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Wendy S. Parker, instructor and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, has been selected as the 2003–04 AMS–University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Congressional science fellow. The AMS–UCAR Congressional Science Fellowship is part of a program administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Parker will complete her Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science this summer with a final dissertation on "Simulating Earth's Climate: Philosophical Issues in Computer Simulation Modeling." Parker has long been interested in exploring public policy issues and public policy analysis particularly as related to climate change, air pollution, wildfire and conservation policy. In addition to her studies, Parker teaches several courses at the university. She has earned numerous fellowships and awards for her work in cloud dynamics and physics, precipitation measurements and climate change including the University of Pittsburgh Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Parker has participated in research experiments with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Northern Illinois University. She earned her master's degree in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh and her bachelor's degree in meteorology from Northern Illinois University.
The AMS and UCAR are sponsoring a Congressional fellow because the demands on Congress to establish sound public policy on scientific issues have never been greater.
The AAAS program places highly qualified accomplished scientists, engineers, and other professionals in offices of individual members of Congress and committees for a one-year assignment. Fellows perform in much the same way as regular staff members. The fellows bring to the Congress new insights, fresh ideas, extensive knowledge, and education in a variety of disciplines, and are provided with the opportunity to make a significant public service contribution and obtain firsthand experience in the legislative and political process.
Through the program, fellows gain a perspective that, ideally, should help them understand how the research community can effectively communicate with one another on important national policy issues. A fellow may have the opportunity to participate in and make significant contributions to public policy within the Congress, including issues like water policy, global warming, energy policy, defense technologies, pollution, communications technologies, and many more.
The AMS-UCAR fellow is supported with funds provided jointly by the AMS and UCAR. Together, UCAR and the AMS represent an atmospheric science community consisting of over 20,000 researchers and meteorologists in universities, government, and private industry.
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The AMS has selected 11 students from across the country to attend the third annual AMS Summer Policy Colloquium. The colloquium, to be held 1–10 June 2003, will bring a select group to Washington, D.C., for an intense ten-day immersion in atmospheric policy. The students are
"Our congratulations to each of these outstanding young men and women. Competition was quite keen, making the selection process that much more difficult," said William Hooke, director of the AMS Atmospheric Policy Program. "The caliber of the student applicants, and their record of accomplishment in both scientific and policy arenas even at this early stage in their careers, was striking. Our field will be in good hands for many years to come."
The Society is still accepting applications for midcareer scientists and managers wanting to attend the Summer Policy Colloquium. Complete details on the application process are available on the AMS Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams.
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The American Meteorological Society and Columbia University are hosting a forum to develop policy recommendations to derive greater national benefit from climate information and seasonal climate predictions. The forum will be held at the National Academies Building in Washington, D.C. on 23–24 April 2003.
The two-day forum will consist of a series of in-depth discussions on key issues by weather and climate scientists, specialists in developing decision strategies, policy makers, and legislators. The discussions will identify present seasonal climate observational and predictive capabilities, present response strategies, and the information needs of decision makers. The focus will be on the response to El Niño–related events, most notably those of 1997/98 and the events currently underway. There will also be extensive interaction among panelists, participants, and prominent speakers at a reception and dinner.
Registration information is available on the AMS Web site at www.ametsoc.org/ams. For additional information, contact Carolyn McMahon either by phone (202-737-9006 ext. 437) or e-mail (mcmahon@dc.ametsoc.org).
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The AMS Board of Certified Consulting Meteorologists (BCCM) has established an ad hoc committee on continued professional development for CCMs. This committee is tasked with developing an implementation plan for a program to recognize continued professional development by CCMs. This plan will be presented at the September 2003 meeting of the AMS Council. The ad hoc committee will be chaired by Joe Schaefer, CCM, past chair of the BCCM and will be manned by current and past BCCM members and AMS officers. Stay tuned for additional details.
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Swiss Re, an international reinsurance company, and Penn State's College of Business and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, will host a one-day, executive education workshop entitled, "Weatherproof Your Business: New Financial Strategies for Managing Weather and Climate Risk." The program, which will be held on 29 May in Swiss Re's New York office, will demonstrate to participants how weather risk can be managed in the same way currency risk and interest rate risk are managed using futures and options.
The program is geared toward executives and senior-level analysts in weather-sensitive industries who have responsibility for bottom-line results, as well as those who analyze business performance for the investment community. Attendees will learn how business models, financial strategies, and advancing capabilities in atmospheric observation and prediction can reduce weather-related uncertainty and improve business results. Identifying and quantifying the impact of weather risk on businesses and managing weather-related risk effectively will be core constituents of the program.
Penn State faculty leading the workshop include John A. Dutton, professor emeritus of meteorology and chairman of Weather Ventures, Ltd.; Paul G. Knight, state climatologist of Pennsylvania and senior forecaster for the New York Times; and Christopher von Schirach-Szmigiel, associate dean for executive education at the Smeal College of Business.
Industry leaders participating in the workshop include Prakash A. Shimpi, president and CEO Swiss Re Financial Services Corp.; Mark Tawney, managing director, weather risk management, Swiss Re Financial Products; William Windle, senior vice president, weather risk management, Swiss Re Financial Products; and Jan F. Dutton, director of weather services, AWS Convergence Technologies. The guest speaker for the event is John J. Kelly, director, National Weather Service.
For additional information and to register online, interested participants can visit www.smeal.psu.edu/psep or call 800-311-6364.
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The National Academies' Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC), in coordination with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), recently initiated an effort to examine the impacts of weather on the surface transportation system, with a focus on the roadway environment.
The study will examine the research opportunities and required services needed to support improved weather forecasting for the nation's roadways. It will investigate the current state of knowledge regarding forecasting of road weather conditions, recommend key areas of research to enhance operational weather forecasts for roads, and identify ways to best provide this information to users.
A panel of meteorological and transportation experts were convened in February, and will work over the next year on this study. Future meetings will be held in April and June, and will be open to the public, in part. For further information, visit the project website at http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects+_by+_PIN/BASC-U-02-06-A?OpenDocument, or contact Amanda Staudt at astaudt@nas.edu.
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On 3 February 2002, the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) released the Weather Information for Surface Transportation (WIST) National Needs Assessment Report.
The WIST report sets the stage for improvement in the way weather information is applied to surface transportation across the nation. It establishes a process that involves decision makers throughout the public and private sectors, academia, and industry in a collaborative effort to define weather information needs in support of surface transportation operations. In addition, the report recommends next steps to incorporate current and future results from science and technology innovations into surface transportation activities that bear on the safety and economic welfare of all citizens.
The WIST report is the product of an extensive three-year interagency effort and represents a historic achievement. The report is the first-ever compilation of weather support needs across the six surface transportation sectors: roadway, railway, transit, marine transportation, pipeline systems, and airport ground operations.
The report is available online at www.ofcm.gov/wist_report/wist-report.htm.
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The 7th Annual Ohio Severe Weather Symposium, hosted by The Ohio State University (OSU) Department of Geography, in conjunction with the Wilmington, Ohio, National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Office and the Ohio River Forecast Center also in Wilmington, Ohio, is scheduled for 25 April 2003, at the Fawcett Center on the OSU campus.
A diverse range of speakers working in the operational and academic fields of meteorology will give presentations on topics such as lightning, model simulations of lake-effect snow, fire weather, and the recent (10 November 2002) F4 tornado in Van Wert, Ohio.
For details see http://twister.sbs.ohio-state.edu. The event is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending should contact Zack Schmiesing at schmiesing.13@osu.edu, or by phone at 614-292-1597.
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Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems will again be offering advanced numerical-model-based ozone forecasts this summer to help states and agencies issue better air quality forecasts.
For the last several summers, the Environmental Modeling Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, has been working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to implement a prototype numerical air quality prediction system in real time. During the summer of 2002, NOAA used the system as one of three models being tested in the context of the New England Air Quality Study, a multi-institutional field campaign conducted in July and August. Results from that study, as well as from the "early-start" campaign during 2001, indicate that the model is now the benchmark against which other experimental ozone forecasting systems are to be measured.
To receive forecasts and animations from Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems, which recently acquired the former Environmental Modeling Center, contact John McHenry, Chief Scientist, Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems (e-mail: mchenry@emc.mcnc.org; phone: 919-248-9237
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Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), universities, and NASA have clarified the process by which ozone—an essential shield in the stratosphere, but a pollutant at lower levels—reaches its peak abundance across North America each spring. The new findings come from a comprehensive study that links computer models with airborne measurements of gases, particles, and ultraviolet radiation.
A set of papers outlining results from the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) Experiment appeared in the 28 February issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research—Atmospheres (JGR). The principal investigators are NCAR scientists Elliot Atlas, Christopher Cantrell, and Brian Ridley.
In the lower to middle troposphere, about one to five miles above the United States and Canada, ozone levels peak as springtime arrives. It has been unclear whether the ozone peak develops due to seasonal intrusions of ozone-rich air from the stratosphere above or whether it forms in place through photochemical effects of the intensifying spring sun. The answer, the TOPSE team found, is a little of both, though photochemical effects dominate in the winter-to-spring ozone increase.
From February to May 2000, scientists from NCAR and other institutions flew seven flights aboard the National Science Foundation/NCAR C-130 aircraft from Broomfield, Colorado, to northernmost Canada (up to latitude 87°N) and back. The team then analyzed the results and compared them to the output of two computer models that simulate air chemistry and winds over the Northern Hemisphere.
Together, the data and model results paint a picture that answers some key questions about springtime ozone and air chemistry above North America. For example, the flight data strongly confirmed that the amount of ozone descending from the stratosphere was too small to account for the springtime peak. By tracing chemical reactions and following stratospheric "markers" through their models, the scientists found that "stratospheric sources could only account for a small fraction of the observed ozone [during the spring increase], but stratospheric ozone is an important contributor to the observed background levels." Thus, "the seasonal ozone trend was primarily driven by in situ [in place] ozone production." By late spring, up to five times more ozone was found to be produced locally than delivered from aloft.
TOPSE also addressed a quite different puzzle: how ozone can disappear so quickly in wintertime from surface air across the Arctic Ocean and adjacent land areas. As reported in previous studies, Arctic surface ozone depletion appears to be due to natural halogen compounds, such as bromine and chlorine, that react with ozone and the Arctic snowpack as the spring sun arrives. This surface ozone depletion in the north is unrelated to the better-known ozone "hole" in the Antarctic stratosphere, which also forms in the spring. That southern ozone thinning involves a different set of reactions with chlorine derived from industrial chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons.
During TOPSE, "A virtual ozone hole was observed for the first time over much of Hudson Bay and over the Arctic Ocean," write the authors. Low-level winds, they note, "can distribute ozone-depleted air over a larger region beyond the Arctic than had been previously recognized." TOPSE was able to map episodes of surface ozone depletion over much of the Arctic Ocean, northern Canada, and Greenland. The Arctic Ocean appears to be the origin of these depletions, but winds can move these chemically processed air masses to more southerly latitudes.
Even at its peak levels, Northern Hemisphere ozone is far less prevalent in the lower to middle troposphere than in the higher stratosphere. This means that the seasonal waxing and waning at lower altitudes studied in TOPSE should have little effect on the ultraviolet light that reaches people, animals, and plants.
Still needed, according to TOPSE scientists, are more extensive measurements of the halogens that drive ground-level Arctic ozone depletion, as well as a better understanding of the atmospheric exchange between stratosphere and troposphere—a process the scientists note is "far from understood."
Further information is available online at http://topse.acd.ucar.edu.
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Scientists at Texas A&M were surprised to learn summer lightning over the U.S. significantly increases regional ozone and other gases that affect air chemistry three to eight miles above the earth's surface. The amounts of ozone and nitrogen oxides created by lightning surpass those generated by human activities in that level of the atmosphere.
Typically, over the United States, fossil fuel burning is the main cause of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which lead to the formation of ozone near the earth's surface. However, above the earth's surface in the free troposphere (3–8 miles high), during the summer months, lightning activity increases NOx by as much as 90% and ozone by more than 30%.
Renyi Zhang of Texas A&M University, lead author of a paper that recently appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests lightning has distinct impacts on air chemistry over the U.S. Human activities dominate the creation of these gases near the earth's surface, but lightning plays a bigger role in the free troposphere.
Depending on where ozone resides, it can protect or harm life on earth. Most ozone resides in the stratosphere (a layer of atmosphere between eight and twenty-five miles high), where it shields life on earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation. At the surface, ozone is a harmful pollutant that causes damage to lung tissue and plants. In the tropopause (surface to eight miles high) ozone also is a radiatively active gas that affects climate.
About 77 million lightning bolts annually strike the U.S. Measurements before and after lightning strikes have confirmed the generation of nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere.
"Ironically, over the United States lightning accounts for only about 5% of the total U.S. nitrogen oxide annual emissions and about 14% of the total emissions in July," said Zhang. Although the largest source of NOx over the United States is fossil fuel burning, lightning still plays a dominant role in influencing the regional air chemistry.
The explanation for this is that NOx created from burning fossil fuel is released close to the earth's surface and is consumed rapidly by chemical reactions before being transported upward. Lightning, however, directly releases NOx throughout the entire troposphere. The lightening source over North America for NOx is sufficiently large, so that it has implications on free troposphere NOx over other parts of the world, most notably Europe, which is downwind of the U.S., given the prevailing westerly flow in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes.
Zhang used lightning measurements from the ground-based National Lightning Detection Network and the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) instrument to obtain the number of lightning flashes over the United States. The OTD, aboard the Microlab satellite, is a space-based sensor capable of detecting and locating lightning events during day and night, with high detection efficiency.
For more information about the research and images, see http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0312pollution.html.
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Winter 2002/03 was a season of stark contrasts in the United States, with colder-than-normal temperatures and periods of heavy snowfall prevailing in the East, while unusual warmth and persistent drought covered most of the West. For the globe, the average surface temperature was the sixth warmest on record during the December–February period, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Scientists from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, noted that the average temperature for the contiguous United States during meteorological winter (December–February) was 34.0°F (1.1°C), which was 1.0°F above the 1895–2002 mean, but well below the record warm winter of 1999–2000, when the average temperature was 37.0°F (2.8°C). Four of the previous five winters were much warmer than average.
Twenty-seven states in the eastern half of the United States experienced significantly colder-than-average weather. The below-average temperatures in the East contrasted sharply with the winter of 2001/02, particularly in the Northeast, which had its warmest winter season on record last year. The average temperature was 10.0°F lower this winter in that region. Although temperatures were much lower than in most winters of the past couple of decades, few record cold temperatures were established and no state had a much-below-average temperature (lowest 10%) for the season.
Conversely, record warm temperatures were prevalent in the western United States in midwinter, and two states (Nevada and Utah) had their warmest January on record.
For the winter season as a whole, temperatures averaged above the long-term mean from the West Coast into the Upper Midwest and Alaska. Winter in Alaska was the second warmest on record for the state, 10.1°F (5.6°C) above average and slightly cooler than the record warm winter of 2000/01. A lack of snow and unsafe ice conditions forced organizers to move the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog race about 300 miles north from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Ground transportation on normally well-frozen ice-roads was also complicated due to thinner ice on typically well-traveled winter routes. Alaska winter temperatures during the past twenty-five years have averaged approximately 4°F (2.2°C) warmer than in the preceding fifty years.
Drought persisted in many of the same areas in the West that have experienced drought for the past three to five years. At the end of the winter season, 68% of the West was in moderate-to-extreme drought, based on the Palmer Drought Index. After an extremely dry January from Colorado and New Mexico to California, precipitation amounts were generally higher in February, most notably in the Southwest. But snow pack levels at the end of the season were less than 70% of average in much of the West, and statewide reservoir storage was below average in every western state.
The low snow pack and reservoir levels are prompting concerns that spring and summer water availability may be even lower this year than in 2002, while also creating the potential for another active wildfire season. More than 7 million acres were consumed by wildfire across the United States in 2002, most of it in the West. Abnormally dry conditions spread east into the Upper Midwest, where the winter season was the second driest on record in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. Michigan had its driest winter since statewide records began in 1895, and by the end of February, severe drought covered much of the state.
Precipitation for the season was also significantly less than average from Kansas to North Dakota and in Illinois, Ohio, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Areas to the east and south experienced significantly wetter- and snowier-than-average conditions. Record or near-record snow fell from northern Virginia to Boston in mid-February. Heavy snow fell in the North and South Carolina in January and severe ice storms affected those states in December and February.
Around the Globe
The global land surface temperature for the December–February season was less than the record and near-record highs of recent years, but still well above the long-term mean. The average land surface temperature was 1.0°F (0.6°C) above the 1880–2002 mean, the fifteenth warmest December–February since 1880 (the beginning of reliable instrumental records). The ocean surface temperature tied with two other years as the second warmest on record, 0.8°F (0.4°C) above average, slightly less than the record warm December–February that occurred during the 1997/98 El Niño episode.
The combined land and ocean surface temperature for December–February was the sixth warmest on record, while the average temperature in the lower troposphere (the lowest five miles of the atmosphere) tied December–February 2001/02 as the second warmest on record . Since 1900, global surface temperatures have risen at a rate of 1.0°F per century (0.6°C per century), but the rate has increased to approximately three times the century-scale trend since 1976.
El Niño conditions prevailed during the period, but were significantly weaker by the end of February, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. Sea surface temperature anomalies had decreased by more than 3.5°F (2°C) in the eastern equatorial Pacific and continued weakening is expected.
National and global data can be found online at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/feb/feb03.html.
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Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of Western Ontario and Clemson University have moved one step closer to understanding hurricane dynamics with a recent breakthrough description of a storm's vertical wind speed structure and its relation to the tumultuous ocean surface below the storm.
This new characterization, published in the 20 March issue of the science journal Nature, could affect numerous computer models used to predict hurricane motion, intensity, and the associated waves and storm surge that can be devastating to near shore communities.
The discovery is made possible because of new data collected from probes deployed during hurricane field experiments and U.S. Air Force reconnaissance missions. The probes, called Global Positioning System (GPS) dropwindsondes, provide information about the force the wind exerts on the sea surface, information that was previously difficult to measure and thus extrapolated from much weaker storms, a calculation now determined to be an overestimation by the research team.
The team was headed by Mark Powell, a research meteorologist with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida; and coauthors Peter J. Vickery of the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario; and Timothy A. Reinhold, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina.
"This has been kind of a 'Holy Grail' for scientists interested in air–sea interaction in hurricanes as well as engineers interested in the design of ocean structures," said Powell. "The GPS sondes have provided measurements to help settle this problem in the open ocean. We'll have to launch many more sondes near the coast to see if the results also apply there."
The finding is significant as it helps determine how the wind acts on the ocean surface to create waves and storm surge, and is also related to the amount of energy supplied from the ocean to the storm in the form of heat and moisture.
"There have been impressive strides taken in the quality of tropical cyclone track predictions over the last ten years, mainly due to improved dynamical models. However, there appears to be little new skill in predicting storm intensity changes," said Isaac Ginis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. "In light of the fundamental role the air–sea interaction processes play in supplying energy to the tropical cyclone, this discovery seems to be one of the most promising for major improvements in tropical cyclone intensity forecasting."
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The National Weather Service will begin issuing five-day hurricane forecasts this year, extending the three-day forecasts issued since 1964. The agency cited customer needs for longer-range forecasts, and major improvements in track forecasting skill over the past few decades as reasons for lengthening the forecasts.
Max Mayfield, NOAA National Hurricane Center (NHC) director, said, "NHC and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center have been working closely with our customers since 1999 to extend the forecasts, and went through a rigorous set of experiments during the 2001 and 2002 Atlantic and eastern and central North Pacific hurricane seasons to test this capability. These experiments were successful largely because of improved modeling techniques developed jointly by NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Environmental Modeling Center, and other researchers." Data from the 2001 and 2002 seasons indicate the five-day track forecast will be as accurate as the three-day forecast was fifteen years ago.
Accuracy in hurricane track forecasting is measured by "track error"—the distance between the predicted position of a storm's center and its later, actual position. The two-year trial showed the five-day average track error for Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes was 323 nautical miles (nm), and 191 nm in the eastern Pacific. For comparison, in 1964–65, the first two years of three-day Atlantic track forecasts, average error was 389 nm. Pacific errors are typically lower because many of the storms move generally east to west. While Atlantic storms often track east to west too, many curve toward the northwest and north and often accelerate, making them more difficult to forecast.
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While the federal government has taken a good first step toward better understanding and responding to climate change by drafting a strategic plan that contains new research initiatives, the plan lacks a clear guiding vision and does not sufficiently meet the needs of decision makers who must deal with the effects of climate change, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council.
The committee that wrote the report also noted that the president's FY04 budget request appears to leave funding relatively unchanged for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which wrote the draft plan, despite the important new initiatives called for in the plan.
"While past climate-change science has focused on how climate is changing and affecting other natural systems, future science must also focus on more applied research that can directly support decision making," said Committee Chair Thomas E. Graedel, professor of industrial ecology, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, Connecticut. "Research is especially needed to improve our understanding of the possible impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human society, as well as options for responding to—and reducing—these effects."
The federal government formed CCSP a year ago to facilitate climate-change research across thirteen federal agencies. CCSP released its draft strategic plan for public comment in November and also held a workshop in Washington where hundreds of climate scientists and other stakeholders commented on the plan. CCSP asked the Research Council to review the draft plan as well.
The draft plan provides a solid foundation for future research by identifying some exciting new initiatives that build on the success of the Global Change Research Program, which has been funding valuable research for more than a decade, the committee said. It commended CCSP for introducing an emphasis on the need for science to address national needs, including support for people in the public and private sectors whose decisions are affected by climate change.
However, the plan needs to be revised substantially, the committee concluded. To begin with, the plan should more clearly articulate CCSP's goals and priorities for meeting national needs. These goals should be accompanied by ways to measure progress, clear timetables, and an assessment of whether current research efforts are capable of meeting them.
The plan also should be revised to present clear and consistent goals for a new component of CCSP called the Climate Change Research Initiative, designed to support activities that would produce results of value to decision makers within two to four years.
Revisions are also necessary to fulfill key information needs, the committee said. For example, there is a strong need for research aimed at developing models that can forecast the regional impact of climate change. This information is essential for local officials. For instance, municipalities may need to construct coastal barriers if sea levels keep rising because polar ice caps continue to melt, and authorities in the western United States may confront increased water shortages if less snow falls in the Rocky Mountains.
The draft plan also does not adequately build on prior U.S. and international reports that have provided scientific information to policy makers, the committee added. It said the revised plan should better take into account the lessons learned about climate forecasts and stakeholder involvement found in such reports, especially the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Climate Variability and Change and the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
While it acknowledges both that uncertainty is inherent in science and that it is not an excuse for inaction by policy makers, the draft plan has not identified where an improved understanding of the significance of uncertainties, or reductions in uncertainty, is expected to have the greatest value to decision makers, the committee added. The revised plan should do more to identify which uncertainties are most important to reduce and by how much, and to look at how uncertainties can be better explained to policy makers.
The committee did not have time to examine the president's proposed budget for next fiscal year in detail, but a cursory review indicated that funding for the Climate Change Research Initiative was increased at the expense of the Global Change Research Program. Funding decisions should be guided by priorities in the revised strategic plan, the committee said.
Existing management processes may not be adequate to ensure that the thirteen agencies involved in CCSP cooperate toward the program's goals, the committee found. The revised strategic plan needs to clearly describe the responsibilities of program leadership and ways to foster greater agency cooperation. At the same time, CCSP should encourage participation by other mission-oriented agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the land management agencies of the Department of the Interior.
The committee, whose work was sponsored by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, will review a revised strategic plan later this year. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. Copies of Planning Climate and Global Change Research: A Review of the Draft U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan will be available this spring from the National Academies Press (ph.: 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242; or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu).
The report is also available online at http://national-academies.org.
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The Dallas–Ft. Worth Metroplex (DFW) is the largest metropolitan area in "Tornado Alley," and is at greatest risk to experience a major tornado disaster according to experts from the Texas Severe Storm Association (TESSA).
"There's no doubt that DFW's size will play a role in an upcoming major tornado event," said TESSA Chairman Martin Lisius. "It's simply astonishing that DFW has managed to avoid a disaster, like the one that occurred near Oklahoma City in 1999, given the Metroplex's size and location within Tornado Alley. Not only is DFW within a region of high tornado frequency, but it is also positioned near the highest frequency of violent class (F4–F5) tornado activity in the world," he said.
The group predicts that if a tornado outbreak similar to the 3 May 1999 Oklahoma City outbreak would occur in the Dallas–Ft. Worth area, it could cause damages of $3 billion dollars with nearly 24,000 structures impacted. Based on a scenario of overlaying similar storm tracks on the Texas city, and based on the characteristics of the tornado tracks, time of day, day of the week, and scenario date, fatalities could be greater than 300 with injuries greater than 6,000. The event would be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, according to TESSA. Experts agree that it's not a matter of "if," but rather "when" a tornado disaster of this magnitude will occur in the Metroplex. The scenario was part of a severe weather awareness week in early March.
TESSA is a national nonprofit association dedicated to severe weather research and education, and is based in Arlington, Texas. Additional information about TESSA can be accessed online at http://www.tessa.org.
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Critical river forecasts and water information is now available on the Internet for the public and emergency managers. The Internet site features maps, which allow viewers to zoom in and out of the areas of interest. It also uses software that provides an alert when flood watches and warnings are in effect, or if river locations are nearing flood levels.
Information can be found at the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) Web site: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/ahps.
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Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly 0.05% per decade, according to researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York.
"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," said Richard Willson, researcher and lead author of the study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.
"Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late nineteenth century. If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the twentieth century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.
The solar cycle occurs approximately every eleven years when the sun undergoes a period of increased magnetic and sunspot activity called the "solar maximum," followed by a quiet period called the "solar minimum."
Although the inferred increase of solar irradiance in twenty-four years, about 0.1%, is not enough to cause notable climate change, the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more. Satellite observations of total solar irradiance have obtained a long enough record (over twenty-four years) to begin looking for this effect.
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is the radiant energy received by the earth from the sun, over all wavelengths, outside the atmosphere. TSI interaction with the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses is the biggest factor determining our climate. To put it into perspective, decreases in TSI of 0.2% occur during the weeklong passage of large sunspot groups across our side of the sun. These changes are relatively insignificant compared to the sun's total output of energy, yet equivalent to all the energy that mankind uses in a year. According to Willson, small variations, like the one found in this study, if sustained over many decades, could have significant climate effects.
For more information see http://www.acrim.com.
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This month, NOAA will move one of its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), GOES-9, to back up Japan's Geostationary Meteorological Satellite-5 (GMS-5), which is operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
GMS-5, launched in 1995, is past its useful life and has encountered recent imaging troubles and fuel shortages. GOES-9, also launched in 1995, was placed in storage mode after it no longer met NOAA's full operational requirements. The satellite still has sounding and imaging capabilities and can serve as a limited replacement for the GMS-5.
In 1999, Japan planned to replace the ailing satellite with its Multifunctional Transportation Satellite (MTSAT-1), but experienced a launch failure. The replacement satellite, MTSAT-1R, is currently scheduled for launch this summer.
Moving GOES-9 is important during the upcoming Pacific typhoon season, according to NOAA officials.
"Typhoon Chata'an showed just how crucial satellite data are when tracking an active, deadly storm in the Pacific," said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph. D, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, and NOAA administrator.
"GOES-9 will help forecasters protect residents of Japan and other nations in the Pacific by providing the latest information on the storm's movement."
Under the agreement, Japan covered the cost of upgrading NOAA's Command and Data Acquisition Station in Fairbanks, Alaska, which now enables the agency to control GOES over the western Pacific. Japan will also pay to move and operate GOES-9. The agreement also lays the framework to negotiate a long-term mutual back-up arrangement, which would allow the United States to ask Japan for help if one of the U.S. GOES satellites has problems.
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Mary M. Glackin, who just completed a term as AMS councilor, has been named to the new position of assistant administrator of NOAA Program Planning and Integration. This office was established after an internal review by NOAA.
Glackin formerly served as deputy administrator for NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.
"Last winter we asked NOAA employees to look at the agency and tell us what was working, what wasn't working, and what we needed to look for in the future. An internal team reviewed those recommendations and recognized that NOAA's operation should function in the same interrelated manner as the environment we observe and forecast," said NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher.
To move in that direction, known as matrix management, cross-cutting teams were created to bridge talent, funding and management from various NOAA offices to focus on a specific issue.
The first three matrix programs within the agency—climate, homeland security and coral reefs—were selected because every NOAA line office is key to addressing them. The responsibility for coordinating these and future teams as well as the NOAA strategic planning process, will be assumed by the Office of Program Planning and Integration.
At NOAA Satellites and Information, Glackin was responsible for overseeing satellite operations, satellite data processing and distribution, systems development, research, and applications, as well as three national data centers.
Glackin won the 1999 Smithsonian–ComputerWorld Award for Information Technology in the energy, environment, and agriculture category for her work on the Advanced Weather Information Prediction System. She also received the 2001 Presidential Rank Award for extraordinary contributions to NOAA's management and programs.
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Steven D. Schurr has been named to head the Omaha NOAA Weather Service forecast office. Schurr began his new duties as meteorologist in charge 9 February.
A twenty-six-year weather service veteran, Schurr has held a variety of forecast and management positions in Kansas and Nebraska. From his beginnings as a meteorologist intern at the Topeka, Kansas, Weather Service office in 1977, Schurr worked his way through forecasting and management positions with increasing responsibility to lead forecaster, warning coordination program leader, and meteorologist in charge.
Schurr earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Kansas State University in 1970. He studied meteorology at San Jose State University and did graduate study in business at the University of North Dakota and Washburn University in Topeka. He spent more than six years with the U.S. Air Force, serving as a weather officer and as a missile launch officer.
Schurr advanced through the positions of aviation forecaster, warning and preparedness meteorologist, and lead forecaster. In 1992, he was selected as the first warning coordination meteorologist (WCM) at the Wichita, Kansas, forecast office as part of the Weather Service's modernization. He supervised the office's warning and coordination programs and community outreach to ensure strengthened relationships with emergency managers, local officials, and the public. Schurr was promoted to meteorologist in charge of the Hastings forecast office in June 1993.
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"Fujita. A Life in the Storm," an episode in the educational series of The Weather Channel, was awarded a Telly Award in February 2003. The original half-hour program, produced by The Weather Channel and Pietrobon & Company, won honors in the educational programming category.
The program, which premiered 30 September 2002, is a biography of Dr. Theodore "Ted" Fujita, whose groundbreaking work shaped the way the scientific community measures tornadoes and violent storms. It continues to air on The Weather Channel periodically for teachers to use and tape for classroom use. The program has drawn praise from the educational and scientific communities as well as contemporaries of Fujita himself.
The Telly Awards was founded in 1980, to showcase and give recognition to outstanding nonnetwork and cable commercials. The competition was expanded several years ago to include film and video productions. Each year, the Telly Awards receive over 10,000 entries. Winners of the 23rd Annual Telly Awards included: A&E, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, National Geographic Television, WGBH Educational Foundation, and Walt Disney Studios.
The Weather Channel began introducing new productions for The Weather Classroom educational series in the fall of 2000. The network, a charter member of Cable in Classroom, has provided an educational series since 1992. The new programs are designed to examine fundamental weather topics that stimulate students' curiosity about the world outside their classroom windows.
The Weather Classroom, which airs Mondays and Thursday at 4 A.M. EST is offered free and without copyright restriction when used for educational purposes. Each episode is closed captioned.
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RS Information Systems (RSIS) has won NASA's George M. Low Award for Quality and Technical Excellence in the Small Business–Services category. The George M. Low Award is the agency's premier quality and performance award for prime contractors and subcontractors. The annual award recognizes large and small businesses that demonstrate excellence and outstanding technical and managerial achievements in quality and performance on NASA-related contracts or subcontracts.
RSIS is a contractor on several science, engineering, and IT projects at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with nearly 200 RSIS IT and engineering professionals supporting those contracts.
NASA Deputy Administrator Frederick D. Gregory presented the award to Scott Amey, RSIS Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. The Low Award recognized RSIS's ability to satisfy the customer, generate and meet performance requirements, continuously improve its processes, save costs for NASA, use tools and processes for measuring performance, and effectively manage subcontractors.
RSIS is an AMS corporate member, and sponsors an AMS Minority Undergraduate Scholarship.
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