Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor: Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Laurence Constable
The American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), American Meteorological Society (AMS), and Ecological Society of America (ESA) are jointly sponsoring a new initiative for recent Ph.D.’s, built around the theme of climate change. The goal is to promote interdisciplinary understanding and peer networking across the full range of disciplines engaged in climate change and its impacts. The program consists of four elements.
For more information, contact Susan Weiler, DISCCRS Program Director, at weiler@whitman.edu.
DISCCRS is funded by NSF and NASA.
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The U.S. Air Force, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command of the U.S. Navy, and the National Weather Service have all awarded contracts to Coastal Environment Systems, in Seattle, Washington, to update or install weather systems.
The U.S. Air Force awarded Coastal a contract for weather monitoring systems that will automate collection of the air force’s weather data at air bases worldwide, which will be used for air traffic control. The contract was awarded in early February 2002.
Coastal’s contract is to manufacture and install the fixed-base weather systems, as well as provide training and logistics support. Currently, Coastal is working toward completion of the first three sites: McCord Air Force Base in Washington State, Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, and Hurlburt Field in Florida.
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, of the U.S. Navy, awarded Coastal a contract for production of the navy’s Shipboard Meteorological and Oceanographic Observation System (SMOOS). SMOOS is an integrated system of sensors, software, and hardware that will collect, process, display, and distribute meteorological and oceanographic data. Typical sensors are wind speed and direction, relative humidity, air temperature, sea surface temperature, sky temperature, cloud height, visibility, and precipitation. SMOOS will be manufactured in several configurations, and it may be installed on as many as 150 ships, including a variety of combat-class ships. The 4-year, fixed-price contract includes options that bring its cumulative value, for the best-estimated quantity, to approximately $16 million.
Finally, the National Weather Service (NWS) began an ambitious long-range plan—to modernize its century-old method of using nationwide observers to manually record and report climatic data—by awarding a contract for high-tech weather equipment to Coastal. The initial 3-year contract, worth approximately $8 million, calls for Coastal’s sophisticated weather systems to replace, in many cases, paper forms and pencils. Coastal’s automated data acquisition systems will also replace existing elementary gauges, frequently at precisely the same locations. The NWS will maintain ties with its loyal volunteers, the National Cooperative Network (CO-OP), considering them guardians of the sophisticated weather systems.
Coastal Environmental Systems, Inc., founded in 1981, designs and manufactures environmental data acquisition systems.
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With four of nine legs completed in the Volvo Ocean Race, race leader illbruck Challenge (Germany) holds a commanding lead with the help of Sailing Weather Services, a Massachusetts-based firm specializing in competitive sailing weather support. Sailing Weather Services’ Chief Meteorologist Chris Bedford has been involved with the illbruck sailing team since 1994, and continues to provide training and weather forecast support for their around-the-world and America’s Cup yacht racing campaigns.
Illbruck Challenge now holds a convincing seven-point lead after four legs, having finished in first place on legs 1, 2, and 4. After a hard-fought run to the finish, illbruck had to settle for fourth place on leg 3. Dominating the eight-boat fleet, illbruck completed the difficult 6700-mile leg 4 in just over 23 days, 5 hours. So competitive is the fleet that four other boats finished within 10 hours of illbruck—one of the closest finishes in the history of around-the-world yacht racing.
Chris Bedford, an AMS Certified Consulting Meteorologist, described his duties with the illbruck team: “Much of the weather work has to be completed before the start of each leg,” said Bedford. “The crew is not allowed to receive any customized outside assistance once racing is underway. I spend the 10 days prior to the start working closely with our navigators (Juan Vila of Spain and Ian Moore of the U.K.) and our skipper (John Kostecki of the United States). We’ll monitor the evolving weather pattern over the entire leg, compare it with historical cases, and use several PC-based sailing simulators to evaluate various routing strategies.”
Bedford further explained how once armed with this background knowledge, the crew can make more informed decisions on how to handle the actual weather they encounter during the leg. Racing rules allow the boats to access a selected set of public internet weather sites using satellite communication systems. “They have to collect all the available information and use it to be their own on-board meteorologists and routers. It’s important for them to know what information to look at and when, because once each leg starts the race rules prevent me from helping them,” Bedford reiterated.
Keeping a close eye on the progress of the team during the leg, Bedford records each maneuver resulting from the collective decision making of the skipper and navigators. These maneuvers are compared with the actual and forecast weather, and the resulting performance outcome relative to the competition. At the end of the leg, a thorough debriefing is held to discuss the relative success of every navigational decision. Every weakness and strength is noted to identify what worked when and why. “The learning process is continuous in this race,” remarked Bedford. “You learn a lot about the weather and the performance characteristics of all the teams.”
Chris Bedford started working with the team long before the race started. Two years ago, he performed over 30 000 race simulations with an illbruck-developed software package. The package uses performance characteristics of various candidate yacht designs to “sail” through a 30-year historical weather database. Working closely with naval architects at the Farr Yacht Design office in Annapolis, Maryland, the process simplified the yacht selection decision and identified the fastest design for the expected weather conditions. Once the optimum design was selected, Bedford worked one-on-one with the navigators to train them in general meteorology and forecasting techniques. The navigators practiced their weather forecasting skills in simulated racing conditions and had their analyses and decisions evaluated against actual events. Bedford also developed a medium-range probabilistic forecasting technique, making extensive use of the historical weather database and numerical ensemble modeling. This technique allows a more reliable evaluation of long-distance routing strategies prior to the start of the race legs.
Leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race begins on 9 March when the fleet departs Rio de Janeiro for Miami, Florida. After a 2-week stopover in Miami during early April, leg 6 will take the yachts north along the southeast coast of the United States before finishing in Baltimore, Maryland. Leaving from Annapolis, Maryland, on 27 April, the fleet starts leg 7, a trans-Atlantic journey ending in LaRochelle, France. The race then stops in Goteborg, Sweden, before finishing in illbruck’s home port of Kiel, Germany, around 9 June.
Follow the Volvo Ocean Race at www.volvooceanrace.com or at www.illbruck-challenge.com.
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The contiguous United States experienced record warmth during the November 2001 through January 2002 3-month period, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The January global temperature was the warmest in the 123-year surface record.
“Unusual warmth persisted across a large part of the contiguous United States during the past 3 months resulting in the warmest November through January since national records began in 1895,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of NOAA’s Climate Monitoring Branch at the center. The preliminary nationally averaged temperature was 39.94°F (4.41°C), which was 4.3°F (2.4°C) above the 1895–2001 long-term mean. The previous record for the same 3-month period was established in 1999–2000. Since 1976 the nationally averaged November–January temperature has risen at a rate of 1.2°F (0.7°C) per decade.
During the most recent 3-month period, much above-average warmth stretched from as far west as Montana and Oklahoma to the East Coast. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Vermont had their warmest November-to-January, and as many as 18 states from the Plains to the Northeast recorded their second warmest November-to-January.
In that region, numerous daily high-temperature records were established, and the warmth coincided with below-normal snowfall. A lack of snow cover contributed to short-term drought conditions in the northern Plains.
The 3-month Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index (November–January) was the lowest on record, reflecting reduced energy demand due to the anomalously warm temperatures. This index, which has values from zero to 100, measures year-to-year fluctuations in residential energy demand that result from variations in temperature in the contiguous United States—especially those that occur in the most heavily populated areas. An index value of 100, the greatest temperature-related energy demand for the November–January period, occurred in 1976–77, while the past 3 months registered an index value of zero.
Although precipitation was near normal nationwide from November to January, an area of below-normal precipitation stretched from Florida to Maine, worsening drought conditions along the East Coast. Connecticut and Maine experienced their driest November-to-January on record, and nine other states (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina) were much drier than normal.
At the end of January, moderate to severe drought conditions were widespread from southern Georgia to Maine. Conservation was encouraged in New York City as reservoirs were filled to less than half of capacity. Drought continued in much of the Intermountain West, while abundant rain and snowfall along the West Coast alleviated drought in much of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Severe to extreme drought covered approximately 18% of the contiguous United States at the end of January.
January 2002 ranked as the seventh warmest January in the 1895 to present record. The preliminary nationally averaged temperature was 35.40°F (1.89°C), which was 4.5°F (2.5°C) above the long-term mean. Above-average warmth occurred in all but eight of the 48 contiguous states, with near-normal temperatures occurring in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and California. The nationally averaged precipitation total was near normal with the most anomalously dry conditions in the northern Plains and Southwest. Temperatures in Alaska were 11.2°F (6.23°C) above the 1961–90 average in January, the ninth warmest January on record.
Global:
Uncharacteristic warmth covered most land areas of the globe in January, with monthly mean temperatures more than 7°F (4°C) above average throughout large parts of North America and central Asia. The widespread nature, persistence, and magnitude of the anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere contributed to an average land surface anomaly that was 2.43°F (1.35°C) above the 1880–2001 long-term mean (based on preliminary data), more than 0.6°F (0.3°C) greater than the previous record-warm January.
Warming in the equatorial waters of the central and eastern Pacific occurred in January, indicative of a likely transition from neutral to El Niño conditions. This contributed to the third warmest January for global sea surface temperatures, 0.74°F (0.41°C) above average. The warmest January occurred in 1998, during the most recent El Niño episode.
The combination of record-warm land temperatures and near-record sea surface temperatures led to the warmest January on record for both land and ocean surfaces combined, which was 1.24°F (0.69°C) above average, and 0.09°F (0.05°C) warmer than January 1998.
National and global data for the November–January period and for January are online at: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2002/jan/jan02.html.
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Global warming, caused by increasing manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, will lengthen the day, according to a study published in the February issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers at Belgium’s Royal Observatory and the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, lead by Olivier de Viron, used computer models to analyze the effect of adding 1% more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, in order to reach a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration after 70 years.
Scientists can currently measure the length of the day to an accuracy of about 10 microseconds (1/100 000 of a second). It fluctuates slightly, based primarily on changes in atmospheric winds and ocean currents that affect the earth’s angular momentum as it spins on its axis. Angular momentum measures the rotation of a nonrigid body, such as a planet, including its ability to continue spinning. As angular momentum is conserved, the solid earth’s rate of rotation is affected by the movement of its nonrigid components, the oceans and atmosphere.
The Belgian scientists estimated the effect of the oceans and atmosphere, caused by increasing the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide by 1% per year and its effect on global warming, on the earth’s angular momentum. This rate of increase, they note, is a common scenario, based on current human activity. They used 14 different computer models, obtained from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, which showed reasonable agreement, they say.
They find that the length of day would increase as a result of angular momentum changes associated with global warming, including variations in surface pressure over land masses, average surface pressure over ocean, and zonal winds and currents, that is, those moving in an east–west or west–east direction. The amount of lengthening would be small, on the order of microseconds (millionths of a second) per year, and would be difficult to distinguish in any given year from naturally occurring variations.
On a scale of decades-or-longer periods, though, the effect of global warming on the length of the day would be measurable, the researchers say. They anticipate an increase of around 11 microseconds (11/1 000 000 of a second) per decade in the twenty-first century, resulting in a total lengthening of the day by 0.11 (11/100 000 of a second) for the century as a whole.
The study was funded, in part, by the Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique.
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Human activity has affected the earth’s surface temperature during the last 130 years, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. Robert K. Kaufmann, of Boston University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, and David I. Stern, of the Australian National University Centre for Resource and Environmental Study, analyzed historical data for greenhouse gas concentrations, human sulfur emissions, and variations in solar activity between 1865 and 1990.
The greenhouse gases studied included carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12. This is the first study to make a statistically meaningful link between human activity and temperature, independent of climate models, according to the scientists.
Using the statistical technique of cointegration, the scientists compared these factors over time with global surface temperature, in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Cointegration techniques are not confused by variables that tend to increase or decrease over time, or contain some poorly measured observations.
They found that eliminating any one variable—such as, greenhouse gases, human sulfur emissions, or solar activity—made the errors larger; that is, all of those factors taken together are needed to explain changes in the earth’s surface temperature.
They also found that the impact of human activity has been different in the two hemispheres. In the north, the warming effect of greenhouse gases was almost exactly offset by the cooling effect of sulfur emissions, making the temperature effects difficult to observe. In the Southern Hemisphere, where human sulfur emissions are lower, the effects are easier to see, they wrote.
“The countervailing effects of greenhouse gases and sulfur emissions undercut comments by climate change skeptics, who argue that the rapid increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases between the end of World War II and the early 1970s had little effect on temperature,” Kaufmann says. During this period, he says, “the warming effect of greenhouse gases was hidden by a simultaneous increase in sulfur emissions. But, since then, sulfur emissions have slowed, due to laws aimed at reducing acid rain, and this has allowed the warming effects of greenhouse gases to become more apparent.”
Analysis of the data indicates that doubling the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from its preindustrial level will increase Northern Hemispheric temperature by 4.1° to 6.3°F (2.3° to 3.5°C). In the Southern Hemisphere, the increase will be between 3.1° and 4°F (1.7° and 2.2°C), the scientists say, noting that this doubling is expected to be achieved over the next century.
Kaufmann observes that, while to some, these projected changes may seem small, during the last ice age, more than 15 000 years ago, the earth’s global temperature was only 5° to 9°F (3° to 5°C) cooler than it is now.
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President George W. Bush announced a new environmental approach aimed at cleaning the skies, bringing greater health to U.S. citizens, and encouraging environmentally responsible development in America and around the world. The Clear Skies Initiative and the Global Climate Change initiatives were announced on 14 February at a ceremony at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The Clear Skies Initiative proposes cutting power plant emissions of the three worst air pollutants—nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury—by 70%. The initiative is expected to improve air quality using a proven, market-based approach.
According to Bush, the Global Climate Change initiative attempts to commit America to a strategy to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity by 18% over the next 10 years.
Following are details of each initiative as outlined by President Bush.
The Clear Skies Initiative (to cut power plant emissions of three of the worst air pollutants)
The goals:
A New Approach on Global Climate Change
According to President Bush, the initiative aims to support vital climate change research and ensure that America’s workers, and citizens of the developing world, are not unfairly penalized.
· Cutting greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over the next 10 years. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output. The President’s goal seeks to lower our rate of emissions from an estimated 183 metric tons per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2002, to 151 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2012. By significantly slowing the growth of greenhouse gases, this policy will put America on a path toward stabilizing GHG concentration in the atmosphere in the long run, while sustaining the economic growth needed to finance our investments in a new, cleaner energy structure. America is already improving its GHG intensity; new policies and programs will accelerate that progress, avoiding more than 500 million metric tons of GHG emissions over the next 10 years—the equivalent of taking nearly one out of every three cars off the road. This goal is comparable to the average progress that nations participating in the Kyoto Protocol are required to achieve.
· A new tool to measure and credit emissions reductions. The United States will improve its GHG registry to enhance measurement accuracy, reliability and verifiability, working with and taking into account emerging domestic and international approaches. These improvements will give businesses incentives to invest in new, cleaner technology and voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
· Protect and provide transferable credit for emission reductions. The President will direct the Secretary of Energy to recommend reforms to: 1) ensure that businesses that register voluntary reductions are not penalized under a future climate policy, and 2) give credit to companies that can show real emissions reductions.
· Reviewing progress on climate change and taking additional action if necessary in 2012, which may include a broad, market-based program, as well as additional initiatives to accelerate technology. If, in 2012, we find that we are not on track toward meeting our goal, and sound science justifies further policy action, the United States will respond with additional measures that may include a broad, market-based program as well as additional incentives and voluntary measures designed to accelerate technology development and deployment.
· Unprecedented funding for climate change–related programs: The President’s budget in FY03 provides $4.5 billion for global climate change–related activities—a $700 million increase. This includes the first year of funding for a 5-year, $4.6 billion commitment to tax credits for renewable energy sources.
· A comprehensive range of new and expanded domestic and international policies, including
For more information on the President’s initiatives, see www.whitehouse.gov.
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EPA Administrator Christie Whitman launched a new component of the administration’s new climate policy called Climate Leaders, last month. This voluntary partnership challenges businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and provides a significant opportunity to achieve the greenhouse gas intensity reductions set forth in the administration’s new policy.
“When President Bush committed the United States to reducing—voluntarily—our greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over the next decade, he knew that it would take a heavy reliance on partnerships to achieve our goal,” said EPA Administrator Whitman. “The new Climate Leaders program is exactly what he had in mind, and I am pleased to be able to announce this voluntary partnership between government and industry today.”
Whitman also recognized those companies joining as charter members in the Climate Leaders program. Charter members have committed to complete a corporate-wide greenhouse gas inventory and work with EPA to set an emissions reduction target.
The Climate Leaders charter partners are as follows:
Climate Leaders partners work with the EPA to develop corporate-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventories and set aggressive, long-term greenhouse gas reduction goals. Partners develop their greenhouse gas inventory using the Climate Leaders’ Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Protocol. Companies report emissions of the six major greenhouse gases from all major on-site emissions of greenhouse gases and emissions related to the electricity they purchase. Companies may also report emissions and reductions from a number of other activities including investments in offset projects. The Climate Leaders Protocol is based on an existing protocol developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
After partners complete their greenhouse gas inventory, the EPA will work with them to develop a customized emissions reduction target. These targets must be aggressive, long-term targets that exceed business-as-usual performance for each partner’s sector.
For more information on Climate Leaders, contact Cynthia Cummis, at 202-564-3480.
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced it would back a study of environmental changes in the Arctic that indicate a marked warming of the atmosphere. The announcement was made on 7 February 2002.
In FY02, NSF designated $30 million to be allocated over five years for the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) project. In addition, the agency has requested $1 million per year to start in FY03.
Scientists have found that, in recent decades, permafrost zones have melted, the extent and thickness of sea ice have decreased, glaciers are melting more rapidly, and air temperatures are warmer. Other changes include different varieties of plant communities, warmer subsurface ocean currents, and different precipitation patterns. All of these affect animal habitats and migration routes.
Native populations have also been affected. The environmental changes have been named Unaami, the Yu’pik word for tomorrow, because the rapidly changing environment makes it difficult for native residents of the Arctic to predict their future living conditions.
The SEARCH project is intended as an interdisciplinary study of the interrelated atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial changes in the Arctic and their potential impacts on the environment, regional societies, and economies. In funding the study, NSF is acting on the Arctic Research Commission’s recommendation for a long-term study of the causes and consequences of the changes.
Initially, NSF will support a 5-year study of the freshwater cycle in the Arctic. Ten percent of the global freshwater runoff runs into the Arctic Ocean, where it affects the supply of nutrients and the overturn of ocean surface water that recycles nutrients. The volume of freshwater also helps to determine the volume of new sea ice created each year on the broad continental shelves off Russia. The biological productivity of the region, in turn, supports fisheries and marine mammals, while changes in the sea ice influence climate due to the ice’s significant effect on the earth’s heat budget.
This effort represents the first coordinated study of both the terrestrial and marine aspects of the freshwater cycle. NSF will begin considering proposals on the freshwater cycle in mid-2002.
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An ocean circulation system that brings cool water from ocean depths to the surface has been slowing down since the mid-1970s, causing an increase in sea surface temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean and a decrease of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere, according scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Looking back at records for the past 50 years, we found that the ocean currents flowing in the north–south direction have been slowing down in the tropical Pacific Ocean since the mid-1970s,” said Michael McPhaden, a senior research scientist at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
His findings, which were coauthored by Dongxiao Zhang from NOAA’s Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington, were published in the 7 February issue of the science journal Nature.
“Cool water hundreds of feet below the surface typically flows from the midlatitudes to the Tropics, and these waters are eventually upwelled—or brought up—to the surface along the equator,” McPhaden explained. “When the circulation slows down, the supply of cool water for equatorial upwelling decreases. In our study we found a reduction of 25%, causing the sea surface temperatures in a band about 600 miles on either side of the equator to rise about 1.4°F since the mid-1970s.”
Not only does the temperature rise, but the amount of carbon dioxide released by the equatorial Pacific Ocean decreases. At present, the equatorial Pacific is the largest oceanic source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
These circulation changes are linked to the shifts in the climate of western North America, and can affect Pacific fisheries. They may be part of the naturally occurring ocean and atmosphere phenomenon called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which has a roughly 50-year cycle. But they also could be influenced by greenhouse gases.
McPhaden and Zhang studied historical ocean datasets and wind records going back a half century, when sufficiently large numbers of reliable observations began. They focused their attention on this region as an outgrowth of their interest in the El Niño/La Niña cycle, which, over the past 25 years, has favored stronger El Niños, and more frequent El Niños than La Niñas.
McPhaden notes that the system is driven by the trade winds, which have weakened since the 1970s. The trade winds in turn have weakened because the sea surface temperatures have risen.
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Dozens of scientists on the ground, in the air, and using satellite observations began multiyear experiment in February 2002 to study winter snow packs on the Colorado side of the Rocky Mountains. The purpose of this NASA-funded experiment is to improve the estimation of snow amount and forecasting of spring flooding due to snowmelt, and to study the role of cold lands within the earth’s climate.
Scientists and students from six federal agencies and many universities are using skis, snowmobiles, and aircraft to survey and sample snow during this NASA Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX). They are also using microwave measurements from satellites and aircraft to measure characteristics of the snow pack and the freeze/thaw state of the land surface.
The CLPX is a research mission concerned with frozen landscapes, where water is frozen either seasonally or permanently because of water stored in snow and ice cover. Cold land regions form an important component of the earth’s hydrologic cycle, and interact significantly with water resources, global weather, and climate.
Teams of scientists and technicians from three NASA facilities—the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; and the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California—will take part in this campaign. They will join scientists from the NOAA/National Weather Service’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NWS/NOHRSC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Region Research and Engineering Lab, the U.S. Geological Survey, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and graduate students from universities around the world.
The CLPX field campaign is using two aircraft and measurements from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites to gather snow data by remote sensing. The data gathered on the ground and from the aircraft will then be compared to the information obtained by the satellites. Aqua is being launched this year and will be operational for the 2003 campaign. By determining the accuracy of the satellites and developing improved snow sensors, researchers hope to someday be able to measure snow quantity and frozen ground from space for the global views needed by forecast models.
Dryden Flight Research Center will be flying its DC-8 “Airborne Laboratory” with a variety of microwave imaging and other sensors. The NWS/NOHRSC Airborne Snow Survey Program will also be flying similar snow detection sensors on a NOAA aircraft. The experiment will be conducted in the central Rocky Mountains where there is a wide array of different terrain, snow, soil, and ecological characteristics.
Background data collection for the experiment began in the fall of 2001. The first field campaign ran from 19–25 February 2002, to capture cold land properties during midwinter. They will collect another dataset between 24–30 March 2002, to observe the same areas when the snow and ice begin to melt. This schedule will then be repeated in 2003.
The NASA Terrestrial Hydrology Program and the Earth Observing System Program are sponsoring the mission as part of NASA Earth Science Enterprise objectives in hydrology, water resources, ecology, and atmospheric sciences.
More information is available on the Internet at
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020216coldland.html,
http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/~cline/clp.html,
http://lshp.gsfc.nasa.gov, and
http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil.
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From Maine to Georgia, much of the East Coast is experiencing moderate to extreme levels of drought, according to the 20 February NOAA National Weather Service U.S. Drought Monitor. Drought emergencies were announced last week for several counties in southern and eastern Pennsylvania, while drought warnings were issued for counties in southeastern New York and western New Jersey.
According to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, although precipitation was near normal for the nation as a whole, from November to January, below-normal precipitation stretched from Florida to Maine, which led to drought conditions along the East Coast.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center scientists classify drought three ways:
“At the present time, many areas along the East Coast are in a hydrological or water resources drought,” said Douglas LeComte, of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “These conditions are unusual, but not unprecedented. Current conditions on the East Coast were caused by an usually persistent circulation pattern that prevented atmospheric moisture from the Gulf of Mexico reaching the East Coast.”
Long-term weather forecasts offer a mixed prognosis for the East Coast. Occasional storms should provide slow overall improvement, but water shortages will continue in a few areas as depicted in the latest Climate Prediction Center’s U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook.
LeComte added, “With recent near-record low stream flows and reservoir levels for this time of year being reported over portions of the mid-Atlantic and New England states, for example, it will take some time for these regions to work their way out of drought conditions.”
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The 6th Annual Ohio Weather Symposium sponsored by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Wilmington, Ohio, and the Ohio River Forecast Center, as well as the Ohio State University (OSU) Department of Geography, will be held at the Ohio Union Conference Theatre on the OSU campus, in Columbus, Ohio, on 26 April 2002. The symposium is free and open to the public and will feature speakers from government agencies such as the National Weather Service, the NWS Storm Prediction Center and Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, as well as a speaker from Kent State University.
Presentation topics will include lake effect snow, an overview of the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, WSR-88D Radar Warning Decision Making, and many others. General symposium information, including times and directions to the Ohio Union Conference Theatre can be obtained from a link on the OSU weather Web page at: http://twister.sbs.ohio-state.edu. Those interested in attending should send their name, affiliation, and address information to the co-Head Coordinators: Jennifer Hogan at Hogie15516@aol.com, or Phil Shafer at shafer.79@osu.edu.
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In a move to improve global weather forecasts and ultimately save lives and property, the United States and Europe have incorporated wind speed and direction data from NASA’s Quick Scatterometer spacecraft—also known as Quikscat—into their operational global weather analysis and forecast systems.
Armed with data from Quikscat, forecasters can now predict hazardous weather events over the oceans as much as 6 to 12 hours earlier. Launched 19 June 1999, the Quikscat spacecraft operates in a sun-synchronous, 800-kilometer (497-mile), near-polar orbit, circling the earth every 100 minutes, taking approximately 400 000 measurements over 93% of the earth’s surface every day.
In recent years data from the Quikscat scatterometer, developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, have proven useful in improving forecasts of extreme wind events, such as hurricanes, and in monitoring longer-term climatic effects such as El Niño. Quikscat’s SeaWinds scatterometer instrument is a specialized microwave radar that continuously measures both the speed and direction of winds near the ocean surface in all weather conditions.
Participants in the Quikscat program include the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, a branch of the National Weather Service, Washington, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, in Reading, England. These organizations’ decision to assimilate and turn Quikscat data into operational information culminates an intense interagency and international cooperative effort among NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and European countries to demonstrate and validate Quikscat’s potential impact on weather forecasting.
“Our implementation of Quikscat data has provided another useful data source for improved surface wind forecasts,” said Stephen Lord, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s Environmental Modeling Center, which developed the Quikscat data processing in collaboration with NASA and NOAA Satellite Services.
The incorporation of Quikscat data was one of several recent upgrades made to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts operational system. Cumulatively, the upgrades have resulted in a robust improvement in forecasts of atmospheric conditions over the Southern Hemisphere and in the upper atmosphere. Their ability to forecast tropical cyclone tracks has also been enhanced.
JPL manages Quikscat for NASA’s Office of Earth Science, Washington. JPL also built the scatterometer instrument and provides ground science–processing systems. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, managed development of the satellite, designed and built by Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp., Boulder, Colorado.
More information is available at http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/quikindex.html.
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The bleaching of coral over extensive portions of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is a sign that the reef is being seriously stressed during current record-breaking warm water conditions. Conditions have worsened since the widespread bleaching wasreported several weeks ago, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and their colleagues in Australia reported on 21 February 2002.
NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program provided early warning of the bleaching conditions by using sea surface temperature data from NOAA’s polar-orbiting satellites. Data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), and the University of Queensland show a vast section of the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef where temperatures are much higher than normal due to hot, clear summer conditions.
“Reports just in from our friends at AIMS and GBRMPA tell of a worsening condition,” said Al Strong, NOAA satellite oceanographer and coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program. “Our colleagues have compared this bleaching event to the previous record event during the 1998 El Niño, noting that the present episode began earlier in their summer and shows no signs of easing its grip. My colleagues are casting their eyes seaward for a cyclone to bring cooler waters to the surface.”
“At this stage all the bleaching observed is still fairly mild, with little visible signs of significant mortality, but this is certainly just a matter of time if conditions do not improve dramatically and persistently,” said Paul Marshall of GBRMPA.
AIMS and GBRMPA, having just concluded a workshop with NOAA on the Great Barrier Reef, are about to launch a structured survey program that aims to document extent and severity of bleaching over most of the Great Barrier Reef. NOAA scientists of the Coral Reef Watch Program have been assisting GBR scientists with automating several in situ monitoring sites (towers/buoys) to provide information on reef conditions as part of a sophisticated coral reef early-warning system that provides real-time alerts via the Internet of possible coral bleaching events to scientists and managers worldwide.
NOAA satellite data reveal sea surface temperature anomalies and “HotSpots,” or areas of the ocean with unusually warm temperatures where bleaching is likely to occur. Scientists and coral reef managers worldwide use the NOAA Coral Reef Watch information to better forecast, track, and understand coral bleaching events, and participate in CRW by providing on-the-reef observations. CRW is part of NOAA’s Coral Reef Program.
NOAA reports that among domestic reefs, the northwest Hawaiian region around Midway has seen an increase in sea surface temperatures over the past two decades of nearly +0.4°C per decade—much of that during the past 6 or 7 years.
Notable sea surface temperature increases in the Caribbean are larger toward the south but approach +0.07°C per decade near Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and Bahamas. In the Northern Hemisphere Tropics (0°–35°N, globally) sea surface temperatures have been inching upwards at nearly +0.15°C per decade (increasing rates toward higher latitudes). In the Southern Hemisphere Tropics (0°–35°S, globally), sea surface temperatures have been slower to rise, averaging only a third of the Northern Hemisphere increase, or +0.05°C per decade.
Coral reefs are important to our future because they are one of the earth’s most diverse living ecosystems harboring millions of animals and plant species that play a key role in the global food web. They are full of new and undiscovered biomedical resources, and serve as a buffer for coastal communities from storms, wave damage, and erosion.
Coral reefs also attract hundreds of thousands of divers, snorkelers, and other tourists to tropical coasts every year. This recreation and travel supports a significant tourism industry dependent on clean water and healthy coral reefs. Coral lives on the upper edge of their temperature tolerance. Abnormally high water temperatures, combined with low winds and still water, can cause destructive bleaching of coral reefs. NOAA monitors this threat with satellite-derived sea surface temperatures, ocean surface winds, HotSpots, Degree Heating Weeks (accumulations of HotSpots), and on-site monitoring stations.
For more information, see http://orbit-net.nesdis.noaa.gov/orad/coral_bleaching_index.html, and http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/dhw12week.pac.gif,
For coral bleaching indices of the tropical ocean, see http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/dhw_news.html.
For HotSpots, see http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/hotspotese.gif.
For accumulations of thermal stress, see http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/dhw_retro.html.
GBRMPA Web Site (updates bleaching information regularly): http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/bleaching/index.html.
AIMS Web site: http://www.aims.gov.au/index-ns.html.
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The National Academy of Engineering has elected Warren Washington, a climate modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and AMS past president, to its membership, NAE President William A. Wulf announced in February. Washington, who heads NCAR’s Climate Change Research Section, was honored with membership to the prestigious society “for pioneering the development of coupled climate models, their use on parallel supercomputing architectures, and their interpretation.”
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is one of the highest professional distinctions that can be accorded an engineer, states the NAE announcement. Academy membership honors those who have made important contributions to engineering theory and practice, and those who have demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology.
For over 20 years Washington’s group at NCAR has used coupled climate models to estimate the effects of increasing greenhouse gases. The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation funded the research.
“At the beginning of this effort, the components of the climate models were fairly simple, compared to today’s state-of-the-art climate models,” says Washington. To keep up with the models’ increasing complexity and growing need for computing speed, Washington has more recently led an effort to apply parallel supercomputing architectures, in which multiple processors perform many calculations simultaneously, to climate change projections.
Besides developing the models, Washington has participated in major international efforts to assess the role of greenhouse gases in climate change. He is currently serving on the National Board of Science under appointment by former president Clinton. Over the decades, the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations called upon his expertise as a scientific adviser.
Washington is a fellow of the AMS, and a fellow and past board member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2000 Washington was honored by the AMS as the inaugural recipient of its Charles Anderson Award for pioneering efforts to foster diversity in the atmospheric sciences. Other honors include the 1999 National Weather Service Modernization Award; the Le Verrier Medal of the Meteorological Society of France; induction into the National Academy of Science’s Portrait Collection of African Americans in Science, Engineering, and Medicine; and the Exceptional Service Award for Atmospheric Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Biological and Environmental Research Program.
Washington earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in meteorology from Oregon State University. He completed a Ph.D. in meteorology at The Pennsylvania State University in 1963, and joined the NCAR staff as a research scientist that year.
The NAE’s membership includes 1857 active members in the United States, 250 members emeriti, and 158 foreign associates, including the new members and associates announced in February.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has named John A. “Jack” May as director of the National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City, Missouri. May has been serving as acting director for the center since January 2001.
The Aviation Weather Center, part of the agency’s aviation services team, provides weather support to the aviation community. The center issues analyses and forecasts of hazardous weather and warnings of thunderstorms, turbulence, icing, low clouds, and reduced visibility, which affect domestic and international travel.
A native of Rome, New York, May began his meteorology career as a part-time employee while a student at Parks College of Aeronautical Technology in St. Louis. He received a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical meteorology from Parks College in 1973. In 1997, he received a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Kansas.
Prior to his term as acting director of the AWC, May was deputy director of the NWS Central Region, headquartered in Kansas City. Prior experience with NOAA’s Weather Service included terms as chief meteorologist for the state of Kansas, deputy chief meteorologist of Ohio, computer systems manager for the Weather Service–Eastern Region in New York, and assignments as an aviation forecaster in Cleveland, Ohio; Raleigh, North Carolina; Portland, Maine; and Albany, New York. He attained a private pilot certification while in college.
Additional information about the Aviation Weather Center and access to aviation weather products is available on the Internet at http://www.awc-kc.noaa.gov.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has named James Laver as director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in Camp Springs, Maryland. Laver has been serving as acting director for the center since 2000.
Laver earned undergraduate degrees in physics from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University. He earned his master's of science degree in information systems technology at George Washington University. He entered the National Weather Service as a research scientist in 1972, and has coordinated support for operational and research projects with NASA, the Department of Defense, and USAID among others.
He developed the first climate “bulletin board” system in the mid-1980s and received the NOAA Administrator’s Award for the timely production of special “drought advisories” during the severe Midwest drought of 1988. Laver provided operational and staff weather support for the U.S. Air Force on active duty during 1968–72 and as a reservist through 1996, when he retired as a lieutenant colonel.
The Climate Prediction Center issues long-range forecasts for up to 6 to10 days, 1 month, multiple seasons, or a year in advance. The CPC provides real-time climate monitoring products, and studies climate fluctuations on timescales ranging from weeks to decades, in order to incorporate their effects on forecasts. Through its monitoring and prediction activities the CPC assists federal agencies in coping with climate-related problems as they relate to food supply, water resources, energy allocation, and emergency management.
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The Boston Museum of Science will award its distinguished Walker Prize to Paul MacCready, AMS Honorary Member and Fellow, on 11 March 2002 at a special ceremony at the museum. The Walker Prize was established in 1864 by Dr. William Johnson Walker, one of the most eminent surgeons of his era, who was a generous benefactor of the Boston Society of Natural History, the founding organization of the Museum of Science.
The Walker Prize, first established to recognize work in the field of natural history, broadened its guidelines in the 1960’s to recognize “meritorious published scientific investigation and discovery” in any scientific field.
Paul MacCready, chairman and founder of AeroVironment, Inc., and known as “the father of human-powered flight,” leads a growing team of scientists, researchers, and engineers at AeroVironment, who create products that push the frontiers of efficiency by “doing more with less.” Some examples of these products are solar-powered and battery-powered cars for General Motors; advanced power electronics systems for stationary and mobile energy; regenerative fuel cells; fast charge systems for electric vehicles; and many types of aircraft, ranging from tiny 6-foot-wingspan surveillance fliers, to the 247-foot-wingspan solar-powered Helios. In the meteorological community, AeroVironment is best known for developing, manufacturing, and selling acoustic sensing products.
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NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe selected space veteran and NASA astronaut Dr. Shannon W. Lucid as the agency’s next chief scientist last month.
The only woman to be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by the President of the United States, Lucid currently supports Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions as spacecraft communicator.
Lucid will be responsible for ensuring the scientific merit of the agency’s programs. She will report for duty as soon as she fills her responsibilities for STS-109.
She replaces Dr. Kathie Olsen, whom the President has announced his intention to nominate as the associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President.
“Dr. Olsen has been a vital and valuable member of the senior management team since she was named Chief Scientist in May 1999,” added Administrator O’Keefe. “She is highly motivated and her expertise will be missed. The administration and OSTP are getting a top-notch researcher and scientist.”
A veteran of five space shuttle flights, Lucid was among the first six women ever selected to become an astronaut, and she currently holds the United States single mission flight endurance record as a result of her mission to the Russian space station Mir in 1996.
She was selected by NASA in 1978, and became an astronaut in August 1979. Lucid has flown as a mission specialist on STS-51G in 1985, STS-34 in 1989, STS-43 in 1991, and STS-58 in 1993. In 1996, she was flown to Mir during STS-76, where she served as an engineer and conducted numerous life science and physical science experiments during her stay in orbit.
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Veteran meteorologist John Gordon was appointed meteorologist in charge of the new NOAA National Weather Service forecast office in Huntsville, Alabama, in late January 2002. The new office will bring the number of NWS forecast offices in the nation to 122. It will be one of 32 serving the southern region of the National Weather Service.
Before joining NOAA’s National Weather Service in 1993, Gordon spent 6 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a wing weather officer at Tinker Air Force Base, followed by a tour as Team Chief of the European Forecast Unit in Traben-Trarbach, Germany.
Gordon served as a meteorologist intern at the Jackson, Mississippi, weather forecast office from 1993 to 1994. He was a journeyman forecaster at the Springfield, Missouri, forecast office from 1994 to 1998. In 1998, he moved to his current position as lead forecaster at the forecast office in Nashville, Tennessee. Gordon also served as an outreach team leader in Nashville working to improve hazardous weather awareness through schools, civic organizations and the emergency management community. The team’s efforts on behalf of the people of middle Tennessee earned them the Southern Region Director’s Award for Teamwork.
In addition to his duties on the ground, Gordon is a flight meteorologist for Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters based in Biloxi, Mississippi. He has flown into a number of hurricanes including Hurricane Michelle in October 2001.
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Marie Colton, a physical oceanographer, has been named director of the Office of Research and Applications (ORA) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. She replaces James Purdom, who retired last year.
In her position at NOAA’s satellite service, Colton is in charge of satellite research and applications development for operational users such as the National Weather Service. The Office of Research and Applications provides guidance for the development and evolution of spacecraft and sensors to meet future needs.
ORA conducts oceanographic, land surface, and atmospheric research on the use of satellite data for monitoring environmental characteristics and their change. The division also performs retrospective analyses of long-term satellite datasets to incorporate advances in research and to study changes and trends. ORA develops applications of satellite data and algorithms to produce satellite products, for uses relevant to NOAA’s mission.
Before being named director, Colton had served as deputy director, then acting director, of the division. She came to NOAA 2 years ago from the remote-sensing program at the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Virginia, where she managed U.S. Navy research efforts in remote-sensing. Colton has also worked at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, the Naval Research Laboratory, the Naval Postgraduate School, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the NASA headquarters.
Colton received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical oceanography from the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, in 1978 and 1981, respectively, and her doctorate in physical oceanography from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, in 1989.
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