Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor:Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Anne Siefken
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The AMS’s Atmospheric Policy Program has developed a hurricane preparedness forum to be held in Washington, D.C., 6–7 June. The forum, sponsored by The Weather Channel, will bring together representatives from the meteorology, media, and emergency management communities to discuss the best way decision-makers cooperatively can prepare for and respond to hurricanes.
In particular, the forum will consider the policy question: “What policy changes are needed to produce weather services, media communications, and risk analyses that will optimize hurricane preparedness and response strategies?”
Some of the issues to be considered include:
The forum will facilitate dialogues among the three communities to examine these and related issues critically. The goal, according to the sponsors, is to make findings of fact that illuminate the issues and, thereby, develop recommendations for policy changes within federal, local, and private organizations that are involve with hurricane preparedness and response strategies. A complete report with recommendations will be issued later this summer.
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The American Meteorological Society approved and issued four separate policy statements in February 2000.
The first, entitled Tornado Safety and Preparedness, urges everyone to learn more about the threat and danger of tornadoes, to have an action plan in case one touches down nearby, to understand the severe weather warning process, and to follow basic safety rules.
Each year nearly 1200 tornadoes are reported in the United States and an average of 55 people die annually as a result of twisters. While improvements in detection and warning systems, increased public awareness, and advances in communication technologies are helping to reduce the number of deaths and injuries, further reducing casualties and damage is possible, the statement noted. The policy statement recommends education, planning, awareness, basic safety rules, and shelters, and outlines basic safety rules to observe during a severe weather event. The AMS statement also calls on government agencies, community leaders, private industry, the media, and the general public to do even more.
The second statement, Prediction and Mitigation of Flash Floods, provides an overview of the current state of the science related to flash floods. In spite of decades of effort by the government and the private sector to improve observations and warnings, flash floods continue to be one of nature’s worst killers. The AMS statement urges the scientific community to work together to integrate hydrometeorological approaches based on sound science and new technological advances to make more reliable and timely predictions a reality. The statement also calls for coordinated initiatives on dissemination and preparedness programs.
Hurricane Research and Forecasting outlines the current scientific understanding of tropical cyclones, hurricane-related hazards, hurricane monitoring and forecasting and the prospects for this field in the coming decade. The statement notes the tremendous advances in hurricane track forecasting and calls for improvements in storm intensity, storm structure, and overall storm size forecasts. A concerted scientific effort to improve forecasts should be combined with community development and preparedness programs to reduce evacuation times, the statement notes. Such an initiative is already underway through the U.S. Weather Research Program.
The final statement approved in February 2000, provides guidance on the use of the term “live radar” by the broadcast media. Today, the broadcast media have access to a wide variety of radar data that has allowed for improved severe weather warnings lead times, more accurate depictions of weather phenomena, and improved communication to the public. However, because there may be uncertainty as to the timeliness of the radar products, the AMS urges care in using the term “live radar” and recommends that all radar products be displayed with a “time stamp” that indicates the time the images were acquired.
The AMS issues policy statements to assess the scientific or technological state of the radar; urge action on policy matters of concern to the science or the profession; call attention to urgent scientific or professional matters. The statements typically are prepared by a drafting committee and approved by the AMS Executive Council. The complete statements are available on the AMS Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams
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An 18% drop in development funding for NASA’s earth science missions in FY2001 is raising questions about the future of that key NASA program.
While NASA is requesting funding increases for almost all other activities, the earth science budget is going down. The agency is seeking $1.4 billion for earth science in FY2001, some $38 million less than FY2000.
Funding to design, build, and launch environmental satellites is reduced sharply, from about $1 billion this year to $820 million in FY2001, according to budget documents. The budget contains money to begin just one major new mission, the U.S. National Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project.
The decrease in mission funding is offset partially by a $111 million boost in spending on new technologies for future environmental satellites.
In an article in the 13 March issue of Space News, Greg Williams, senior policy analyst for earth science at NASA Headquarters, is quoted as saying the funding decline for mission development reflects a lull between two phases of the Earth Observing System (EOS).
Development of the primary first-round EOS missions is winding down, Williams noted. The billion dollar Landsat- 7 and Terra satellites were launched last year and the Aqua and EOS Chemistry-1 missions are scheduled for launch in 2000 and 2002, respectively.
NASA has yet to nail down the scientific priorities for what are now called EOS follow-on missions, according to Williams. The agency has presented an EOS scientific roadmap to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for review, Williams said. Once the academy endorses the priorities laid out in the plan, NASA can begin designing the follow-on missions, he explained.
The article, written by Warren Ferster, noted that Williams said “we have taken a step back in trying to establish our (science) implementation plan. We want input from the academy before proceeding.”
However, the uncertainty surrounding the follow-on missions has some scientists concerned about possible data gaps, said Michael King, NASA senior project scientist for EOS, according to the article. It is difficult for NASA to select EOS follow-on missions, which entails running competitions among different concepts, King was quoted as saying, without a funding line for those missions. At the same time, he said, the White House Office of Management and Budget is not likely to fund missions that have not yet been defined.
The academy is expected to complete its review this summer and that would allow Nao begin work on its follow-on missions and be reflected in the FY2002 budget, according to Williams.
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A major NASA initiative to study the sun has raised questions as to whether the billion-dollar-plus project belongs to the space agency rather than another federal department.
Living with a Star was unveiled in President Clinton’s FY2001 budget request. It proposed a series of solar observatories and requested $500 million through 2005. The program is designed to launch dozens of spacecraft by the end of the decade in an effort to shed new light on the sun’s impact on space flight and communications and power systems on earth.
In its 28 February issue, Space News reported that some congressional staffers were concerned that NASA may be overstepping its role. The article quoted one staff member as saying, “This appears to be an operational solar-weather monitoring system. That’s not NASA’s mission and never has been.”
In budget hearings this year, NASA could face pointed questioning about the cost of the program and whether it belongs at NASA. If the program is primarily operational, one congressional source said, then it should go to NOAA or the Air Force. NOAA and Air Force officials said, however, that the program is too research-focused to be assigned to their organizations.
NASA officials acknowledged that the program might be more operational than what the agency usually does except for the space shuttle but said doing science with practical benefits has been the agency’s role since its beginning.
If Congress approves the project, NASA would rush to launch up to 50 early warning and solar science spacecraft in time for the next solar maximum, expected in 2011, according to Space News. NASA is seeking $20 million in 2001 to get things started, however, an estimated $1.5 billion would be spent on the program through 2010, sources told the publication.
George Withroe, science director for Sun–Earth Connection programs in NASA’s Office of Space Science, said the program will pave the way for more sophisticated systems that can provide advance warning of space weather-related threats to astronauts, satellites, and terrestrial power grids.
Gary Heckman, senior forecaster for NOAA’s Space Environment Center, Boulder, Colorado, said Living with a Star promises both near- and long-term benefits to space weather prediction. In the near-term, live data feeds from NASA ground stations would help NOAA and the Air Force issue more timely space weather advisories, he said. In the long run, he continued, researchers will use the data to derive numerical models like those used by NOAA’s NWS to forecast storms on earth.
Lieutennant Colonel Michael Bonadonna, chief of space operations plans for the Air Force weather directorate, told the publication that the NASA project represents an opportunity to leverage a NASA research project to aid U.S. military operations. “Missions like this are very expensive,” he said. “The Air Force couldn’t pay for this kind of capability if we tried to do it ourselves.”
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The significant role weather plays as a cause of aircraft accidents and flight delays was underlined at a Capitol Hill briefing on 7 March. Statistics and summaries of accident figures were provided by a panel of speakers who addressed the subject: “Aviation Weather Research: What Is Being Done to Improve Safety and Reduce Delays?” The luncheon briefing was sponsored by representatives Connie Morella (R-MD) and Mark Udall (D-CO), and cosponsored by AMS and the University Center for Atmospheric Research.
Following a welcome by Jeff Grove, staff director, Technology Subcommittee, House Science Committee, presentations were made by Bruce Landsberg, executive director, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association; Carl Knable, manager of meteorology, United Airlines; Tom Carney, associate head, Department of Aviation Technology, Purdue University; and Bruce Carmichael, program manager of FAA and NASA programs, NCAR.
The speakers pointed out that 35% of aviation fatalities occur in weather-related accidents and that last year almost 72% of recorded commercial flight delays were caused by weather. Landsberg underlined that weather delays not only bring emotional losses such as missed connections, late arrivals, and other inconveniences, but economic losses as well.
Discussing general aviation, he said there are an average of 487 general aviation accidents a year with 217 fatalities. The annual average number of weather-related air carrier accidents is 41, he said, with 39 fatalities.
Knable pointed out that NTSB and FAA figures show that of 35 fatal air carrier accidents, 13, or 37%, were weather related. He listed thunderstorms as a major weather factor causing accidents and injuries and identified hail, turbulence, icing, wind shear, and lightning as other major safety problems. A five-year United Airlines’ summary showed that between 300 and 400 flight attendants incurred injuries because of turbulence.
He also mentioned volcanic ash as a hazard. He cited the case of a Boeing 747 losing power in all four engines while flying through a cloud of volcanic ash over Alaska. The pilot managed to restart the engines and land safely, but damage to the aircraft (all four engines had to be replaced) was $30 million.
Dollar losses to United based on gate data factors alone amounted to $37 million in 1997 and climbed to $63 million in 1999, Knable said.
Carney’s presentation dealt primarily with general aviation. A rated instrument and instructor pilot who flies the university’s jet transport, he explained that the general aviation sector—private, business, and corporate—covers approximately 183 000 aircraft and offers a wide variety of aircraft, pilot experience, types of missions, and weather vulnerabilities.
Weather, he said, is the cause of 80% of accidents and 83.3% of fatal accidents among private flyers. Carney added that there is a need for improved graphics, more accurate forecasts, better radar and satellite data, improved turbulence forecasts and detection, greater assistance with flight rerouting, and continued research.
Carmichael pointed out a number of recent improvements, adding that they are the result of collaborative efforts among government, universities, and industry. Among the improvements he cited were better radar technology that allows identification of different reflectivities that allow forecasters to differentiate between, for example, rain and snow; models of wind maps, and 1-hour thunderstorm forecasts.
Improvements are being sought, he explained, in developing nowcasting that will allow aircraft to uplink images of thunderstorms and turbulence and onboard sensors that will identify areas of turbulence in thunderstorms.
The luncheon was part of an on-going series of congressional briefings to educate policy makers on weather-related issues and research.
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Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Cray vector supercomputer business, a portion of SGI's supercomputer business, to Tera Computer Company in exchange for cash, notes, and common stock. The agreement was announced on 2 March 2000.
At the close of the transaction, Tera will assume ownership of SGI's Cray supercomputer product line, including the Cray SV1TM, Cray T3ETM, and Cray T90TM systems; existing service contracts; future Cray vector products, including the Cray SV2TM system; and three facilities in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Tera Computer Company, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, designs, builds, and sells high-performance, general-purpose supercomputers utilizing proprietary technologies that it believes will revolutionize the market for high-end computing. Additional information on Tera is available at http://www.tera.com.
SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at http://www.sgi.com. Crays vector supercomputer business is a wholly owned subsidiary of SGI.
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Scientists at NOAA have discovered that the world ocean has warmed significantly during the past 40 years, the Commerce Department announced on 21 March. According to NOAA, the largest warming has occurred in the upper 300 m of the world ocean on average by 0.56°F. The water in the upper 3000 m of the world ocean warmed on average by 0.11ºF. These findings represent the first time scientists have quantified temperature changes in all of the world's oceans from the surface to 3000-m depth.
The scientists determined their findings by using data—5.1 million temperature profiles—from sources around the world, to quantify the variability of the heat content (mean temperature) of the world ocean from the surface through 3000-m depth for the period 1948–96. Three major ocean basins were examined; Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific.
The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans have been warming since the 1950s; the Indian Ocean has warmed since the 1960s. The warming patterns of the Pacific and Indian Oceans are similar suggesting that the same phenomena is causing the changes to occur in both oceans.
The world ocean warming is likely due to a combination of natural variability, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and human-induced effects, say the scientists who calculated the warming. The scientists, led by Sydney Levitus, who heads NOAA's Ocean Climate Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, report their findings in the 24 March issue of Science magazine in an article titled "Warming of the World Ocean." They found that there is a consistent warming signal in each ocean basin.
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Until 14 April, mariners in the Atlantic coastal waters and the Chesapeake Bay will, for the first time, have forecasts designed specifically for them. Through the Coastal Marine Demonstration Project (CMDP), high-resolution forecasts of surface winds, currents, wave heights, water levels, and ocean temperatures and salinity, are available to anyone with an Internet connection.
The CMDP is providing high-resolution forecasts of ocean parameters and improving local atmospheric weather forecasting for the demonstration area, stretching from New England to the Carolinas. Accurate forecasts of water levels are crucial for safe passage of large commercial ships, helping them avoid grounding; and accurate surface-to-bottom temperature nowcasts and forecasts are invaluable to commercial fishing. CMDP products are also used and evaluated by National Weather Service forecasters at Sterling and Wakefield, Virginia, and the Marine Prediction Center at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, in Camp Springs, Maryland, who find that the unique forecasts provide important input to official marine weather forecasts.
Recently, the CMDP expanded and improved weather and water forecast products for the Atlantic coastal ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. New high-resolution wave models for the region and a three-dimensional finite element model to forecast currents, salinity and sea surface temperature within Chesapeake Bay have been implemented. These include NOAA Coastal Ocean Forecast System, Local Analysis and Prediction System, Regional Atmospheric Modeling System, GLERL-Donelan wind wave model, and NCEP wave forecast model.
In addition to NOAA weather forecasters and commercial, military, and recreational mariners, the products are used and evaluated by commercial fishers and commercial weather forecasters at WBOC TV, a local station in Salisbury, Maryland.
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The winter of 1999/2000, December–February, was the warmest on record for the United States, according to statistics calculated by NOAA scientists.
Working from the world’s largest statistical weather database at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, the scientists reviewed the entire 105-yr history of record keeping.
The winter season preliminary temperatures averaged 38.4ºF, 0.6ºF warmer than the previous record, set just last year. In addition, the third warmest winter on record occurred in 1997/98, though tied with 1991/92 at 37.5ºF.
The last three winters therefore have been the three warmest on record, and the 1999/2000 winter continues the pattern of warm winters established in 1980 with 67% of the winter seasons since being warmer than the long-term average.
During the past winter, every state in the continental United States was warmer than its long-term average, with 21 states from California to the Midwest raked as much above average. Oklahoma experienced its warmest winter on record, with Kansas, Nebraska, and Montana experiencing their second warmest.
Dryness also characterized the winter season, the scientists reported, with 1999/2000 ranked as the 16th driest on record. Long-term dryness intensified in the northern Gulf states with Louisiana reporting its driest winter on record and Alabama and Mississippi their third driest. New Mexico and Arizona experienced much below normal rainfall for the season. The only regions experiencing a wet season were the northern and central Rockies and a zone from the central plains eastward to the Ohio Valley.
This winter Canadian air masses were not a factor. Many locations from the northern Plains to New England established records for the latest date of their first seasonal snowfall, latest date without a temperature below freezing, longest snow-free period or longest period between subzero temperatures. Although the eastern states experienced heavy snowfalls in the last two weeks of January, the accompanying cold air was short lived, and February established hundreds of daily maximum temperature records.
The 1999/2000 season global land and ocean temperatures ranked sixth warmest on record, following the two warmest boreal winter seasons set in the past two years. Ocean temperatures ranked as 10th warmest at 0.5ºF above average. Land temperatures, however, remained well above average, with this season’s anomaly ranked as the fourth warmest on record at 1.4ºF above average.
Globally, precipitation was above average through central and northern Europe, most of South America, with the largest anomalies across southern Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia. Above-average rainfall in February, compounded by a dissipating tropical system, resulted in catastrophic flooding in countries in southeastern Africa, while major areas of dryness were the Mediterranean countries, Japan, and most of North America.
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The drought conditions that plagues the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the nation last year are spreading following the warmest winter on record and threatening everything from food production to wildfires.
Secretary of Commerce William Daley, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, NOAA Administrator James Baker, U.S. Geological Survey Director Charles Groat, and National Weather Service Director John Kelly provided the bleak outlook during a press conference in Washington on 13 March.
Several southern states experienced their driest February in 106 years of keeping weather records, according to Daley. “The La Niña pattern, which has dominated the United States for the past two years, has created a serious moisture deficit in many areas,” he added. “This could seriously impact farmers, water resource managers navigation interests, and the tourism industry.”
The spring drought forecast notes that the drought is going to persist and, in some areas, intensify. Hardest hit will be southern Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia in the south, and Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana in the north central U.S. Hawaii also is expected to be hit hard because rain has been disrupted by unusual conditions in the Pacific.
Glickman told reporters that in Texas two-thirds of the winter wheat crop was rated “poor to very poor” and said the total forecast wheat crop for the year has been reduced by 100 million bushels. He said that the agency recently had paid out $191 million in assistance to 215 000 persons and had plans to pay $40 million to ranchers and farmers for a new pasture recovery program.
The agriculture secretary pointed out that spring crop planting is ahead of schedule because of the warm and dry conditions, but warned that it is too early to forecast what the drought conditions will have on production.
Glickman also said the drought makes conditions for wildfires more likely. Some already have taken place, he said, and firefighters are mobilizing their forces and equipment to face the situation.
NOAA scientists said that drier than normal conditions in the southern United States do mean a reduced possibility of significant river flooding this spring.
Groat warned that USGS has found that below-normal streamflows and low ground-water levels continue to exist. Based on data from 7000 stream gauges nationwide, he said, there are some areas of the country, particularly east of the Mississippi River, where streamflows are at record-low flows for this time of the year.
“This is the time of the year when streamflow conditions should be about normal, but in the eastern half of the country, we’re anywhere but that,” said Groat. “We should be seeing ground-water recharge taking place now, and we’re not seeing that, either.”
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Critical weather information on such things as turbulence, icing, thunderstorms, and other weather hazards is now available to pilots, airline dispatchers, air traffic controllers, and forecasters through the Aviation Digital Data Service (ADDS) and the Internet.
ADDS employs user-friendly graphics of specific routes to display forecasts based on state-of-the-art forecast models and algorithms. ADDS is being developed in partnership between the National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center in Kansas City, Missouri; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Forecast Systems Laboratory, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Research Applications Program, both in Boulder, Colorado; and the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aviation Weather Research Program, in Washington, D.C.
Recent versions of both Netscape (4.06+) and Internet Explorer (5.0) will successfully access the ADDS Web site, a spokesman said. Interactive, user-designated products available on ADDS include icing, cloud and thunderstorm forecasts, enroute advisories generated by NWS meteorologists, terminal aerodrome forecasts, winds aloft forecasts, and observations (METARS).
Goals of the team that designed ADDS were to make the Web site easy to access and use and to enable users to provide feedback. Most products require no more than two mouse clicks to access, and each page has an “fyi/help” button with explanations and symbol references. To submit feedback, users click on a mailbox icon and either fill in a standard form or compose their own message. All feedback is posted on the site and questions usually are answered by ADDS support staff within 24 hours.
To view the ADDS Web site, go to http://adds.awc-kc.noaa.gov/ .
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NOAA inaugurated its Collaborative Convective Forecast Product on 1 April, which will help airline meteorologists and the FAA to obtain extended weather outlooks up to six hours and help flight officials route planes around thunderstorms. After a two-year study to hone the speed and accuracy of the aviation forecasts generated by the CCFP, the program has received high marks.
“This is the cutting edge,” said James Wetherly, technical manager of the FAA’s Collaborative Decision-Making Product Team. “There’s nothing out there quite like this,” he explained, referring to the product’s ability to give aviation officials the most current forecast several hours ahead and is strategically used to reroute flights around potential trouble areas.
Here’s how the CCFP works:
First, meteorologists at the Aviation Weather Center in Kansas City, Missouri, develop forecast outlooks for severe storms across the country based on current conditions, numerical models, and their own expertise.
Second, the forecasts are graphically enhanced and reviewed over the Internet by commercial airline meteorologists, the National Weather Service Air Traffic Weather Service units, and FAA personnel at the National Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Virgina.
Then, the FAA, in collaboration with airline dispatchers, uses the forecasts to make key decisions that impact flights around the nation.
The Aviation Weather Center, part of the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, provides forecasts and warnings for weather conditions that affect flight safety, including turbulence, thunderstorms, wind shear, icing, and low clouds.
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Variations in Antarctic sea ice may have played a significant role in lowering atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during the last ice age.
A study by Britton Stephens, a University of Colorado researcher at NOAA’s Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and Ralph Keeling of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego presented this theory in an article in the 9 March issue of Nature. The study presents a new theory to explain why low carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are found during glacial periods.
According to ice core records, every 100 000 years or so, the earth cycles between warm periods and cold glacial periods, with Antarctic temperatures varying by about 20ºF. Records also indicate that during the glacial periods there was 30% less CO2 in the atmosphere. The study attempts to solve the mystery of the connection between global atmospheric CO2 concentrations and Antarctic temperatures that seem to rise and fall together.
CO2 is one of the most important greenhouse gases. A naturally occurring gas, it has been increasing in the atmosphere, and many believe the increase is due to human activities, raising concern about global warming.
While algae and other microscopic plants in the oceans are constantly removing CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow and live, eventually they die and sink, returning CO2 to the deep ocean. “Thus, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere depends on how efficiently the water from the ocean can return to the surface and release its extra CO2,” the authors wrote.
“Recently we have learned that deep waters primarily return to the surface around Antarctica as opposed to at low altitudes as was previously believed. Since the waters around Antarctica were mostly covered with ice during glacial periods, that could have prevented much of the CO2 in the surfacing deep waters from leaking back to the atmosphere, thereby lowering atmospheric CO2 concentrations,” Stephens noted.
The authors constructed a simple computer model that represents the ocean–atmosphere CO2 system and that reflected the improved understanding of deep-water circulation.
“When we increased the amount of sea ice around Antarctica in the model to simulate the glacial state, the atmospheric CO2 concentration decreased by a similar amount at that observed in ice-core records,” according to Stephens. The result suggests that variations in Antarctic sea ice may play a significant role in regulating atmospheric CO2 on glacial timescales.
“This is the first study that shows the amount of sea ice can have a significant effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations,” Keeling noted. “This may be one of the keys to unraveling the origins of the major climate shifts in the past. It also opens the door to the Southern Hemisphere’s control of climate. If sea ice is affecting carbon dioxide in this way, then you can imagine how many ways the Southern Hemisphere may be driving climate change throughout the world.”
According to the authors, in order to predict future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and their influence on global climate, “we need to first understand the causes of past carbon dioxide changes.”
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Continued improvements in public health and the vigilant monitoring both of climate conditions and of the nation’s health status are key to protecting the health of Americans. Those were the findings outlined in the executive summary of the Report of the Health Sector, conducted as part of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.
Led by researchers from The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a team of scientists examined known connections among climate, weather patterns, and human health risks. The health assessment found that if the global climate becomes warmer, some adverse health outcomes might result.
However, the researchers also concluded that a variety of public health and other infrastructure controls could offset some of the risk. The executive summary of the report is published in the April issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.
The health assessment was sponsored by and conducted in partnership with the Global Change Research Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of a multiagency, congressionally mandated study of climate change in the United States. The study calls for increased protection against flooding, drinking water contamination, heat waves, and other weather-related events in the United States.
The report examines certain health outcomes that may be affected by climate change, including those associated with temperature and precipitation extremes, air pollution, and diseases carried by contaminated water and food, and by insects, ticks, and rodents. Researchers identified some groups within the United States at higher risk to certain environmental exposures. For example, the poor urban elderly face the greatest loss of life during summer heat waves because they often lack air conditioning. People with weakened immune systems are more in danger of getting sick if they drink contaminated water.
Heat waves present a set of identifiable risks, especially in urban areas. For example, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati have recently experienced heat waves resulting in increased numbers of illnesses and deaths. Climate scientists project that the severity and frequency of heat waves in the United States may increase in the future. Increased rainfall and a water filtration system malfunction were cited in the report as part of the cause of a 1993 outbreak caused by Cryptosporidium, a microbiologic contaminant, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More than 400 000 illnesses were reported, including 54 deaths, because of the contaminated drinking water. The report also noted several other large outbreaks of food and waterborne illnesses from E. coli and Giardia.
With respect to infectious diseases, the report recognizes that international travel makes climate impacts beyond our borders relevant for the United States. The report calls for measures that would increase the resilience of public health to changes in climate and would improve public health regardless of climate change. These measures include building codes and zoning ordinances to prevent storm damage, advanced weather warning systems, improving disease surveillance and prevention programs, enhanced sanitation systems, health education, public drinking water safeguards, and continued air pollution controls.
Details of the health assessment and findings are available at http://www.jhsph.edu/globalchange
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New research shows that aerosol particulates from urban and industrial areas modify clouds over large land areas, suppress rain and snow, and are responsible for reflecting significant amounts of sunlight back to space.
The information on this research stems from two articles in the 10 March issue of Science. The first article is by Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The second article, tied to the research paper by Rosenfeld, was written by University of Colorado Professor Owen B. Toon.
Rosenfeld’s research shows that the particulates suppress precipitation and reflect light, which Toon describes as a “huge leap forward.”
Toon, who has studied similar modification of clouds over the ocean and their effects, wrote that aerosol particulates in the atmosphere are reflecting sunlight back into space, directly cooling earth. The new findings by Rosenfeld are more evidence that aerosol-cloud processes may be diluting and perhaps even canceling out greenhouse warming, Toon noted.
Unlike greenhouse gases—which stay in the atmosphere for long periods and are fairly evenly distributed—aerosols are more concentrated near their sources and variable in space and time, making their impacts difficult to quantify. “But their cooling effect may be as large as the warming effect creating by humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during the last century,” according to Toon.
“Computer models could not explain the lack of warming that had been projected because they were overlooking the opposing forces due to aerosol pollution,” Toon explained.
In the 1980s, long, bright lines in ocean clouds seen from the air were determined to be the tracks of ships sending their exhaust into the atmosphere. Because the particulates triggered new cloud formation and redistributed water in existing clouds, they became brighter and more reflective, Toon wrote.
In 1998, Rosenfeld detected similar “pollution tracks” over land areas of earth for the first time. “We had known that aerosol particulates emitted by ships can trigger changes in clouds and even their formation over the oceans,” Toon noted. “What Rosenfeld has done in his latest paper is to demonstrate a clear, widespread influence of aerosol pollution on continental precipitation.”
Rosenfeld used data taken by Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers onboard several U.S. weather satellites and NASA’s new TRMM satellite. The images showed pollution tracks caused by urban and industrial activity in areas of Turkey, Australia, and Canada, as well as data indicating clouds making up the pollution tracks were prohibiting rain and snow from falling downwind from the sites.
Because each cloud droplet must form on a pre-existing particle, additional aerosols in clouds like sulfates or sulfuric acid increase the number of water droplets in clouds, Toon explained. Because temperatures and atmospheric motions driving cloud formation control the mass of water condensing in the clouds, the droplets formed on aerosol particulates tend to be smaller in size.
Clouds harboring smaller droplets have larger surface areas, making them more reflective and sending more sunlight back to space, Toon said. Because of their diminutive size, the chances of the droplets coagulating into raindrops large enough to fall as precipitation are greatly diminished, he continued.
A typical microscopic cloud droplet can travel little more than an inch through dry air before evaporating. “About one million cloud droplets must collide and coalesce in order to form a precipitation-sized drop,” according to Toon, who noted that a typical raindrop can fall a mile before evaporating.
The rate at which droplets collide and coalesce depends on their size and the number of other similar droplets in their path,” Toon noted. Normal-sized droplets in an unperturbed cloud would sweep up about 64 times the volume of air containing other droplets than would droplets half that size in an unpolluted cloud. This would make the aerosol-filled cloud much less likely to rain, according to Toon.
One of Rosenfeld’s satellite images shows a pollution track emanating from a mining and smelting company in Flin-Flon, Manitoba. Another shows pollution tracks from several sources near Istanbul, Turkey. A third image shows a track originating in the vicinity of a brown coal power plant, the world’s largest smelter and refinery, a huge cement plant and a major oil refinery near Adelaide, Australia.
“Rosenfeld’s work points to locales where in situ observations should be made to pinpoint the mechanisms by which pollution affects clouds,” Toon wrote. “Such knowledge may allow us to estimate how widespread the aerosol interaction with cloud precipitation may be in our globally polluted world.”
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A colossal cosmic “weather system,” produced by the collision of two clusters of galaxies and captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, shows a bright, relatively cool 50 million degree Celsius central region embedded in a large elongated cloud of 70 million degree gas, all of which is roiling in a faint “atmosphere” of 100 million degree gas.
“We can compare this to an intergalactic cold front,” said Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and leader of the international team involved in the analysis of observations. “A major difference is that in this case, cold means 70 million degrees.”
The gas clouds are in the core of a galaxy cluster known as Abell 2142. The cluster is six million light years across and contains hundreds of galaxies and enough gas to make a thousand more, according to the scientists. It is one of the most massive objects in the universe.
Galaxy clusters grow to vast sizes as smaller clusters are pulled inward by gravity. They collide and merge over the course of billions of years, releasing tremendous amounts of energy that heats the cluster gas to 100 million degrees.
The information will allow scientists to make comparisons with computer simulations of cosmic mergers. The observations indicating that this merger is in an advanced stage show that these subclusters have collided two or three times in a billion years or more.
The observations were made on 20 August 1999.
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A week's warning of potential bad weather in space is now possible thanks to a new use of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Two astrophysicists supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have developed a technique to image explosive regions on the far side of the sun, using ripples on the sun's surface to probe its interior.
"This is a major breakthrough in our ability to forecast solar storms that can affect us on earth," said Morris Aizenman of NSF's Astronomical Sciences Division.
Explosive regions on the sun are hidden until they rotate to the side of the sun visible from earth, giving little advance warning. The new imaging technique uses computer modeling developed since the early 1990s with support from NSF and observations taken with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on NASA's SOHO satellite to detect and locate these hidden solar storms.
"We've known for 10 years that in theory we could make the sun transparent all the way to the far side," said Charles Lindsey of Solar Physics Research Corp. in Tucson, Arizona. "But we needed observations of exceptional quality. In the end we got them, from MDI on SOHO." Lindsey and his colleague Douglas Braun of NorthWest Research Associates, Boulder, Colorado, describe the research in the 10 March edition of Science.
Active regions on the sun are often the sites of spectacular explosive events, called solar flares, which are associated with eruptions of plasma (hot, electrically charged gas). The radiation and plasma from these events sweep past the earth and can disrupt spacecraft, radio communications, and power systems. Scientists watch closely for these eruptions because modern systems are increasingly sensitive to solar disturbances. But experts can still be taken by surprise as the sun rotates, bringing hidden active regions into view.
To locate these regions in advance, the scientists developed a technique of using ripples on the sun's surface to image the interior. The ripples are caused by sound waves reverberating through the sun. Analysis of these solar sound waves, a science known as helioseismology, has opened the sun's gaseous interior to investigation in much the same way as seismologists learned to explore the earth's rocky interior through the analysis of earthquake waves.
Lindsey and Braun's technique examines sound waves that emanate from the far side of the sun and reach the near side by rebounding internally from the solar surface. They used observations from MDI taken on 28–29 March 1998, to detect a group of sunspots on the far side of the sun that was not visible on the near side until 10 days later.
SOHO is a cooperative project between the European Space Agency and NASA. NSF and NASA funded the far-side helioseismology research.
Images are available at http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/soho/ssu/rightthrough.html.
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Fourteen new views of the earth are available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The views are part of a set of 20 slides that show the earth in full color shaded relief, showing land and undersea topography. The slides were produced by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. The slide set also includes a rectangular Mercator projection view of the whole earth and displays of crustal plates and their relation to world seismic activity. The images are computer-generated from a digital database of oceanic bathymetry and land topography.
The slides replace a previous version issued in 1991 from lower-resolution data. The new slides were produced from original images of 3300 x 2200 pixels, so resolution is excellent. The original data points were spaced every 2 minutes of latitude and longitude; the images represent a reduced resolution of about 5 minutes while preserving all-important physiographic features.
For more information, and for a preview of the slides, see http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/fliers/00mgg04.html
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NASA will rename the NEAR spacecraft to honor Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, a legendary geologist who influenced decades of research on the role of asteroids and comets in shaping the planets. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft currently is orbiting asteroid 433 Eros more than 143 million miles from earth. The spacecraft now will be known as NEAR Shoemaker.
“Gene Shoemaker was an inspirational, charismatic pioneer in the field of interplanetary science,” said Dr. Carl B. Pilcher, Director of Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters. “It is a fitting tribute that we place his name on the spacecraft whose mission will expand on all he taught us about asteroids, comets, and the origins of our solar system”
Shoemaker died in a 1997 car accident in the Australian outback while on an annual study of asteroid impact craters. With his wife and research colleague, Carolyn, Shoemaker was part of the leading comet discovery team of the past century, perhaps most famous for finding the comet (Shoemaker-Levy 9) that broke up and collided with Jupiter in 1994.
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1 April 2000 marks the anniversary of the launch of the world's first weather satellite. The first weather satellite, a polar-orbiting satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 1 April 1960.
Named "TIROS," for Television Infrared Observation Satellite, it demonstrated the advantage of mapping the earth's cloud cover from satellite altitudes. TIROS showed clouds banded and clustered in unexpected ways. Sightings from the surface had not prepared meteorologists for the interpretation of the cloud patterns that the view from an orbiting satellite would show.
To commemorate the TIROS 40th Anniversary, the AMS and NOAA created a special exhibit. This display was first shown at the 80th Annual Meeting in Long Beach and was set up in the Senate Russell Rotunda from 27 March through 2 April. It will be at the U.S. Department of Commerce Headquarters for the official TIROS celebrations during the week of 3 and 10 April, and shown later this spring at the AGU Spring Meeting in Washington, DC, and at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
The exhibit shows the history of the TIROS program and illustrates a number of applications where TIROS data are used to help with weather forecasting operations and weather research. The display is augmented with interactive computer terminals, which allow the attendee to visit various Web sites that host information on use of data from polar orbiting weather satellites.
In addition, NOAA is hosting a conference on 5 April on 40 years of weather satellites. More information on the conference is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/40th.html
Historical photos of the satellite are also online at http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/lb_images/space/visible1.html
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Paul F. Moersdorf has been named director of the National Data Buoy Center at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
An award-winning oceanographer, Moersdorf will lead efforts to improve the center’s ability to obtain meteorological and oceanographic measurements that help NOAA’s National Weather Service prepare forecasts that impact the Nation’s marine community and industry.
D. James Baker, NOAA administrator, said Moersdorf’s track record in atmospheric and oceanographic models, high performance computing and meteorology makes him the ideal person for the leadership post.
A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Moersdorf earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and an M.S. degree and a doctorate in physical oceanography with a minor in meteorology from Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, Virgina.
He served on the faculty of the math and computing sciences department at ODU and began his federal career in 1978 when he joined the Naval Oceanographic Office where he was in charge of oceanographic databases for the Integrated Command Acoustic Prediction System and later became chief scientist for the office’s Tactical Environmental Support System project.
In 1984, he became director of the Space Oceanography Program at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanographic Command, rising to deputy chief of staff for program integration in 1989.
In 1993, Moersdorf became director of the Navy’s Special Projects Office, coordinating many intelligence, special operations, and classified projects and, in 1994, he was named scientific and technical director at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center in Monterey, California.
Moersdorf was awarded the Navy’s Superior Civilian Service Award in 1991 and again in 1994.
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Rene Carson, a teacher at the Little Rock, Arkansas, Instructional Resource Center, has been honored with the State Farm Insurance “Good Neighbor Award.”
Carson is an AMS Arkansas Atmospheric Education Research Agent and DataStreme Local Implementation Team leader. She was honored for her unique style and approach in teaching junior high school students about meteorology.
State Farm donated $5000 to the Little Rock school district in Carson’s name. Carson and her students are being featured in a State Farm advertisement running in numerous publications.
AERAs are highly professional individuals who are collaborating with the AMS to help promote teaching about or related to the atmospheric environment. AERAs act as regional points of contact for teachers who are seeking information on atmospheric science topics; act as liaison among teachers, schools, teachers' organizations, and the atmospheric sciences and related professional communities. The AMS DataStreme Project is a major precollege teacher enhancement initiative. Its main goal is the training of Weather Education Resource Teachers who will promote the teaching of science, mathematics, and technology using weather as a vehicle.
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Jerry D. Mahlman, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey, will retire from federal service this fall.
Mahlman's NOAA career began the day the agency started: 1 October 1970. His retirement from federal service, 1 October 2000, is NOAA's official 30th anniversary.
During his three decades at GFDL, he has made pioneering contributions to the fundamental understanding of atmospheric motions. This work has led scientists to better understand regional and global pollution problems. His insight into the computer model results has been crucial in evaluating theories of human-affected stratospheric ozone loss, as well as enhanced the current ability to predict future ozone changes.
An AMS Fellow, Mahlman left a tenured position at the department of meteorology at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in 1970 to join Joseph Smagorinsky and Syukuro Manabe in their pioneering efforts to develop atmospheric circulation models at GFDL. Mahlman is credited as the virtual founder of two key branches of numerical atmospheric modeling. In 1984, Mahlman accepted the position at GFDL.
When global warming emerged as a major issue in the 1980s, Mahlman and GFDL provided valuable information about climate change research to the nonscientific community, including government leaders. He was invited by the journal Science to contribute an article, "Uncertainties in Projections of Human-Caused Climate Warming," which was designed to guide the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Mahlman has published nearly 100 scientific papers. Among his many awards, he received the highest honor given by the AMS, the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, in 1994; U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 1986; the American Geophysical Union First Annual Jule G. Charney Lecturer Award in 1993; and the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award in 1994. He served on numerous AMS committees, served as a councilor, and received an AMS Editor's Award in 1978.
Born in Crawford, Nebraska, Mahlman holds a bachelor's degree from Chadron State College and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University. He is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
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Stephen J. Lord has been named the new director of the Environmental Modeling Center, a part of the National Weather Service's National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
Lord, a numerical weather prediction specialist and hurricane analysis and research pioneer, will lead a team of scientists in developing sophisticated, computerized models that predict America's weather and climate trends from hours to months in advance.
Lord, who had been the center's acting director since September 1997, has been credited with developing new systems that analyze hurricane weather data. In 1989, he was among the first to study the impact of data-collection devices, such as dropsondes, on hurricane track and intensity.
In 1978, Lord earned his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. After a two-year post-doctoral appointment at UCLA, Lord worked at the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Meteorological and Oceanographic Laboratory in Miami.
The Harrow Weald, United Kingdom, native holds a bachelor's of science degree in physics from Yale University. Additional information on the Environmental Modeling Center is available at http://www.ncep.noaa.gov
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