Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor: Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Marcie Bernstein
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
AMS Hosts Corporate Forum
For the AMS, the forum was a chance to say “thank you” to AMS corporation and institutional members who generously support the atmospheric and related sciences in general as well as specific AMS programs such as fellowships and scholarships. For the attendees, the forum was an opportunity to hear senior administration officers talk about agency plans and budget priorities, to discuss various aspects of the public–private relationship, and to meet with and socialize with other corporate members and government officials. AMS Executive Director Ronald D. McPherson hosted the event, and also organized and recruited panelists for the first session. The agency plans and budget outlook panelists, all senior administration officials, included Scott Gudes, the acting NOAA Administrator and Department of Commerce Deputy Undersecretary; former astronaut Mary Cleave, the NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Earth Science; Jarvis L. Moyers, the Director of NSF’s Division Atmospheric Sciences; Captain David Martin, U.S. Navy, Director of the OceanUS program; and Ari Patrinos, the DOE Associate Director for Biological and Environmental Research. Each panelist described their agency’s budget priorities under the new Bush Administration, the short-range budget outlook, and current agency plans. An ad hoc committee chaired by AMS Past President George Frederick, the Director of Marketing and Sales, Meteorological Systems for URS Radian Corporation, helped set the overall meeting goals and structure. Other committee members include Jim Cooper, the Director of Business Development for DynCorp Information Systems; Adarsh Deepek, the President and CEO of Science and Technology Corporation; Bob Baron, the President and CEO of Baron Services; Gregory Wilson, the Baron Services Executive Vice President of Research and Technology; and Steve Johnson, the Remote Sensing Programs Senior Product Line Manager for ITT Aerospace/Communications Corporation.
Deepak’s panel explored issues associated with broadening access of the private sector to contracts with public sector agencies that provide weather and climate products and services. Panelists included Leonard R. McMaster, the Director of Atmospheric Sciences Research at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Dr. Jack Hayes, Director of the NSW Office of Science and Technology, and Robert L. Plante, Science Office Director, Raytheon Systems Company. Administrative support for the forum was provided by Stephanie Armstrong, AMS Director of Development; Gary Rasmussen, AMS Private Sector Coordinator; Elizabeth Miller, Office Manager for the AMS D.C. office; Melissa Ficek, meeting planner, and Donna Fernandez, AMS Scholarship and Fellowship Coordinator. Early feedback from attendees indicates that the meeting was a rousing success. But, there’s always room for improvement and the AMS Private Sector Coordinator is actively seeking ideas for making next year’s Corporate Forum the best yet. Please send any suggestions you may have by e-mail to grasmussen@ametsoc.org. |
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Jeffrey O. Rosenfeld has been selected as Editor in Chief of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Rosenfeld joins the AMS staff on 7 May. As Editor in Chief, Rosenfeld will be responsible for story ideas, leads and structuring overall content.
As a former managing editor with Weatherwise magazine and a well-published freelance writer, Rosenfeld will bring tremendous expertise in writing, editing, and publishing to the job.
During his tenure at Weatherwise, Rosenfeld was responsible for content and production of the award-winning bimonthly consumer magazine about weather published by Heldref Publications in Washington, D.C. He planned issues and assigned, selected, and edited articles; wrote features, short articles, columns, captions, and other copy; recruited writers, artists, and photographers; introduced new departments and online features; and produced a special double-length issue to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the American Meteorological Society.
He also supervised staff, freelance contributors, and design contractors; coordinated national board of scientific advisors; monitored budgets; negotiated fees with contributors and contractors; oversaw production and design elements including schedules and article, advertising, and color placements.
Rosenfeld authored the book Eye of the Storm: Inside the World’s Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards (Plenum Press, 1999), a comprehensive history of scientists’ understanding of storms with particular attention to recent meteorological progress.
He has also written numerous feature articles on weather for the quarterly magazine Scientific American Presents (2000); chapters on diverse scientific topics for Mammals and Weather, two of the series of Explore Your World Handbooks published by the Discovery Channel (1999); and an extended chapter on storms for Restless Earth (1996), a National Geographic Society book.
Also have contributed articles on earthquake engineering, tornado chasing, and El Niño for Frontiers (the National Science Foundation newsletter), among other publications.
He has also taught a magazine publishing course at George Washington University as part of the Publications Specialist Certificate program for continuing-education students.
A graduate of Princeton University, Rosenfeld’s work has earned him several Distinguished Achievement Awards from the Educational Press Association of America as the editor and writer of photo stories published in Weatherwise in the 1994, 1995, and 1996 national educational journalism competitions, as well as an award for feature writing from the Washington, D.C., chapter in 1993.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
With a booth and several presentations, the American Meteorological Society will have a strong presence at this year’s Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s (ITS America) annual meeting. The efforts at the ITS America meeting are part of the 10-year vision study for the AMS, which challenged the Society to increase its outreach activities, in particular, with weather sensitive industries. AMS participation at ITS America’s conference is the first of several such events. The goal is to make weather sensitive industries aware of the Society and its members’ services. The ITS America conference takes place 4–7 June in Miami, Florida.
Weather, and the surface conditions it affects, is a dynamic factor in surface transportation performance. The Intelligent Transportation System creates new challenges to link weather information with transportation managers and users. The aviation and maritime modes have long recognized the need for weather applications research, and have been funded accordingly. Surface transportation has even greater needs, and now is the time to move toward a dedicated, nationally coordinated, program that addresses surface transportation weather. A campaign for such a program aims at the federal surface transportation program reauthorization of 2004.
The AMS is organizing session 37, 8:30–10:00 A.M., Tuesday 5 June, at ITS 2001, to initiate an agenda for a Transportation-Weather Applications for National Deployment (T-WAND) program. The session is inviting six speakers to address the agenda from the government, private, and research community perspectives.
These speakers include Bill Mahoney of NCAR; Shelley Row of the U.S. DOT; Jimmie Smith, chairman of the AMS Private Sector Board of Meteorology; Leon Osborne of the University of North Dakota; Jack Hayes of NWS; and Wilfrid Nixon of the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research. Information will be updated via the Web site http://www.itsa.org.
AMS has also contributed to session 50, 3:30–5:00 P.M., Tuesday 5 June, Transportation and Weather: Case Studies. Three case studies will be presented to explore the impacts of weather on intelligent transportation systems and transportation related issues. There will be two paper presentations and one panel discussion. One paper will examine the use of weather information to improve winter road safety and maintenance. A second presentation will discuss a real-time state level road and weather information network. The session will conclude with a panel presentation, organized by the AMS, focusing on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The discussion will look at the public–private–academic model of cooperation used to deliver winter weather information for road maintenance and transportation operations.
At the conclusion of session 50, a wrap-up session will be convened to discuss the results of these sessions and plan for future involvement for AMS with ITS America. Expanding the session for the 2002 ITS America annual meeting will be a main topic.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Ana Luise Unruh, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford in England, has been selected as the 2001–02 AMS–University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) congressional science fellow. The AMS Congressional Science Fellowship is part of a program administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Unruh is currently working on her thesis on “Isotopic Studies of Eurasian Loess” at the University of Oxford, where she is also tutor in geochemistry. A graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and Indiana University in Cardwell, Montana, Unruh’s research experience includes being a field assistant in mapping and collecting samples for petrologic and geochemical work from the Karakoram Metamorphic Complex in the Braldu River Valley. She was also a student scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and a summer student fellow at Woods Hole Research Institute. She has received several awards for her academic work including the U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a Rhodes scholarship, and Visiting Scholar in the Geography Department at Peking 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 within offices of individual Members of Congress and committees for a 1-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. The Fellows 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, which, ideally, should help them understand how the research community can effectively communicate with one another on important national policy issues. The 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 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.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The AMS and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) have selected 15 students to participate in the upcoming Summer Policy Colloquium, to be held in Washington, D.C., 3–12 June. The colloquium will bring together a select group of scientists, federal managers, private sector executives, students, and faculty in Washington, D.C., for an intense immersion in atmospheric public policy.
The students, all selected competitively, are Courtney Schumacher, University of Washington; Tracy Twine, University of Wisconsin; Paul Roundy and Traci Arthur, Pennsylvania State University; Galen McKinley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Arlene Fiore, Harvard University; Tara Fortin, University of Colorado; Tegan Blaine, Scripps Institute of Oceanography; Holly Hartman and Wendy Thomas, University of Arizona; Amy Stuart, Stanford University; Mark Shafer, University of Oklahoma; Becky Alexander, University of California, San Diego; Tracey Holloway, Princeton University; and Rebecca Morss, NCAR Advanced Study Program. AMS and UCAR will pay all travel and subsistence expenses and waive colloquium fees for these students.
In addition to the students, participants will be drawn from midlevel to senior managers from government and the private sector, as well as university faculty.
Participants will visit Capitol Hill and the White House to learn and to engage staff in dialogue. Through case studies on the creation of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and how the World Meteorological Organization is working with the question of free and open data exchange, through role-playing exercises, as well as through other interactive instruments, participants will develop understanding of the policy process, and at the same time contribute to building the public policy capabilities of the weather and climate community, broadly defined.
Also included in this period is a one-day meeting of corporate members with policy-level agency officials of the Bush administration, scheduled for 11 June. The final day of the colloquium, 12 June, will be devoted to presentations and dialog on the role of policy, weather and climate events, and entrepreneurial vision in fostering the development of the private sector.
Complete details on the colloquium and the application process are available on the AMS Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS (under the Atmospheric Policy Program link) or contact Dr. William Hooke at (202) 682-9006, e-mail: hooke@dc.ametsoc.org.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The AMS Washington, D.C., office will be moving this fall to a new location at 1120 G. Street NW, directly across the street from the 12th and G exit at Metro Center. The move is necessary because two programs long housed in the D.C. office—the Precollege Education Program and the Meetings/Exhibits Program—and the new Atmospheric Policy Program, have outgrown the current office space at 1200 New York Ave. The new offices will have approximately 12 000 square feet of space, some of which will be sublet to compatible organizations. The move is scheduled for early October.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Floyd Kvamme, a venture capitalist who established 400-member High Tech Council that advised candidate George Bush on technology during the presidential campaign, has been named cochairman of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST).
PCAST, first established in 1990, consists of individuals from the private and academic communities who offer advice to the president. The other cochair is yet to be named.
In naming Kvamme during a meeting with high technology executives at the White House on 28 March, the president said, “Science and technology have never been more essential to the defense of the nation and the health of our economy. I will hear the best scientific and technological advice from leaders in your field. And I can think of no better coordinator than Floyd. He is an entrepreneur; he is a risk taker; he understands risk and reward. But, more importantly, he knows the players, the people who can bring good, sound advice to this administration.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The U.S. Air Force is consolidating its weather forecast operations into nine operational weather centers.
Instead of having individual combat weather teams do the forecasting for every Air Force, Army and reserve base around the world, forecasting now will be done at the operational weather centers, or “hubs,” according to the Air Force Times.
The change is intended to relieve manning shortages in the weather field and to reduce workloads and the stress base forecasters have experienced for years.
Operational weather centers are being formed at six air bases in the United States and at bases in Japan and Germany, along with a contingent of forecasters at the Air Force Weather Agency at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
The base locations are Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; Hickam AFB, Hawaii; David-Monthan AFB, Arizona; Barksdale AFB, Louisiana; Shaw AFB, South Carolina; Selmbach Air Base, Germany; Yokota Air Base, Japan; and Yongsan, South Korea. The Yongsan operations are expected to be merged with Yokota.
So far, the only fully operational hub is at Elmendorf. Seven of the other hubs are in various stages of gearing up for their new missions, with the final squadron at Hickam becoming operational early next year. Individual bases and deployed units still will have weather units—known as combat weather teams—with smaller staffs than before, officials said.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The United States Navy and The Weather Channel formalize a Memorandum of Understanding encouraging professional collaboration between the two organizations on 13 April. As Executive Agent for the navy, Rear Admiral Richard D. West, Oceanographer of the navy, signed the document with Mr. Ray Ban, Executive Vice President for Meteorological Affairs and Operations, The Weather Channel.
The agreement will foster cooperation between the two organizations and allow them to jointly examine new methods and technologies for producing and presenting forecasts. It allows The Weather Channel to use climate, weather, and ocean data produced by the navy and made available in the public domain, including data generated by the navy’s supercomputer at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, Monterey, California. This computer is one of the world’s most sophisticated tools for global weather and ocean modeling, utilizing the largest existing real-time databases of oceanic and atmospheric observations.
For example, The Weather Channel will have access to the navy’s Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System, or COAMPS. This system is used to predict changes in the ocean and weather conditions in the highly complex coastal areas of the world, a uniquely navy operating environment. Such collaborations will ultimately benefit the advancement of the science of weather prediction, ensuring the nation gets the greatest possible benefit from their investment in weather and oceanography.
Ban expressed his pleasure with the agreement. “At The Weather Channel, we’re dedicated to providing our customers with as much relevant information as we can to help them plan their lives. We’re excited to move forward with the new Navy products we will be using. We’re especially excited about the opportunities with the COAMPS products.”
As Oceanographer of the navy, Admiral West heads a globally distributed organization with over 3000 personnel and a fleet of eight multimission oceanographic survey ships providing U.S. Naval and Joint forces integrated full-spectrum weather, ocean, charting, precise time, and astronomic knowledge to minimize risk and optimize operational success anytime, anywhere.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The Bush Administration and all federal agencies presented details of their FY02 budget submissions in mid-April. The American Meteorological Society attended a series of briefings by NASA, NOAA, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Energy. A special edition of the AMS Newsletter highlighting the budget details will be online in early May.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
More than 1100 scientists, researchers and experts gathered at the Washington, D.C., Omni Shoreham Hotel 9–13 April for the 23rd annual National Hurricane Conference.
The weeklong program went “very well,” according to Dr. T. Michael Carter, of Alexandria, Virginia, chairman of the conference-planning group, who presided over the meeting. Attendance was about as expected, he said, and overall the event presented a comprehensive review of all phases of hurricane-related topics.
The conference featured many of the top officials and representatives from the public and private sectors as well as training sessions, workshops, and discussions on a variety of topics.
Prominent speakers included Scott Gudes, deputy undersecretary of commerce and acting NOAA administrator; John J. Kelly Jr., National Weather Service director; Max Mayfield, director, National Hurricane Center; Ray Ban, executive vice president, The Weather Channel, Inc.; Charles Lanza, director, Office of Emergency Management, Miami-Dade County, Florida; Dick Greenfield, director, Atmospheric Policy Program, AMS; Jason McNamara, special assistant, Response and Recovery Program, FEMA; Bob Shea, Larry Zensinger, and Pat Stahlschmidt, all of FEMA; Eric Tolbert, director, North Carolina Emergency Management and president-elect of the National Emergency Management Association; Steve Lyons, The Weather Channel; and Kerry Emanuel, professor of meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Among the training sessions were discussions on debris management, emergency operations center management and operations, recovery, hurricane planning, mitigation, an AMS–Weather Channel policy forum, assessment of hurricane preparedness and response, disaster planning for animals, hurricane impact on urban landscapes, hurricane basics for children, making the nation more resilient to hurricanes, amateur radio operations in hurricanes, and sheltering and evacuation planning.
Workshops included hurricane forecasting; hurricane rain and wind hazards; delivering consistent messages; research; engineering; planning; evacuation; sheltering; response; recovery; insurance; mitigation; utilities; fire/EMS; private industry; health care and special needs; and law enforcement.
See related stories.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The Colorado State University forecasting team, led by William Gray, has suggested a near normal hurricane season for 2001.
Gray, speaking at the National Hurricane Conference in Washington, D.C., in April, predicted the 1 June–30 October season would bring 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense (Saffir–Simpson category 3 or higher) hurricanes. Those figures represent an increase of 1 tropical storm and 1 hurricane over an earlier season forecast released by Gray last December.
A professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State in Fort Collins, Gray said that despite expected near “normalcy” for the 2001 season, activity will exceed the average storm activity in the quiet period of 1970–94 when population and property grew at a rapid pace along the southeast U.S. coast and the Florida peninsula.
When he issued his forecast in December, he said, climate signals were not quite as clear as in some years. He said that the team was not as confident about the 2001 forecast as it had been about the 2000 forecast, in which it predicted 11–14 tropical storms, 7 or 8 hurricanes, and 3 of category 3 intensity.
“There are definitely mixed signals this year,” he explained, “and we’ve been debating the number since they became available....Our statistical calculations are somewhat jumbled. Some years are easier than others, and this is not an easy forecast year.”
What’s confusing the forecasters, he said, is strong climate signals, pro and con. An El Niño is forecast that could cause winds in the tropical Atlantic to blow more strongly from a westerly direction and hence be unfavorable to hurricane formation. However, signals from the Atlantic—sea surface temperatures, average barometric pressures at the ocean’s surface and the Azorean high—all seem to indicate a more forceful hurricane season.
“Looking at the factors that both promote and inhibit hurricanes,” he said, “we feel that our reasoning should hold fairly well.
One inhibiting factor is the El Niño, which has been absent in the past few years, he said. Characteristically, he explained, in El Niño westerly winds in the upper atmosphere act to shear the tops off Atlantic easterly waves coming off the African coast, preventing them from growing into named storms or hurricanes.
“Most of us agree that a weak to moderate El Niño event will fall well short of the one that occurred in 1997, limiting that season’s total named storms to seven,” he said.
Another inhibiting factor is the quasi-biennial oscillation, an equatorial stratospheric wind pattern that blows east to west for about 14 months and then reverses direction for about the same period and changes yet again. The winds will be easterly this season, Gray said, causing some further inhibition of Atlantic easterly waves from forming into named storms.
On the other hand, he continued, “the Atlantic sea surface temperatures will be relatively warm and will tend to enhance this season’s prospects for tropical storm formation.”
Below-average barometric pressures at the Atlantic’s surface will also help hurricanes form, added Gray. A ridge of high barometric pressure found over the Azores Islands is very low this year, he said. That will add to the Atlantic’s hurricane-promoting ability, he contended.
Another factor favoring hurricane formation is the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation system. Relatively warm sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are a proxy measure of the strength of this ocean current that moves warm, salty water from the Tropics to the North Atlantic. Historically, he said, a strong thermohaline circulation system signals more major hurricanes making landfall on the East Coast and Florida peninsula and weaker tropical storms making landfall along the Gulf Coast.
Gray estimates the probability of one or more major (Saffir–Simpson 3, 4, or 5) hurricanes making landfall along the entire U.S. coastline in 2001 at 65%. The past century’s average is 52%. For the East Coast and Florida peninsula, the 2001 landfall probability is 46%. For the past century, it was 31%. The Gulf Coast, from the Florida panhandle westward to Brownsville, Texas, has a major hurricane landfall probability of 37%, compared with 30% for the century.
Gray said the United States has been fortunate in recent years. Between 1900 and 2000, 218 major storms occurred in the Atlantic Basin, with 73 (1 in 3) coming ashore in the United States. Of the 23 major storms in the last 6 years, only 3 have made landfall, he said.
“What we believe” he said, “is that 2001 will prove to be less active than the very busy seasons of 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000 but definitely more active than the average of the 25-year period of relatively low activity we saw beginning in 1970.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
In preparation for the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season, which opens 1 June, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane specialists and U.S. Air Force Reserve “Hurricane Hunter” crew conducted a weeklong tour of Central America and Mexico recently, meeting with weather and emergency officials.
The annual tour, which began 16 April and ran through 20 April, is part of a United Nations effort that enables forecasters from NOAA’s NWS and Central American meteorologists and government officials to review critical public safety issues, such as evacuation planning and air traffic control procedures as well as improving hurricane forecasts and warnings.
Last year, Hurricane Keith—one of 14 named tropical storms in the Atlantic—killed 24 people, 12 in Nicaragua, 6 in Honduras, 5 in Belize, and 1 in Mexico. In Belize alone, the storm caused $225 million in damages.
The NOAA specialists and crew from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi, visited Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Max Mayfield, director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and the tour’s team leader, said the outreach effort helps meet the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) goal for better weather forecasts across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the western Atlantic, and eastern Pacific.
“It’s important to leave the confines of our forecasting center and the cockpit of the hurricane-hunting aircraft to visit the danger areas and meet our teammates in the countries we collectively serve,” Mayfield explained. “These are the voices on the other end of the telephone when we make our coordination calls. Their locales are potential sites for the next land-falling hurricane. We consult with them before the storm to facilitate forecasting when the storm arrives.”
Mayfield said the partner countries have developed extensive procedures for sharing vital weather information. “The United States depends on the surface and upper air observations taken by member countries,” he noted. “These observations are fed into computer numerical models to forecast the track and intensity of a storm approaching any one of the 24 member countries in the region.”
In addition to meeting with officials, the tour members provided the public at the various sites visited with an opportunity to view the WC-130 aircraft used by the Hurricane Hunters.
Sites visited included Villahermosa, Mexico; Cancun, Mexico; Kingston, Jamaica; Aquadilla, Puerto Rico; and St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
Lt. Col. Robert Carter, the 53rd’s weather officer, said the tour gave people an opportunity to see the aircraft and talk to the aircrew. “These men and women are the aviators and mission specialists who routinely penetrate into the eye of the hurricane, gathering data about the storm’s position and intensity,” he said.
Additionally, he noted, “Our ability to meet local air traffic controllers who coordinate and control our flights is vital in saving time so that we may proceed to where we are needed with minimum delay.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The Bush Administration’s director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency outlined progress that has been made in reducing hurricane human and property losses and identified new steps being made to improve that effort, but cautioned that “there is still much work to be done.”
Speaking before the National Hurricane Conference in Washington, D.C., on 11 April, Joe M. Albaugh told the audience that the new administration is committed to the agency’s missions of preparedness and mitigation and “it is my intention to continue this focus.”
Albaugh, who was President George W. Bush’s chief of staff when the chief executive was governor of Texas, said, “I assure you that FEMA is prepared for the 2001 hurricane season. We have made great strides, as a nation, in preparing for hurricanes. But with growing population in our coastal regions and the associated valuable and complicated infrastructure and with a forecast of climate cycles of increased weather extremes, we must all recognize that there is still much work to be done.”
He described the impact of Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which resulted in the largest evacuation in the nation’s history. “Thankfully,” he said, “the 2000 hurricane season was less severe. There were no major evacuations...But there’s no doubt that we will face this issue again. Without effective management of evacuations, the volume of people quickly leaving an area will overwhelm our transportation systems.”
To address that problem, he explained, FEMA has established an evacuation liaison team, located in FEMA’s Region IV office in Atlanta. The team serves as a focal point for coordination and communication among states enduring an evacuation and is a concept that Albaugh said he intends to expand to other regions.
NOAA, he said, has advised FEMA that “we can continue to expect some forecast error for hurricanes: for hurricane tracking and intensity predictions. Evacuation decisions will have to be made without exact information in order to minimize the loss of life in heavily populated coastal regions.”
While the National Hurricane Center (NHC) is working to improve those predictions, he explained, the emergency management community will continue to be faced with the challenges of making recommendations and decisions that affect people’s lives.
“To that end,” he continued, “we have established the Hurricane Liaison Team to provide the critical link between the National Hurricane Center forecasters and the emergency management community. Staffed by FEMA and operating from dedicated offices at the NHC, the Hurricane Liaison Team responds to emergency managers by providing forecast updates issued by the center and by answering questions about the forecast.”
He said also that FEMA has embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a state-of-the-art risk-assessment and loss-estimation tool called HAZUS, or Hazards-US. Using information about communities’ buildings, critical facilities, roads and other important features, he noted, HAZUS will provide an estimate of the expected loss that a community would suffer from hurricanes of various sizes and intensities.
He noted also that FEMA plans to release a hurricane preview model by December 2002 and a full model by 2005 or 2006.
As a result of Hurricane Floyd and the devastating impact of severe inland flooding, FEMA has received authorization to spend up to $15 million from the Disaster Relief Fund to modernize and update its flood maps nationwide, a step he described as significant toward identifying flood hazards nationwide. FEMA also is developing a series of simple, practical, how-to field guides to help state and local governments in their planning processes from risk assessment to plan preparation and evaluation.
“Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” he said, “a profound transformation has taken place in the nation’s posture toward the development and the adoption of comprehensive building codes. Since April 2000, we have had a single set of disaster-resistant national building codes that address all hazards, especially wind, flood and seismic threats. I’m pleased to say that state and local governments are beginning to adopt and enforce these codes, which include hurricane-related provisions such as improved roofing designs, structural connections, and window protection.
“But, make no mistake: these mitigation features will make a difference in reducing damage. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of adopting and enforcing disaster-resistant building codes. And I urge every state and local government to examine their priority of retrofitting our existing building inventory in high-hazard areas. We have the technology; we must apply it.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
So far this year, “the American Red Cross has responded to 70 large disasters in 26 states, affecting more than 132,000 people—and it isn’t even hurricane season yet. Mostly unnoticed by the media, it could be the most extensive disaster year in our history.
“From winter storms in the Northeast and tornadoes in the South, to floods in Texas and an earthquake in Washington, and now the Red River Valley in Minnesota, disasters are on the rise.”
That’s the warning issued by Dr. Madeline Healy, president and CEO of the American Red Cross, during National Hurricane Week in Washington, D.C., 9–13 April.
“With more disasters occurring faster and more people in harm’s way in coastal areas, we must be prepared,” she urged. “Despite technology and vivid stories replayed in the media, people are still so often not ready for disasters when and where they strike. We have an obligation to educate people on how to prepare: protecting their homes, their loved ones, even their pets in a hurricane.
“We must raise the awareness about disasters. Because it is not a question of if, but it is really a question of when the next disaster will strike. We hope to minimize the human harm by helping people prepare.”
Dr. Healy, a physician, pointed out that the Red Cross tradition of caring established by Clara Barton two centuries ago continues. “Our immutable purpose: to prevent and relieve human suffering,” she explained. “A core belief of the Red Cross is honoring human dignity and helping each person, one by one, get back on their feet.
“It is not just the immediate physical needs of sheltering and nourishing the bodies of those displaced by hurricanes. It is also realizing that such disasters touch the soul. Disasters cause emotional and spiritual crises for many people. Family separation, loss, displacement, isolation—we are there, too.”
She said, “Be it hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fires—disaster share a common characteristic—they are unexpected and touch each soul one by one in a permanent way. Unfair and inexplicable, they create an extraordinary imprint on the mind, the body and the spirit of a family, a community and a nation.
She pointed out that last fall the Red Cross commissioned a poll of people on the eastern seaboard and along the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast.
“We found that only half of coastal residents are concerned that their families could be affected by a disaster,” she said. “Only 41% have an evacuation plan. Of those who do have a plan, only 22% have explained that plan to their children. Less than one-third of those who own pets have a plan for where to shelter them during evacuation. And we know some people won’t evacuate because they can’t always bring their pets.
“We also found that 60% of people have not thought about where they might take their family if they need to leave their home. Seventy percent of respondents do not have a disaster kit ready for speedy evacuation (things like a flashlight, batteries, medications, water, a first aid kit, canned food, a manual can opener, extra clothes and cash. Not surprisingly, it was the people who had suffered through a hurricane who were most prepared for the next one.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
NOAA scientists have found links between slow, multidecadal changes in North Atlantic ocean temperatures to south Florida flood and drought cycles.
The researchers from NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and Florida’s South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) in a study slated for release in the May issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters reviewed North Atlantic sea surface temperature shifts between warm and cool phases that last two to four decades each.
According to the scientists, central and south Florida receive more rainfall during multiyear periods when the North Atlantic is warm. A 10-year average inflow to Lake Okeechobee during warm phases, for example, is 40% greater than for cool phases.
For most of the past 30 years, the North Atlantic has been cool, and Florida has had less rainfall, the researchers noted. Current data suggest, they reported, that a transition to warm conditions is under way, which should result in less frequent droughts, but more frequent flooding.
By adapting water management strategies to this North Atlantic climate pattern, water managers hope to better meet the competing objectives of flood control, water supply, and environmental enhancement.
“Southern Florida’s natural ecosystems benefit greatly from this newly-found relationship,” said Paul Trimble of SFWMD. “Climate variability affects the evolution and needs of the natural systems that depend on water availability. Understanding these climate factors will allow us to make operating decisions on flood protection and water supply sooner and less abruptly. This will help us manage south Florida’s precious natural ecosystems in a less intrusive, more friendly manner.”
“As North Atlantic temperatures rise, the increased rainfall may take the form of fewer droughts and/or more frequent flooding, although occasional droughts may still occur,” explained David Enfield of AOML. “Such extreme events can be likened to the effects of occasional large waves that alternately crash on a beach at different phases of the tide. Storm waves are less likely to produce damage during low tide than during high tide, but some damage will occur.”
The observed link between temperatures and wet and dry cycles is but a general indicator and does not take into consideration issues such as global warming or changing land use. Enfield warns that “we can only make these projections based on a natural cycle observed in the past when land use and development pressures were much less. We may now be entering an era so affected by human changes that the natural cycle will be swamped.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Two icebreaking ships of the National Science Foundation (NSF) will take part in a precedent-setting international oceanographic survey this spring to try to unravel many of the mysteries of life in the Southern Ocean.
The two ships—Lawrence M. Gould and the Nathaniel H. Palmer—set sail for the Antarctic from Chile in late April and after arriving in the Antarctic will take part in the international Southern Ocean Global Ecosystems Dynamics (SO GLOBEC) survey. The survey is designed to determine how Antarctic krill survive the long, cold, pitch-dark austral winter and what role algae that thrive on ice play in their survival, as well as how larger predators like seals and whales survive.
The international effort includes vessels from Germany, the United Kingdom, and Korea.
Although conducting shipboard science in the austral winter is not unprecedented, the scale and technological sophistication of the SO GLOBEC cruise, as well as the cooperative aspects of the undertaking, make the venture unique, researchers explained.
The Palmer and the Gould will work in company to obtain a depth and breadth of data that neither ship working singly could. The Palmer will carry out a geographically widespread survey of the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, thought to be one of the region’s most important krill wintering sites. The Gould will simultaneously conduct detailed examinations of the water column on the continental shelf and in the bay from a series of fixed locations.
“The Palmer will map the distribution of krill, phytoplankton, seabirds, mammals, whales, and seals,” explained Peter Wiche, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “The Gould will investigate biological processes associated with these plants and animals.”
The ships are scheduled to return in June.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The recorded “voice” of NOAA Weather Radio, which brings weather forecasts and severe storm warnings to the American public is about to change.
National Weather Service officials confirmed that the agency is reviewing new recorded voices in an effort to come up with one that is more clear, intelligible, and acceptable to the public but retains the timeliness for which the service has gained such wide recognition.
The existing voice came into being in 1997, explained Susan Weaver, NWS spokesperson. and—at the time—represented the latest in state-of-the-art technology. However, listeners sometimes complained that the robot voice not only was monotonous and annoying, but also difficult to understand.
Joanne Swanson, leader of the agency’s effort to find a new voice, explained that there had been complaints about the voice’s accent and explained that sometimes the enunciation was difficult to comprehend and did not sound personable.
Last August, NWS Director Jack Kelly decided the system needed improvement and, with input from industry and NIST, went out with a Request for Proposals in March 2001 with a deadline of 12 April. Those proposals are now under review, and officials hope to have the new voice on line by December.
The criteria were based on understandability and cost effectiveness with the best possible speed with which messages are transmitted to the public. “We want to make sure people can understand what we’re saying so they can respond,” Weaver said.
There are nearly 600 NOAA Weather Radio transmitting sites, and the robot voice is used because it is faster than having humans do the work. Each site, of course, delivers weather information and warnings tailored to that particular geographical area.
With new technology of radar imaging, graphic presentations can be transferred to a text-to-speech software that results in a recordable message.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
In a few short months, the eyes of the world will turn to Utah as an estimated 3500 athletes and officials from 80 countries will participate in the XIX Olympic Winter Games.
Last month, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002 announced a unique partnership between the Department of Commerce’s National Weather Service, the University of Utah, and Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV to provide the most accurate, timely, and venue-specific weather forecasts during the Games.
In August 1998, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee designated former AMS Councilor Tom Potter as the Weather Coordinator for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. He has planned and organized a unique weather support organization from the public, private and academic sectors. Dr. Potter serves as Research Professor in the Dept. of Meteorology at the University of Utah and Director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction.
The Winter Olympics will be staged in northern Utah 8–24 February 2002. With the Wasatch Mountains rising more than 11 000 feet as it forms the dramatic perimeter of Salt Lake City, the city and surrounding areas will host those competing for top honors in seven winter sports and more than 78 medal events. And the world’s top Paralympians take the same stage 7–16 March 2002 for the VIII Paralympic Winter Games. This will be the first time a host city has integrated preparations for both these world-class sporting events.
According to Mitt Romney, President and Chief Executive Officer of SLOC, this is also the first time an Olympic Committee has called on government and private meteorologists as well as academic experts to join together to share forecast responsibilities. SLOC has assembled the special group they’re calling the Salt Lake 2002 Weather Support Project. The combined weather team specialists’ efforts will provide a safe competition venue for the athletes and weather forecasts for the general public.
Romney explained each partner will be responsible for a specific function during the Games.
The federal government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Weather Service will provide the base-level meteorological and hydrological services used by the weather partners. This includes issuing winter storm warnings to the state’s two million residents as well as an estimated one and one-half million visitors expected to come to the Games. The weather service will also brief public safety, aviation operations, security, and emergency management officials.
At least twice each day, the weather service will issue a special hazardous winter forecast during the games for the various transportation corridors leading to the Olympic venues. This forecast will aid the public who will be traveling to and from the various “park and ride” lots and also help transportation officials ensure a smooth flow of traffic.
Heading the NWS team is meteorologist in charge of the NWS Forecast Office in Salt Lake City, Dr. Larry Dunn. During the Games, the staff at this Utah Forecast Office will be augmented by NOAA employees who volunteered for the opportunity to provide meteorological guidance.
Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV5 Chief Meteorologist, Mark Eubank, will lead the 13-member team of private meteorologists who will focus on preparing forecasts for the outdoor venues. At least one of these meteorologists, equipped with a variety of meteorological data, will be at each venue. This team will also continually brief SLOC management officials, venue managers, coaches and athletes, on weather conditions and forecasts. Eubank’s team will be responsible for the forecasts for the opening and closing ceremonies. KSL-TV is the local NBC-TV affiliate.
Five years ago the University of Utah received federal funds to develop improved weather support systems designed specifically for the 2002 Winter Games to be held in Salt Lake City. They by began installing 27 weather sensors that detect temperature, wind, humidity, and precipitation at the outdoor venues and other key locations. Additionally, the University has conducted research to improve high-resolution analysis and forecast computer models in the complex terrain of the mountainous areas of the Olympic venues. Data from the sensors become part of the Meteorology Department’s MesoWest database, which is available to all customers, including operational forecasters, at http://www.met.utah.edu/weather.html.
The joint weather support project forecast team already exercised their collaborative forecasting and communications capabilities during many World Cup and U.S. Finals competitive events staged in Utah this February and March. These events served as good tests for the Games’ organizers, sports managers, volunteers, coaches, athletes, as well as the weather partners who are working diligently to ensure everything and everyone will be ready and prepared for the Games.
This winter, one of the test events was canceled because too much snow fell just before the event was scheduled to begin. Volunteers at Snowbasin Resort near Ogden, Utah, didn’t have time to remove the snow and prepare the course according to the Olympic guidelines before the scheduled start time.
SLOC’s Romney said, “As we saw during the downhill and super-G World Cups this year at Snowbasin, the weather is highly variable and plays a key role in Olympic competition. We’re confident the weather specialists we’ve assembled will make the venues safe for athletes and comfortable for spectators.”
The official Weather Operations Center will be located at the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City Forecast Office. The joint team of government and private meteorological teams will prepare their daily forecasts there. Private meteorologists stationed at each of the five outdoor venues will prepare forecasts to meet the site-specific needs of the competitions held at each location.
More information about the Winter Olympics and Paralympics is available at http://www.saltlake2002.com.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Last March, a pair of killer tornadoes ripped through Fort Worth, Arlington, and Grand Prairie, Texas, leaving five people dead and $450 million in damages.
The tornadoes that hit Tarrant County last year were 2 of 177 tornadoes that had struck the United States by the end of March 2000. At year’s end, the total had climbed to 898, compared with a 1998–2000 average of 1254. By comparison, preliminary data from NOAA’s NWS show only 49 tornadoes have been reported as of 27 March 2001.
“While it is gratifying to see so few tornadoes so far this year, we must remember that the severe storm season is just entering its more active period,” warned Bill Proenza, director of the NWS for the southern United States. “Traditionally, the most prolific tornado producing months are still ahead of us and, in fact, tornadoes can occur anytime, anyplace. So, we always have to keep our guard up and be prepared.”
Of the five deaths that occurred during the 28 March 2000 Texas storms, two were attributed directly to the tornadoes and three were indirectly related. The storms also seriously damaged six commercial buildings and destroyed or damaged 1700 homes.
Given the paths and destructive power (winds in excess of 158 mph) of the tornadoes, loss of life was considered to be incredibly low. Local officials attribute that to the warning times (average of 15 minutes) provided by the NWS Forecast Office in Fort Worth and the responsiveness of the emergency management community, the media and the public.
Based in part on preliminary data, 6,604 tornadoes were reported in Texas between 1950 and 2000. During the 50-year period, Tarrant County experienced 64 tornadoes, but no tornado wind-related deaths until the 28 March event last year.
Some of the deadliest Texas tornadoes in recent memory include the 10 April 1979 event that killed 45 people and injured more than 1700 in Wichita Falls; the 22 May 1987 tornado that touched down southwest of Saragosa, wiping out 85% of the town, killing 30 and injuring 121, and the Jarrell tornado of 27 May 1997 that left 27 dead and 12 injured.
“Technological advances…especially the NWS Doppler radar network and powerful new computer programs, coupled with specially-trained storm spotters and experienced forecasters have enabled us to increase the average lead times for tornadoes,” said Proenza. “But all of this improved capability must be coupled with effective local emergency preparedness plans and education that improves the public’s response during severe storm events. This combination continues to save lives across the United States.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
EPA has released its latest annual report on toxic releases, which shows continued good news with decreases in emissions in several industries.
The Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) for 1999, the year of most recent data, covers toxic releases discharged by facilities throughout the country.
At the same time, the agency announced steps being taken to make reporting requirements for industry easier.
“This inventory is a powerful tool for helping to protect public health and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. “I am pleased at the significant progress being made as trend continue downward...We’re seeing constant decreases of emissions to air, land and water, especially in the manufacturing industries where there has been a 46% decrease over the 12-year history of the program.”
To facilitate industry reporting requirements, EPA has introduced a new computer software product, “TRIAL,” which provides reporting facilities easier access to all TRI reporting regulations and guidance on interpreting those regulations. The system is available on EPA’s TRI web site and is included in the software package provided to companies for the reporting process required by Congress under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA).
Overall, the TRI includes information on releases and other wastes for 644 toxic chemicals and chemical compounds.
The 46% decrease in the manufacturing industries represents about 1.5 billion pounds over the 12-year history. The 1-year decrease from 1998 to 1999 was 2.5%.
Looking at all types of wastes, the total quantity increased by 5% or almost 1 billion pounds since facilities began reporting other waste management data in 1991. The 1-year increase from 1998 to 1999 was 323 million pounds, or 1.4%.
Of those industries that began making TRI reports beginning with 1998 emissions, coal mining facilities reported a 9.7% decrease in releases from 1998 to 1999, and petroleum terminals and bulk storage facilities a 5.5% decrease in releases.
The largest increase in total releases from 1998 to 1999 was reported by metal mining—an increase of 416.3 million pounds, or 11.7%.
For chemical wholesale distributors, total releases from 1998 to 1999 increased by 28.3% (435 000 pounds), waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities by 2.7% (7.5 million pounds) and electric generating facilities by 2.2% (24.9 million pounds.).
The largest volume of chemical releases for all industries was reported by facilities in Nevada, followed by Utah, Arizona, Alaska, Texas, Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, in that order.
The 1999 TRI and background information on the TRI program are available at http://www.epa.gov/tri.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
President George W. Bush has turned thumbs down on the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, disappointing European and Japanese allies.
EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman told reporters on 27 March that the global warming treaty, as far as the administration is concerned, is dead.
“The Kyoto Protocol is unfair to the United States and to other industrialized nations because it exempts 80% of the world from compliance,” she said. That is why the United States Senate voted 95–0 to warn against sending the Senate a treaty that could damage the economy.
“The administration is undertaking a cabinet-level review of U.S. climate change policy and is considering what policies we should pursue domestically and internationally to address concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global climate change is a serious issue that this administration is committed to addressing by working closely with our friends and allies.
“We have no interest in implementing that treaty. If there’s a general agreement that we need to be addressing the global change issue, the question is how do we do it in a way that allows us to make some progress instead of spending our time committed to something that isn’t going to go.”
At a 29 March press conference, President Bush was asked about consultation with American allies about the Kyoto Treaty. He replied:
“In terms of the CO2 issue, I will explain as clearly as I can, today and every other chance I get, that we will not do anything that harms our economy. Because, first things first, are the people who live in America. That’s my priority. And I’m worried about the economy. I’m worried about the lack of energy policy. I’m worried about rolling blackouts in California. It’s in our national interest that we develop a strong energy policy, with realistic, common-sense environmental policy. And I’m going to explain that to our friends.”
Last year, according to a release by the American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News, a National Assessment Synthesis Team released a draft version of a report, entitled “Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.” The report, prepared under the U.S. Global Change Research Program and cochaired by Anthony Janetos, Tom Karl, and Jerry Melillo, was completed in November.
There are two components of the report, the first being a recently published, 600-page “Foundation” report; the second a 154-page “Overview.” Both are available for viewing and purchase at http://www.gcrio.org/NationalAssessment/.
The Overview points out that the assessment’s purpose is “to synthesize, evaluate and report on what we presently know about the potential consequences of climate variability and change for the United States in the 21st century.” It notes that “present knowledge is limited,” but explains “Because we cannot predict many aspects of our nation’s future climate, we have used scenarios to explore U.S. vulnerability to climate change.”
“Long-term observations confirm that our climate is now changing at a rapid rate...,” the article noted. “The science indicates that the warming in the 21st century will be significantly larger than in the 20th century.”
The Overview examines the projected consequences of a 5°–9ºF warming in average U.S. temperatures in the next century. Regional climate change will vary widely, with some areas of the United States subjected to more frequent heavy and extreme precipitation events while other areas will become drier. Ecosystems will respond differently, with some vulnerable systems, such as barrier islands, disappearing completely.
The report also explained possible impacts on five specific sectors: agriculture, water, human health, forests and coastal areas and marine resources.
The report concludes that “It is vital to our national interest that we meet these research needs so that we can, with increasing certainty, address the critical question: How vulnerable or resilient are the nation’s natural and human resources and systems to the changes in climate projected to occur over the decades ahead? With the new vision of regional analysis and scientist-stakeholder partnerships developed in the National Assessment, we have a powerful approach to effectively address this complex question.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
NASA scientists have assembled the first long-term global dataset that demonstrates a correlation between changing patterns of sea surface temperatures and patterns of plant growth across the earth’s landscapes.
The results of the study appear in the April 2001 issue of the AMS Journal of Climate.
“For the first time, we can see patterns of climate variability reflected in land vegetation growth, globally, which was not possible before,” said Sietse Los, of Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, the paper’s lead author. “Until now, we haven’t had a good dataset to show us how vegetation changes over long periods of time.”
Because land vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis and ultimately releases the greenhouse gas back into the atmosphere through decomposition and fires, the authors wanted to gain new insights into where there are large variations in plant growth.
Such variations have implications for the spatial distribution of carbon sources and sinks and how they change over time. Although seasonal variations in plant growth can be large, growth can also vary widely from one year to the next. Moreover, recent studies suggest that due to global warming the growing season is getting longer at higher latitudes, thereby increasing the ability of terrestrial plants to serve as carbon sink.
As part of Goddard’s Compton Tucker’s (a coauthor) satellite data processing effort from January 1982 through December 1990, the team reprocessed 9 years of NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data into a series of 1-month global composite images of sea surface temperature and plant productivity.
Because the sensor did not have strong calibration and orbital requirements, as compared to today’s satellite technologies for measuring vegetation, the authors had to painstakingly fine-tune each image to correct for errors that interfere with its interpretation, such as aerosol particles in the atmosphere.
“Using various analysis techniques, we can now extract signals from the vegetation data that relate to the climate system,” Los said. “And we can now correlate vegetative response to climate change in three dimensions—through time and space.”
Since submitting their paper, the team has compiled another 9 years of AVHRR data so that it now has a continuous 18-year global dataset of sea surface temperature and vegetation measurements. When viewing the monthly false-color images consecutively in a time-series animation, distinct large-scale patterns of change become quickly obvious to the eye, the scientists reported.
Coauthor James Collatz points to the recurring cycles of El Niño–Southern Oscillation in the equatorial Pacific and Southern Atlantic during the 1980s and notes the subsequent patterns of drought and vigorous growth that sweep back and forth across South America, as if the continent were a ball in an ongoing Ping-Pong match between the two mighty oceans.
“What it shows is what you might expect,” he observed. “Sea surface temperatures have an impact on the climate (temperature and precipitation) over land, and this affects growth of vegetation.”
Earth scientists have long recognized that as the ocean releases warmth and moisture into the overlying atmosphere it dramatically influences weather patterns. High sea surface temperatures can drive weather patterns to extremes—producing torrential rains and flooding in some parts of the world and severe drought in others.
The authors note that El Niño cannot be expected to have the same effects on plant growth across a given region. The impacts of some El Niños are more intense than others, they reported.
Ultimately, they noted, this new dataset strengthens scientists’ ability to forecast the effects of climate change on vegetation on a global scale. However, to improve their predictions on what impacts El Niño might have, they need to know what other climate oscillations might affect the strength of El Niño.
Scientists now have almost 20 years of global observations to give them a perspective they’ve never had before. With this new data, they can begin to examine in more detail the roles of the terrestrial biosphere in both the carbon and water cycles, they said.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Two studies released recently provide strong evidence that greenhouse gases are causing the earth’s oceans to warm, supporting the case that global warming is real.
The studies, reported in the 13 March edition of the journal Science, indicate that the warming is being caused, at least in part, by air pollution.
Previous research had shown that the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans collectively have warmed an average of about one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit since 1955. The new studies, using parallel computer models, show a direct connection between rising ocean temperatures and emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases. The models showed that ocean warming measured over the last half century is what would be expected based on the amount of greenhouse gases sent into the atmosphere.
Sydney Levitus, of the Commerce Department’s National Oceanographic Data Center and lead author of one of the studies, said, “I believe our results represent the strongest evidence to date that the earth’s climate system is responding to human-induced forcing.”
“This will make it much harder for the naysayers to dismiss predictions from climate models,” explained Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and lead author of the second study.
Although the Bush administration has described global warming as a serious problem, the president has rejected the Kyoto Treaty as “unfair” because it would seriously damage the nation’s economy and because it exempts China, India, and developing countries from limitations on emissions. Bush has ordered a cabinet-level panel to draft proposals for combating global warming.
The two studies add to the data on warming, which, scientists say, may be causing changes in weather patterns that could eventually result in catastrophic climate changes.
Levitus and his colleagues have spent most of the past decade attempting to build up a comprehensive database of ocean temperatures. He said his group had received excellent cooperation from scientists in other countries, including Russia and Great Britain.
Last year, the group determined an average for how much the oceans had warmed by compiling millions of deep ocean temperature measurements from 1948 through 1995. However, they could not say with assurance whether the heat came from greenhouse warming or just a natural swing in the climate cycle.
To solve the question, Levitus and Barnett each used a different computer model of the earth’s climate to simulate how ocean temperature should respond to current levels of greenhouse gases and other modern atmospheric conditions. Both models predicted an amount of warming similar to what scientists subsequently measured.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
NOAA’s Science Advisory Board’s Panel on Strategies for Climate Monitoring suggests that “for NOAA to fulfill its role in the U.S. climate program, there must be a programmatic new start in climate monitoring.”
That is one of the many recommendations made by the 14-member panel of experts during a review before the NOAA Science Advisory Board in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland, 20–22 March. Dr. Richard M. Goody, of Harvard University, leads the panel and Dr. Alfred M. Beeton, of the University of Michigan, chairs the NOAA Science Advisory Board.
In its 25-page report, the panel noted “a climate monitoring program alone loses much of its effectiveness if not related to the projection of future climate. The focus should be on gathering information to test and improve our capabilities for projecting and predicting the climate.
“A program with this priority should:
The report also suggested that the monitoring program “must be closely related to an operational climate prediction and climate projection program” that focuses on the integration of climate observations with models and that it should seek private and public sector input on monitoring and observational data and information needs, as well as fund research and training programs on the use of climate data and information.
The panel listed a number of shortcomings in NOAA’s climate monitoring system, noting that it relies on a mix of observations “made for other purposes, notably weather forecasting and aviation.”
In the area of atmosphere–land surface, it suggested, “NOAA does not now provide a number of elements critical to understanding climate, including: land surface boundary conditions including the hydrological components; and atmospheric moisture profiles including information about clouds.”
On the topic of oceans, the panel said “the oceans are observed with nowhere near sufficient detail. And while some progress has been made, notably with moored buoys in the Pacific Ocean, the panel indicated “there is a need to move systematically toward providing continuous, three-dimensional fields of variables for the ocean: heat content, salinity and currents. We need to determine whether the thermohaline circulation is slowing, as some models predict, whether El Niño is looming and to map other regional changes of vital interest to the health of the ocean.” It also suggested that more attention should be paid to sea ice.
In regard to forcings (greenhouse gases, aerosols, radiation), the panel noted that measuring the elements of climate forcing currently is “adequate to characterize global, long-lived, greenhouse gas levels, but inadequate to determine sources and sinks at less than global scales. In all cases, the network of in situ measurements is inadequate for determining the relative importance of anthropogenic climate forcings; long-lived greenhouse gases are not measure adequately over continents, and tropospheric ozone and aerosol monitoring are grossly inadequate to characterize all the important global sources. At present, greenhouse gas sampling mainly involves clean maritime air. But since the biosphere is an important sink of carbon dioxide, the global flask-sampling network should be extended to the continents.”
The panel recommended the use of new technological advancements, such as robotics, and the development of new instruments to reduce manpower costs.
Of major significance, the panel recommended a “substantial change in NOAA top management.” It said that NOAA “has many small, and a few large, climate activities that have been organized in three different line offices.” It mentioned the NWS, OAS and NESDIS and their various activities, as well as the six OAR research laboratories.
The panel recommended a program that involves ground-based observing systems, operational satellites and Benchmark systems (where measurements can be calibrated against international standards), in addition to an operational climate forecasting facility, international activities and some responsibility for long-term life and property protection programs.
“It cannot succeed,” the report noted, “without a clear and unified administrative and management authority...An attempt to combine the new with the old would court failure, with adverse consequences for NOAA and the national climate program.”
The proposed management structure should have clear responsibility and accountability for NOAA climate activities and be provided with sufficient, independent budgetary authority, the panel urged.
The advisory board met for three days–two at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. (20 and 22 March), and one at the NOAA Science Center in Silver Spring, Maryland (21 March).
In addition to the presentation by the panel on climate modeling, the board heard presentations and briefings on a wide variety of other topics and activities. They included the National Undersea Research Program, NOS Geodesy, climate and global change, NESDIS’ Office of Research and Applications, National Science Foundation, NOAA Fisheries, Sea Grant, coastal science, long-term climate modeling, scientific synthesis, education, aquaculture, ocean exploration, weather and air quality research and the U.S. Weather Research Program.
In addition to Goody, other members of the climate modeling panel included Mark Abbott, Oregon State University; James Anderson, Harvard University; Roberta Balstad Miller, Columbia University; James Hansen, NASA; David Hoffman, NOAA/OAR/CMDL; Tom Karl, NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC; Gerald North, Texas A&M University; Susan Solomon, NOAA/OAR/AL; Soroosh Sorooshian, University of Arizona; Graeme Stephen, Colorado State University; Kevin Trenberth, NCAR; Warren Washington, NCAR, and Howard Diamond, NOAA/NESDIS.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The GOES-M environmental weather satellite has arrived at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a planned launch on 12 July.
Arriving on a C-5 air cargo plane, GOES-M is the fifth and final spacecraft to be launched in the current advanced series of geostationary environmental weather satellites for NOAA. The spacecraft is a three-axis inertial stabilized satellite that has the dual capability of providing pictures while performing earth atmospheric soundings at the same time.
A suite of space weather environment monitoring instruments, including a new solar x-ray imager, also will be aboard the satellite, to be renamed GOES-12 once it is in orbit. Officials said the on-orbit checkout of the spacecraft will be completed in time for most of the active portion of the 2001 hurricane season.
The Lockheed-Martin Atlas II booster and its Centaur upper stage AC-142 are scheduled to arrive at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in late May and begin construction at Space Launch Complex 36.
GOES-M was built for NASA and NOAA by Space Systems /LORAL of Palo Alto, California.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The first continuous global observations of the biological engine that drives life on Earth have been captured from space, providing a period of exploration that “we’ve never been able to see...this way before,” according to NASA officials.
Researchers expect the new record will reveal as much about how our living planet functions today as the fossil and geologic records have revealed in the past, the officials explained during a news conference in Washington on 29 March.
The study is based on the first 3 years of daily observations of ocean algae and land plants from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor, or SeaWIFS mission, creating the most comprehensive global biological record ever assembled, the researchers noted. Scientists will use the new record of the earth’s surface to study the fate of carbon in the atmosphere, the length of terrestrial growing seasons, and the vitality of the ocean’s food web.
“With this record, we have more biological data today than has been collected by all previous field surveys and ship cruises,” explained Gene Feldman, SeaWIFS project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “It would take a ship steaming at six knots over 4,000 years to provide the same coverage as a single global SeaWIFS image.”
Ghassem Asrar, who heads NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise, explained that the study shows how the carbon cycle affects the earth, its oceans, atmosphere, and biosphere. He described the information as similar “to our first look at the human cycle under a microscope.” He pointed out that the United States invests more in this type of research—the carbon cycle in particular—than any other nation in the world.
The report was published in the journal Science distributed the week of the press conference. Lead author of the study was Michael Behrenfeld, an oceanographer at Goddard and a participant in the news conference. Coauthor was James Randerson a biogeochemist at the California Institute of Technology. Other members of the Earth Science Update panel included Dr. Mary Cleave, deputy associate administrator for Earth Science (Advanced Planning) at NASA Headquarters; Paul Falkowski, professor in Rutgers University’s Department of Geology and Institute of Marine and Coastal Science; Jorge Sarmiento, professor of geological and geophysical sciences at Princeton University; and Feldman.
The SeaWIFS data “allow us to see how biology is changing,” said Behrenfeld, and provide us with a means of “putting our finger on the pulse of the planet. Amazing results are coming out of this.”
SeaWIFS was launched in August 997 and began collecting data in September. It orbits the earth from Pole to Pole 14 times a day, providing a complete global view every 2 days. Its instruments can pick out features as small as one kilometer (0.06 miles) across.
The study presents a global assessment of the fundamental work that plants perform to make life possible—producing food, fiber, and oxygen—and how their productivity changes from season to season and year to year in response to our changing environment. The SeaWIFS data indicate that global plant photosynthesis increase between September 1997 and August 2000. Photosynthesis by land plants and algae absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans and thus plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric carbon levels, the panelists explained.
The initial increase in carbon fixation was due largely to the response of marine plants to a strong El Niño and La Niña transition, the said, but the cause of the continued increase during the later portions of the record is not yet clear.
Feldman explained that the SeaWIFS record provides a baseline against which future estimates of earth system carbon cycling can be compared.
NASA plans to produce a 5-year record using SeaWIFS observations and extend the continuous biological record with two Earth Observing System (EOS) spacecraft—Terra, launched in December 1999 and Aqua, scheduled for launch later this year.
The biological record benefits studies of desertification and changes in growing-season lengths by joining an existing 20-year record of plant productivity based on observations from meteorological satellites with the new generations of instruments.
The Science article noted that the annual rate of carbon consumed by the earth’s land plants and ocean algae fluctuated between 111 billion metric tons during the peak of the 1997/98 El Niño event and 117 billion metric tons during the strong La Niña that followed. It also underscored that the data set a new baseline for photosynthesis, the primary pathway through which carbon enters the earth’s atmosphere; mark the first time that the abundance of plants and algae have been measured globally by a single instrument; established that the productivity of the oceans increased on a global scale during the three years of the study, and found that summer phytoplankton blooms in the Northern Hemisphere exceeded those in the Southern Hemisphere.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
The National Weather Service (NWS) earned straight-A grades in a government management report card issued by Government Executive magazine and George Washington University (GWU)—the highest grade given by the report card.
The magazine–university team conducted an in-depth review of the weather service and six other federal agencies. The review cited the weather service’s “results oriented management system” as one of the reasons for the agency’s high grades.
NWS measures success in a number of ways, including tracking tornado warning times, up nearly twice the amount of lead time since 1993; flood warning times, a twofold increase in the amount of time since 1993; and hurricane landfall predictions, a 30% improvement in accuracy since 1993.
NWS is the first of 27 agencies graded over the past three years to receive straight A’s.
Agencies were graded in five broad categories:
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin has been award the National Space Club’s Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, one of the nation’s most prestigious space awards.
Presentation was made at the 44th Annual Goddard Memorial Dinner on 30 March at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
The Metropolitan Washington Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) also honored the NASA administrator for his interest and efforts to bring students back to the studies of science and engineering.
“Dr Goddard is considered to be the father of practical modern rocketry and space flight,” Goldin said in accepting the Goddard award. “He was a true pioneer and innovator. I am honored and humbled by this award which validates and supports NASA’s continuing mission to pioneer the frontiers of space and knowledge in order to achieve a safer, more secure, and more fulfilling life here on Earth.”
Established in 1958, the Goddard trophy is given to an individual or group who has demonstrated great achievement in advancing space flight programs contributing to the American leadership in astronautics. Past winners include astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn, rocket pioneer Werner Von Braun and President Ronald Reagan.
The ARCS honor was given on 7 April during the group’s Spring Gala at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
In accepting that award, Goldin said “Some of our most talented young people are not going into science and technology. This is not just a problem for NASA, but for the country as a whole,” he said. “To assure our leadership position we must renew our interest in science and engineering among the leaders of tomorrow. We have many exciting challenges—energy, health care, communications, transportation, space exploration and national defense—and we need to ask ourselves who will be responsible for America’s scientific leadership two decades from now?”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Dr. Jim Hansen, chief of Goddard Space Flight Center’s Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City has been named one of this year’s recipients of a $250,000 Heinz Award.
The award, bestowed annually by the Heinz Family Foundation since 1993, honors the memory of Sen. John Heinz, R-Pennsylvania, who died in a plane crash in 1991. The award is given in recognition of people who enhance the lives of others.
The award cited Hansen “for his exemplary leadership in the critical and often-contentious debate over the threat of global climate change. The theory that industrial pollution continues to create an atmospheric ‘greenhouse effect’ or warming has pitted scientist against scientist and politician against politician.”
Hansen has testified before Congress on numerous occasions urging that the time has come to recognize that the “greenhouse effect” was real and that new and cleaner sources of energy had to be found.”
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Glennda Chui of the San Jose Mercury News and Richard Stone of Science have been named winners of the American Geophysical Union’s 2001 journalism awards.
Chui won the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Writing-News for her story, “Acid Mountain,” and Stone won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Writing-Features for his freelance article in Smithsonian magazine, “Vostok: Looking for Life Beneath an Antarctic Glacier.”
The 28 March 2000 story by Chui describes the most acidic water, strong enough to dissolve a shovel blade, ever found in nature, The pond was discovered by USGS and Canadian scientists deep inside a mine at Iron Mountain, near Redding, California. There, miners had extracted over a billion dollars worth of minerals over the years and left, in Chui’s words, “an environmental disaster.” She describes both the chemical processes the make the water so acidic and the societal impact of acidic runoff from the mountain.
Stone’s story on Lake Vostok appeared in the July 2000 issue of Smithsonian. The lake, perhaps the largest on Earth, has never been seen by humans and lies 2.5 miles (4.0 kilometers) beneath the ice in southeastern Antarctica. Stone describes how the lake might be explored by robotic devices and writes about the implications of finding life, even on the microbial level, in such a hostile environment.
The AGU Journalism awards are named for David Perlman, science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and the late Walter Sullivan, science writer for The New York Times. They consist of a plaque and $2,000 stipend and are presented an AGU meeting.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
Brian Jon Soden, a physical scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, received the prestigious NOAA–David Johnson Award today. He was recognized by NOAA and the National Space Club for his innovative use of satellite data for climate and weather research.
Soden was cited for his remarkable creativity and tenacity in making use of a large variety of satellite data to describe and diagnose important processes in the atmospheric environment. His work has led to advances in our basic understanding of the global climate system.
Soden has used a host of satellite datasets from NOAA’s Geostationary and Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites, satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, and NASA satellites. He has also combined the use of satellite data, and nonsatellite data such as radiosonde and lidar data, to diagnose previously undiagnosed aspects of the earth’s climate.
His accomplishments include the derivation and analysis of upper tropospheric humidity from infrared sounders, and the use of data from NASA’s Earth Radiation Budget Experiment and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project to diagnose the roles of water vapor and clouds. In addition, Soden used satellite data to diagnose characteristics of the climate system during the El Niño and La Niña phases, and the assimilation of satellite-derived wind fields into numerical weather models to improve the accuracy of hurricane track forecasts. His findings give new perspectives into the water cycle in the Tropics, and its variations due to sea surface temperature changes.
“Brian is one of the many talented and creative young scientists throughout NOAA. This award acknowledges his current work, but also recognizes the promise that his future holds,” said Ants Leetmaa, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Soden holds doctoral and master’s degrees in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Miami.
He has worked for NOAA since 1994, and was a visiting scientist at Princeton University a year before that. From 1990 until 1993, he was a NASA Global Change Fellow at the University of Chicago.
Soden is a member of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. He was a contributing author to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is currently in draft form. He and his wife Jolynne live in Princeton.
The NOAA–David Johnson Award, first given in 1999, is presented by the National Space Club, in honor of the first administrator of what was to become NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. This award is given to young professionals who have developed an innovative use of earth observation satellite data (alone, or in combination with nonsatellite data) that is, or could be, used for operational purposes to assess or predict atmospheric, oceanic or terrestrial conditions. It recognizes a young scientist who may be a future leader of his or her organization and who encourages new thinking, problem solving, or applications of satellite data.
| Top of Document | Newsletter Home Page | AMS Home Page |
