Piccard–Jones flight, Luc Trullemans and Pierre Eckert of the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, monitored the READY data and used it to determine the balloon's flight path.
The Piccard–Jones flight lasted 15 days, 10 hours, and 24 minutes, breaking four world records. In a letter to ARL Director Bruce Hicks, Trullemans expressed "delight and gratitude concerning the availability and excellent performance of ARL's READY-site," adding "it is simply the best there is."
The READY project was awarded the NOAA Administrator's Award in 1998.
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Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew ended an 11-day, 181-orbit, 4.7-million-mile mission at Kennedy Space Center on 22 February, completing the most comprehensive radar mapping ever conducted of the earth.
The data brought back by the crew will fill 20 000 compact discs. The 300 high-intensity data tapes contain 222 hours of digital radar measurements that cover nearly 80% of the earth's land areas. The shuttle's sophisticated radar mapping system collected elevation readings every 98 feet over virtually every land area between 60° north latitude and 56° south latitude, areas in which 95% of the world's population reside.
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The East Coast storm of 24–25 January that dumped from 4 to 20 inches of snow from the Carolinas to New England but was not predicted by long-range forecasts underlines the uncertainties of forecast technologies.
That's one of the conclusions outlined by a panel of experts during a Capitol Hill briefing on 17 February sponsored by Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Howard Coble (R-NC). The American Meteorological Society and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research were cosponsors.
Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, pointed out that the storm fooled not only U.S. forecasters, but forecasters everywhere in the world. No one, he said, predicted the storm in their long-range outlooks. Forecasters in Europe and other areas of the world, looking at their models failed to see either the path or the intensity of the storm, he added.
All forecasters saw the storm developing off Georgia and moving northward over the ocean up the East Coast, he said. A shift in the jet stream and other factors caused a "switchover," however, redirecting the storm inland. The storm slowed over North Carolina, causing heavy snowfall and paralyzing ground and air transportation.
Congressman Price told the briefing that he had been snowbound by the storm and missed attending the State of the Union address in Washington. The panelists were introduced by Robert Gall, a senior scientist and division director at NCAR and lead scientist of the U.S. Weather Research Program. Lance Bosart, professor in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Albany, said that the development of thunderstorms in the storm was a "critical" problem in forecasting. "We just don't know how to deal with major thunderstorm activity," he explained.
He said the scientific issues emphasize that we need to understand better what controls small-scale structures with this type of storm and to determine how thunderstorm clusters impact on the storm. He also indicated that in the future, we should:
The latter point was emphasized by several of the panelists.
Chris Davis, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, underlined the need for improving weather models, saying that "small errors in observations can lead to large forecast errors, but large errors can lead to catastrophic errors."
"Nature," he explained, "places an inherent limit to our forecast skill." Gall concluded the briefing with the question: "Was there a problem?" The answer: "Yes." "Can we do better in the future?" Answer: "Yes."
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In the past, tropical storms and cyclones in the Western North Pacific and South China Sea had English names. This year, they will have names chosen from a new list. The Typhoon Committee of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the World Meteorological Organization have released a list of names compiled by 14 member states. The names were selected from local languages of the area in an effort to raise awareness of tropical cyclones by using familiar local words.
This year’s first named storm will be “Damrey,” meaning elephant in Cambodian. The U.S. contributed 10 names of Palauan, Marshallese, and Chamorro origin.
The names and their meanings are available on the Internet at http://www.weather.gov.hk/informtc.tcname2000e.htm. Users also can hear the name pronounced in the local language by downloading the online software.
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NASA and the FAA are studying ways to reduce the concerns and inconveniences of the flying public by reducing airline delays, improving efficiency, and making flying easier.
Researchers from both agencies are studying various human factors involving air traffic controllers, flight crews, and dispatchers that may occur as the FAA’s Free Flight Program evolves during the next 10–20 years. Free Flight is a new FAA and aviation industry concept designed to increase operational flexibility and reduce restrictions in the National Airspace System.
In the current environment, air traffic controllers are responsible for separating aircraft. The Free Flight concept is intended to allow pilots more authority to choose and modify their own routes in cooperation with controllers.
Researchers are examining some of the operational issues associated with sharing that separation authority between pilots and controllers. Under the study, a five-week air-ground integration experiment will take place with qualified Boeing 747 pilots and air traffic controllers from the FAA’s Memphis Air Traffic Control Center participating. Researchers also are collaborating with simulation and human-factors engineers from the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, Massachusets.
To help the participants explore the concept, researchers provide both the controllers and pilots with automation and display technology improvements that are considered necessary for Free Flight. The controllers are using the User Request Evaluation Tool, an enhanced ground-conflict probe tool developed by the Mitre Corp, McLean, Virginia. Similarly, the pilots are provided with cockpit displays of traffic and airborne alerting logic to help them in conflict-detection tasks.
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One community in Oklahoma recently announced a new program to make NOAA Weather Radio ownership more common among its residents. "Operation Warn," an initiative to make available 100 000 specially priced NOAA Weather Radios to Oklahoma City area residents by the end of 2002, was announced by project coordinators from the Oklahoma City Emergency Management, Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.
The NWS released statistics this week showing three nighttime tornadoes since 1998 have claimed nearly 100 lives. According to the NWS, between 85% and 95% of Americans can receive NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts, however, only 5%–10% actually own an NOAA Weather Radio.
NOAA Weather Radios with new digital technology called Specific Area Message Encoding and battery back-up system can provide early warning of severe weather in the immediate area, especially during the night, alerting residents to turn to commercial televisions and radios for more information.
Continuous weather information, including life-saving messages such as severe weather watches and warnings, is broadcast directly to the national network's special radio receivers 24 hours a day. SAME technology allows the NOAA Weather Radio to receive a tone alarm signal, triggering a built-in alarm to sound and the radio to turn itself on, providing listeners with severe weather announcements for the county where they live.
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“Colorado Climate" provides a new twist, a new look for and a new approach to information about the state's climate. Published by the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University, the quarterly, magazine-style inaugural issue is available this month. The publication provides new, unique, interesting, and educational climatic data in "Colorado Climate," much of it in graphic form that compares current and past climate. Data includes mean temperatures for climate zones, year-to-year precipitation totals, maps of precipitation anomalies, and month-by-month summaries of unusual and interesting climatic events. The publication also includes many feature articles, history, and educational information.
Subscriptions to "Colorado Climate" cost $15 per year and cover costs of mailing and printing. To subscribe, call the center at (970) 491-8545 or visit the Web site at http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu.
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Landslides in Venezuela and Mexico, earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan, and floods along the East Coast of the United States may have dealt staggering blows to the earth and its people, but USGS reports those tragedies were not the worst of the century, either in the power of the events or in the loss of life and property that they caused.
With landslides, the two largest landslides in the world occurred at Mount St. Helens, Washington, in 1980, and at Usoy, Tajikistan, in 1911. At Mount St. Helens, a moderate earthquake caused roughly 1.7 cubic miles of rocks and mud to break free and slide down the side of the volcano, releasing pent-up pressure to produce a major eruption on 18 May. Although this was the largest landslide recorded in historic time, fewer than 60 people were killed. The Usoy landslide, also triggered by an earthquake, moved 1.5 cubic miles of material and built a dam 1880 feet high (half again as high as the Empire State Building) on the Murgob River. The dam still impounds a lake nearly 40 miles long.
An earthquake was responsible for the deadliest landslide this century. That caused 40 000–50 000 deaths in western Iran on 20 June 1990. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake at Mount Huascaran, Peru, on 21 May 1970 triggered a rock and snow avalanche that buried the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca, killing as many as 20 000 people.
The most costly landslide in U.S. history was a relatively slow-moving event in Thistle, Utah, in the spring of 1983. The landslide dammed the Spanish Fork River and buried U.S. Highway 6. Total losses were estimated at more than $400 million in 1983 dollars.
With earthquakes, the largest quake this century was a magnitude 9.5 event that struck Chile on 22 May 1960. More than 2000 people were killed in Chile, Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines from the earthquake and the tsunami that the earthquake created. The most powerful earthquake in the United States, and the second largest in the world this century, was a magnitude 9.2 temblor in Alaska, the Good Friday earthquake of 1964. The quake and ensuing tsunami took 125 lives and caused about $310 million in property loss.
The planet's deadliest earthquake of the century was a magnitude 8.0 that struck China on 27 July 1976. While the official Chinese government estimated 255 000 lives were lost, unofficial estimates placed the toll at 655 000. The most destructive U.S. earthquake was the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 18 April 1906. Though its magnitude was 7.7, the quake and resulting fires caused an estimated 3000 deaths and $524 million in property loss.
With volcanoes, the largest eruption in the world this century occurred 6–9 June 1912 at Novarupta on the Alaskan Peninsula. An estimated nine cubic miles of magma was explosively erupted during 60 hours beginning on 6 June—more than twice the volume of the Pinatubo eruption in 1991, the second largest of the century and about 30 times the volume erupted by Mount St. Helens in 1980. More than a foot of volcanic ash collapsed roofs in the village of Kodiak, 100 miles away, choking rivers and streams and devastating Alaska's fishing industry. The Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, eruption on 15 June 1991 blasted one cubic mile of ash and rock into the atmosphere.
The deadliest eruption of the century was at Mont Pelee in Martinique, Lesser Antilles, in 1902. The coastal town of St. Pierre was demolished and nearly 30 000 inhabitants were killed by an incandescent, high-velocity ash flow and associated hot gases and volcanic dust. A small eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia on 13 November 1985 melted 10% of the volcano's ice cover, leading to a massive mudflow that inundated the city of Armero and killed more than 23 000 people.
Floods, on the average, cause more deaths each year than any other natural disaster. The Galveston flood of September 1900 was the deadliest flood in the United States this century, taking at least 6000 lives. In 1927, the lower Mississippi flooded, inundating some 27 000 square miles and killing hundreds of people. And the Great Midwest Flood of 1993 was the costliest flood in U.S. history, with estimated damages of $20 billion. Only 50 lives were lost, however.
U.S. losses of life are dwarfed by flood losses in other parts of the world. China and Bangladesh have been devastated by floods, Bangladesh having lost 300 000 people in November 1970 and more than 130 000 in April 1991. The massive flooding of the Yantze River in China in 1931 caused more than three million deaths from flooding and starvation.
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NASA plans to flight-test an instrument using new technologies to measure elements of the earth’s atmosphere and so support space-based research aimed at reducing risks from severe weather in 2003, according to NASA officials.
The measurement concept, known as the Geostationary Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS) will be the next earth-observing mission under NASA’s New Millennium Program.
The mission, known as “Earth Observing 3,” will test advanced technologies for measuring atmospheric temperature, water vapor, wind, and chemical composition with high resolution. The sophisticated measurements have the potential for revolutionary improvements in weather observation and prediction by providing unique observations of the spectral properties of clouds and the transport of pollutants in the atmosphere, scientists said.
Managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center, the mission will use an advanced imaging spectrometer based on breakthrough technologies such as a large-area focal plane array, new data readout, and signal-processing electronics and passive thermal switching. Today’s geostationary satellites make observations in only a few selected spectral bands. This new instrument will extend observational capabilities to several hundred spectral bands.
NASA selected the concept from four finalist ideas culled from 24 proposals submitted in response to a NASA Research Proposal announced in September 1997.
Total cost of the mission is expected to be approximately $105 million.
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While Solar Cycle 23 has been relatively quiet so far, NOAA scientists are expecting things to heat up and predict that we will see three or four episodes of stormy space weather before its all over.
Scientists have been wondering about the slow start of this solar cycle, but it is still early in the game, according to Gary Heckman, senior forecaster at NOAA’s Space Environment Center. "In past cycles, some of the most intense storms have occurred more than a year after the sunspot maximum. Predicting the time and intensity of the maximum is difficult, and improved understanding from scientific research is still needed before the predictions become more precise."
To help the public better understand the problems that can occur when the sun waxes and wanes, NOAA recently developed a set of space weather scales similar to those used for earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. These scales identify the possible effects of space storms on Earth systems.
There are three types of storms. "The S-scale describes radiation events," according to Ernie Hildner, director of SEC. "This occurs when the sun erupts in a solar flare and energetic particle levels near earth increase. These can cause health effects for high-altitude pilots, astronauts, and any of us flying at high altitude and latitude in an aircraft during a solar storm."
The G-scale describes the variation in earth's magnetic field caused by coronal mass ejections. This occurs when a bubble of material is ejected from the sun which, if it heads directly toward earth, interacts with our magnetic field, causing large electric currents to flow in our atmosphere and disrupt electric power grids.
The R-scale reflects the size of solar flares that affect high-frequency and short-wave radio propagation. When flares are occurring, radio signals that normally reflect off the ionosphere, an upper layer of earth's atmosphere, may be lost or absorbed so the intended receivers never get them.
"...sometimes solar flares produce very intense bursts of radio static that are so strong that satellite receivers on the ground, cell phones, airplane radios, and television ground receivers are able to detect nothing but noise until the radio bursts are finished," explained Heckman. "At other times, a geomagnetic storm can hit a satellite or affect a power grid.
"Even though we may not realize it, the sun is the major driver, not only of earth's weather, but also of the electromagnetic activity that can affect the technical systems on which society depends."
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Scientists have discovered that thunderstorms beneath the upper cloud cover on Jupiter are supplying energy to the planet's colorful, large-scale weather patterns, including the Great Red Spot.
In two articles in the 10 February issue of the British journal Nature and an article in the current issue of Icarus, Caltech planetary science professor Andrew Ingersoll and colleagues from Cornell, NASA, and UCLA write that lightning storms on the giant planet are clearly associated with the eddies that supply energy to the large-scale weather patterns.
That conclusion was made possible by images from the Galileo spacecraft in which lightning is not visible in daytime photos, but nighttime photos of the same area a couple of hours later clearly show lightning.
"You don't usually see the thunderstorms or the lightning strikes because the ammonia clouds in the upper atmosphere obscure them," Ingersoll said. "But when Galileo passes over the night side, you can see bright flashes that let you infer the depth and the intensity of lightning bolts."
Especially fortuitous are the Jovian nights when there is a bit of moonshine from one of the large moons, such as Io, according to Ingersoll. When there is no moonshine, the Galileo images show small blobs of glow from the lightning flashes, but nothing else, he continued. But when the upper cloud covers are illuminated at night by moonshine, the pictures show the glow from the lightning some 100 km below, as well as eddies being roiled by the turbulence of the thunderclouds.
Planetary scientists have known for some years that Jupiter had lightning and, in fact, have known since the Voyager flyby that the zonal jets and long-lived storms are kept alive by soaking up the energy of smaller eddies. But they did not know until now that the eddies themselves were fed by thunderstorms below, Ingersoll said.
"The lightning indicates that there's water down there, because nothing else can condense at a depth of 80–100 km," Ingersoll explained. So, we can use lightning as a beacon that points to the place where there are rapidly falling raindrops and rapidly rising air columns—a source of energy for the eddies.
Ingersoll is lead author of the Nature paper that interprets the new Galileo data. Other authors are Peter Giersach and Don Blanfield of Cornell University and Ashwin Vasavada of UCLA. Giersach is lead author of the other Nature paper, which announces the discovery of moist convection on Jupiter. The other authors are Ingersoll; Banfield; Vasavada; Shawn Ewald of Caltech; Paul Helfenstein and Amy Simon-Miller, both of Cornell; and Herb Breneman and David Senske, both of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Authors of the Icarus paper are Ingersoll, Vasavada, Senske, Breneman, William Borucki of NASA Ames Research Center, California, Blane Little and Clifford Anger, both of ITRES Research in Calgary, Alberta, and the Galileo SSi team.
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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are developing a new technique, called neutral atom imaging, for picturing that invisible magnetic layer around the earth. The imaging is expected to give scientists a better understanding of "weather" in space, where a blast of solar wind particles can knock out a multimillion dollar satellite.
Los Alamos researchers Geoff Reeves and Mike Henderson have devised a way to take low-resolution data from a satellite high above the North Pole to create informative composite images of the solar-wind-driven particles trapped in the magnetosphere. These images are especially critical for understanding the progress and structure of a space phenomenon called geomagnetic storms, which scientists consider the space equivalent of hurricanes in the Atlantic.
For years, scientists believed that geomagnetic storms were made up of smaller "substorms," which occur more frequently and in isolation. But more recently, scientists have found that storms and substorms are related, but are distinctly different phenomena.
"In this research," Reeves explained, "we discovered that geomagnetic storms and substorms both inject protons in the radiation belts with about the same intensity, but in storms the injection takes place over a much larger area, moves through the radiation belts in a different way, and lasts for a longer period of time. While some of these results were suspected before, neutral atom imaging has allowed us to 'see' the process and study it in detail for the first time."
Understanding how protons move around the earth during and after solar storms can provide protective navigation to satellites, permit scheduling of astronauts' walks at safer times, and alert researchers to shield vulnerable satellite instruments.
Neutral atom imaging takes advantage of rare collisions, called charge-exchange collisions, between magnetospheric ions and atoms that have escaped from the earth's atmosphere. The newly created neutral atoms are collected from remote locations to create images of the magnetosphere.
To understand the imaging process, think of a video camera collecting light particles, called photons. The more photons the camera collects the brighter the image. The camera converts those photons to a digital signal that indicates how bright the light coming from a particular direction is. The Los Alamos imager works in a similar way, except that instead of collecting photons, it collects neutral atoms and indicates how many of those come from a particular direction.
Future missions to the magnetosphere will carry dedicated Los Alamos-designed neutral atom imaging instruments. These include NASA's IMAGE mission and TWINS, which will provide the first stereoscopic images of the magnetosphere.
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The Harris Corporation, Communications Systems Division, Omaha Operations, of Bellevue, Nebraska, has been selected for the award of a $7.48 million contract for ground system engineering and depot support for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last month.
The DMSP polar-orbiting satellites, in tandem with NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites provide the nation with near real-time meteorological and environmental data.
The contract includes a base period of 12 months, effective 1 February 2000, and four 12-month priced options, to continue performance through the year 2005. The contract will be administered by the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), Integrated Program Office in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The 1994 Presidential Decision Directive that established the converged program charged NOAA with overall responsibility for the converged system, as well as satellite operations and interaction with the civil and international user communities. The Department of Defense has the lead agency responsibility for major system acquisition, including launch support. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has primary responsibility for facilitating the development and incorporation of new cost-effective technologies into the converged system. Representatives from all three agencies participated in the source selection, which was held in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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The Satellites and Education Conference, held annually at West Chester University, Pennsylvania, will be held 9–11 March. The conference, Teaching, Technology, and Satellites in the Classroom, will feature accredited hands-on user demonstrations on environmental and communication satellites. Presentations will include tracking wolves with satellites, satellites in search and rescue, discovering the environment through satellites, use of state-of-the-art technology and other topics of interest to science teachers and students.
The conference is sponsored by NOAA, NASA, several private companies and various educational concerns. Interested persons should contact Nancy McIntyre, West Chester University, 189 Schmucker Hall, West Chester, PA 19383; telephone (610) 436-2393 or e-mail at nmcintyre@wcupa.edu.
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Susan Solomon, a leading atmospheric scientist at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, was recently selected to receive the 1999 National Medal of Science. She is the first NOAA scientist to be awarded the medal, which is the nation's highest scientific honor. Solomon was presented the American Meteorological Society’s prestigious Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal for her work and studies on the Antarctic ozone hole at the AMS Annual Meeting in January 2000.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that Solomon is being recognized by the White House for her insights in explaining the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole. Solomon carried out key work theorizing that chemical reactions involving manmade chlorine could be responsible for the remarkable Antarctic ozone depletion. She also served as the leader of the National Ozone Expeditions to the Antarctic in 1986 and 1987, where she conducted observations that provided the first direct evidence of this chemistry. In 1994, an Antarctic glacier was named in her honor in recognition of that work.
The 44-year-old Solomon is one of 12 recipients of this year's medal, which is awarded by NSF. President Clinton will present the medals during a White House ceremony in early March.
Solomon received her Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and has been a research scientist at NOAA's Aeronomy Laboratory since that time. She is the recipient of many other honors and awards, including the J.B. MacElwane award of the American Geophysical Union, the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for Exceptional Service, the ozone award from the United Nations Environment Programme, and the 1999 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Award from the American Meteorological Society. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences, and a foreign member of the Academia Europaea.
The National Medal of Science was established by the 86th Congress in 1959 as a presidential award to be given to individuals "deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences." A committee of 12 scientists and engineers is appointed by the president to evaluate the nominees for this award.
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Timothy Killeen, an upper-atmosphere expert and education innovator at the University of Michigan, has been named director of NCAR, Richard Anthes, president of UCAR, announced on 16 February. He will replace Robert Serafin who has announced he will step down this spring.
Killeen currently is a professor in the University of Michigan’s Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences Department and is associate vice-president of research. He also is director of the university’s Global Change Laboratory and past director of its Space Physics Research Laboratory. He has been honored both with the Excellence in Teaching and the Excellence in Research awards from the university and with two achievement awards from NASA.
A native of Cardiff, Wales, Killeen received his bachelor of science degree in physics and a Ph.D. in atomic and molecular physics from University College, London. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 scientific publications in refereed journals. He is president of the Space Physics and Aeronomy Section of the American Geophysical Union and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar–Terrestrial Physics.
Killeen’s wife, Roberta, also is a professor at the University of Michigan, and she will join UCAR as a scientist and director of education and outreach.
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Colonel William S. Barney and his wife Betty died in a fire that ravaged their home in Rockville, Maryland, on 3 February. Barney was well known throughout the meteorological community for his work in the U.S. Air Force Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology.
Barney joined the U.S. Army in 1937 and served in the European theater of operations during World War II. He later transitioned to the U.S. Air Force and held many important jobs including Commander of the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, the 9th Weather Reconnaissance Wing, the 1st Weather Wing, and the Vice Commander of the Air Weather Service.
After a distinguished 30-year military career, Barney joined the Environmental Science Service Administration (ESSA), which later became NOAA. As chief of NOAA’s Special Projects Office, Barney served in many important international field projects. Barney was named Deputy Federal Coordinator for meteorology in 1980 and Federal Coordinator in 1981. During his five years as federal coordinator, he was instrumental to the success of three important interagency programs—the Next Generation Weather Radar program, the National Aviation Icing Program, and the Improved Weather Reconnaissance System.
In 1985, the U.S. Air Force’s Air Weather Service honored Barney with the establishment of the Colonel William S. Barney Leadership Award. Barney retired in 1986 with 50 years of military and civilian government service. He earned numerous awards throughout his career including the Legion of Merit, the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, and others.
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NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, in remarks prefacing his presentation of the NASA FY01 budget at a press conference at NASA Headquarters on 7 February, announced five staff appointments.
They were, Sam Venneri, already NASA's chief technologist, as chief of the Technology Office. In that position, he will guide the newly integrated Aerospace Technology Enterprise.
Sam Armstrong, who has led the Aerospace Technology Enterprise, will become Goldin's senior advisor. He will ensure the entire NASA organization executes the new relationships with other government agency partners.
Brian Keegan, formerly of Goddard Space Flight Center, will become NASA chief engineer. He will lead efforts to strengthen the agency's engineering foundation and implement the agency's new commitment to Design for Safety.
Orlando Figueroa, also formerly of Goddard, will become NASA's first chief systems engineer.
Dr. Mary Cleave, former astronaut who flew on two space shuttle missions and who also led the SeaWIFS program at Goddard, will become Deputy Associate Administrator for Earth Science.
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The Board of Directors of the Association of Universities for Research (AURA) has named William S. Smith Jr. as its new president. Smith joined AURA in 1998 as vice president and was named interim president in July 1999.
Smith received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1974 and spent three years in post doctorate research at the University of California at Irvine. He then worked for eight years as a program manager with the Federal Aviation Administration in the areas of environmental quality, aviation security, and safety.
In 1985, he became science advisor for the Subcommittee on Space of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives. Three years later, he became the staff director of that subcommittee. In 1994, he became deputy democratic chief of staff responsible for strategic planning for all committee activities of the Democratic Caucus and for the Democratic budget proposals for NASA, NSF, NOAA, and environmental programs.
AURA operates the National Optical Astronomy Observatories and manages the Gemini Observatory for the National Science Foundation.
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The World Meteorological Organization recently honored Canadian scientists Barry Goodison and Paul Louie and the Chinese scientist Daqing Yang with the 14th Professor Dr. Vilho Vaisala Award for their paper entitled "WMO Solid Precipitation Measurement Intercomparison-Final Report". The Award is given by WMO to encourage and stimulate interest in important research program in the field of instruments and methods of meteorological and climatic observations supportive of WMO's programs.
WMO Secretary General Professor Obasi underlined the importance of the paper produced by the three scientists as "an outstanding scientific research paper on instruments and methods of observation" for reliable hydrometeorological data necessary for a wide range of services and research operations. The paper is the result of a 7-year experiment at some 25 meteorological sites operated by 13 WMO member countries. It aimed to assess national methods and instruments of measuring solid precipitation (snowfall). Various types of national gauges were compared in different climatic regions during at least 5 winter seasons against a newly agreed reference design that had never been previously used internationally. New methods of adjusting current and historical archive data have been developed through the experiment. The methods can now be tested and adapted to the equipment and conditions of the national Meteorological and Hydrological Services of all 185 WMO members countries.
Dr. Goodison, who led the project, is the chief of the Climate Processes and Earth Observation Division of the Canadian Climate Centre. Dr. Yang, who made an outstanding contribution to the project by developing the adjusting method for the wind-induced systematic under-catch of the reference gauge, is an assistant research professor at the University of Alaska. Paul Louie, who also made an outstanding contribution to the project through the development of improved methods, procedures, and compatibility of climate datasets, is a Senior Research Meteorologist of the Canadian Climate Centre.
The Professor Dr. Vilho Vaisala Award, which consists of medals, diplomas, and cash, was started in 1985 when the WMO Executive Council accepted the offer of the Vaisala Corporation to establish a WMO Trust Fund for the creation of the award. The award is presented annually to the author or authors of an outstanding scientific research paper in the field of instruments and methods of observation.
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