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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded $5.8 million to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and $3.6 million to the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), both based in Boulder, Colorado.
UCAR research under the grant will continue international scientific research activities, such as the Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes (EPIC), the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) project, and the continued operation of the Water Cycle Office and the Arctic Research Office. In addition, programs to attract young scientists in the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Sciences (SOARS) will continue along with the Visiting Scientists Program. Funding to UCAR will also help develop methods to monitor that climate data has a common property throughout.
UCAR is a nonprofit corporation established in 1959 by research institutions with doctoral programs in the atmospheric and related sciences. UCAR was formed to enhance the computing and observational capabilities of universities, and to focus on scientific problems that are beyond the scale of a single university. Based in Boulder, UCAR comprises 66 member representatives and 20 academic affiliate institutions.
The grant to CIRES will support research in the areas of climate system variability, regional processes, planetary metabolism, advanced observing and modeling systems, and atmospheric and climate dynamics. These five research topics are part of the six interdisciplinary research themes that guide CIRES projects.
Founded in 1967, CIRES is a research institute created to provide a setting for collaborative research and teaching in the wide-ranging disciplines of the environmental sciences. CIRES research is centered around the study of the geosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere.
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A team of researchers, led by NASA and Columbia University scientists, found that airborne, microscopic, black-carbon (soot) particles are even more plentiful around the world, and contribute more to climate change, than was previously assumed by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).
The researchers concluded that if these soot particles are not reduced, at least as rapidly as light-colored pollutants, the world could warm more quickly.
The findings appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is authored by Makiko Sato, James Hansen, and others from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University, New York, New York; Oleg Dubovik, Brent Holben, and Mian Chin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; and Tica Novakov from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California.
Sato, Hansen, and colleagues used global atmospheric measurements taken by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). AERONET is a global network of more than 100 sun photometers that measure the amount of sunlight absorbed by aerosols (fine particles in the air) at wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared. The scientists compared the AERONET data with Chin’s global aerosol computer model and the GISS climate model, both of which included sources of soot aerosols consistent with the estimates of the IPCC.
The researchers found the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot was two to four times larger than previously assumed. This larger absorption is due in part to the way the tiny carbon particles are incorporated inside other larger particles: absorption is increased by light rays bouncing around inside the larger particle.
According to the researchers, the larger absorption is attributable also to previous underestimates of the amount of soot in the atmosphere. The net result is that soot contributes about twice as much to warming the world as had been estimated by the IPCC.
Black carbon, or soot, is generated from traffic, industrial pollution, outdoor fires, and household burning of coal and biomass fuels. Soot is a product of incomplete combustion, especially of diesel fuels, biofuels, coal, and outdoor biomass burning. Emissions are large in areas where cooking and heating are done with wood, field residue, cow dung, and coal, at a low temperature that does not allow for complete combustion. The resulting soot particles absorb sunlight, just as dark pavement becomes hotter than light pavement.
Both soot and the light-colored tiny particles, most of which are sulfates, pose problems for air quality around the world. Efforts are beginning to reduce the sulfate aerosols to address air quality issues.
For more information and images on the Internet, visit http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0509pollution.html.
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According to a study by NASA and partner researchers, urban heat islands, created from pavement and buildings in big coastal cities like Houston, Texas, cause warm air to rise and interact with sea breezes to create heavier and more frequent rainfall in and downwind of the cities. Analysis of Houston-area rain gauge data, both prior to and since urbanization, also suggests there have been observed increases in rainfall as more heat islands were created.
The Houston-area study used data from the world’s only space-based rain radar on the NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, and dense clusters of rain gauges.
Authors J. Marshall Shepherd, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and Steve Burian, at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, researcher, believe the impact large coastal cities have on weather, and possibly climate, will become increasingly important as more people move into urban areas, with even greater concentrations in coastal zones. The paper is in the current American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union’s journal Earth Interactions.
A recent United Nations report estimates 60% of the earth’s population will live in cities by 2025. Previous related studies have shown that urban heat islands create heavier rainfall in and downwind of cities like Atlanta, Georgia, St. Louis, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinios. However, this is one of the first studies to provide evidence of such an effect around a U.S. coastal city. It is also the first to incorporate specific satellite-derived rainfall data for a coastal urban area.
Urban areas with high concentrations of buildings, roads, and other artificial surfaces retain heat, which leads to warmer surrounding temperatures and creates heat islands. Rising warm air, promoted by the increased heat, may help produce clouds that result in more rainfall around cities. Buildings of different heights cause winds to converge, driving them upward, helping form clouds. The study shows that the urban heat island/rain effect may be even more pronounced near coasts. In coastal cities like Houston, sea breezes also create rising air and clouds. The combination of urban converging winds and coastal sea breezes may enhance thunderstorm development.
Using data from 1998 to 2002, the researchers found that mean rainfall rates, during the warm season, were 44% greater downwind of Houston than upwind, even though the regions share the same climate. They also found that rainfall rates were 29% greater over the city than upwind. Rainfall rates indicate how hard it rains and can be an indicator of enhanced thunderstorm activity.
To rule out any effects from the coastline curvature near Houston on thunderstorm development, the researchers divided the entire Texas coast into seven zones extending 62-miles (100 kilometers) inland and included four or five major inlets or bays. Analysis of rainfall data in these zones showed that abnormal rainfall only occurred over and downwind of Houston, which suggested effects from the urban landscape were significant. At the coastlines, TRMM satellite data were important, because they allowed researchers to assess rainfall data in areas where there were no gauges and records, like over the ocean.
A companion paper by the researchers, presented in March at a Geological Society of America meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, stated urban areas also affect the timing of rainfall. Compared to upwind areas, there were nearly two times as many occurrences of rainfall from noon to midnight in the urban area.
For more information and images on the Internet, visit http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0523urbanrainfall.html or http://www.earthinteractions.org.
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A new General Accounting Office report, which looks at current scientific understanding of, and efforts underway to control, soot, ground-level ozone, and sulfate aerosols in seven nations is now available online. The report covers the following nations—four that are economically developed (Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and three that are developing (China, India, and Mexico).
The report is available online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0325.pdf, with highlights at http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0325high.pdf.
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The National Weather Service (NWS) has released its service assessment report for Supertyphoon Pongsona, which devastated Guam in December 2002 after dumping heavy rain and strong winds on Pohnpei and Chuuk State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Service assessments are routine reviews of NOAA National Weather Service operations during major weather events.
Supertyphoon Pongsona was one of the worst typhoons to ever strike Guam. Making landfall on 8 December, it resulted in one indirect death, 193 injuries, and an estimated $700 million in damage. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Guam issued a typhoon watch for the island of Guam more than 47 hours before the onset of tropical storm–force winds (39 mph) and a typhoon warning more than 23 hours in advance.
Pongsona had sustained winds of 144 mph with gusts to 173 mph. Typhoon-force winds and torrential rains pounded the island of Guam for as much as five hours.
The service assessment report provides details on the support provided by the National Weather Service Forecast Offices to Guam Civil Defense, the media, other agencies and organizations, and the public.
The service assessment report can be found online at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/assessments/index.shtml.
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The National Weather Service (NWS) hurricane experts forecast that two to three tropical cyclones are expected to occur within the central Pacific during the 2003 hurricane season. This is below the long-term average of 4.5 tropical cyclones per season. The agency also forecasts that the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season will likely have above-normal levels of activity.
The central Pacific covers an area north of the equator from 140° to 180°W or the international date line. The hurricane season for the central Pacific officially begins 1 June and ends 30 November. Normally, 4.5 tropical cyclones—1 hurricane, 2 tropical storms, and 1 tropical depression—occur each year in the central Pacific.
The Atlantic hurricane season outlook calls for the potential of 11 to 15 tropical storms, with six to nine hurricanes, and two to four classified as major hurricanes (category 3 or higher on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale). The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June through 30 November.
On average, the Atlantic hurricane season brings 10 tropical storms, with six reaching hurricane strength and two of those classified as major. Above-normal activity has been observed during six of the last eight Atlantic hurricane seasons, reflecting an overall larger number of tropical storms and hurricanes observed since 1995. In 2002, there were twelve named storms, four of which became hurricanes (Gustav, Isidore, Kyle, and Lili).
The main factors contributing to the expected above-normal Atlantic hurricane season are the existing multidecadal patterns (lower vertical wind shear, a favorable African easterly jet, weaker trade winds, and warmer-than-normal Atlantic Ocean temperatures), combined with a 70% chance that La Niña conditions will develop during the summer and further reduce the vertical wind shear in the heart of the hurricane-development region. La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, compared with El Niño’s unusually warm ocean temperatures.
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From the air and ground, scientists this spring and summer will examine some of the world’s largest thunderstorm complexes, behemoths that can spread hurricane-force winds and torrential rain for hundreds of miles across the U.S. Midwest. Scientists expect the study, which began on 20 May and will end on 6 July, will provide the clearest picture to date of how these storms wreak havoc and how forecasters can better predict their trails of damage.
The Bow Echo and MCV Experiment (BAMEX) is organized by scientists Christopher Davis and Morris Weisman at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. MCV stands for mesoscale convective vortex, a low pressure center associated with large clusters of storms. The $4 million study is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Collaborators include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Naval Research Laboratory, and a dozen colleges and universities.
The BAMEX study area encompasses most of the Midwest. Field operations, including three aircraft and a forecast center, are based at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, just east of St. Louis, Missouri.
Unlike many summer storms that develop and decay in an hour or two, mesoscale convective systems—which can produce bow echoes and MCVs—are often large, intense, and long lasting. Typically, such a system develops in the warmth of the late afternoon and can last through the night. As it grows, a downdraft of high winds from rain-cooled air can push it into a bowlike configuration, seen as a bow echo on radar. Weak tornadoes may form along the bow or at either end, but the main threat is from straight-line winds that can gust to over 100 mph.
While a typical tornadic thunderstorm might span 12 miles, the long-lived systems studied in BAMEX can stretch more than 90 miles in width and carve paths more than 500 miles long. Such storms can be terrifying, especially late at night—the time when they are most likely across much of the Midwest. On the night of 26 July 1990, a storm, associated with a bow echo on radar, barreled through Kansas City, Missouri, packing winds of 74 mph. The storm ripped off roofs, downed trees, and cut electric power to about 100,000 homes and businesses. Between January 1995 and July 2000, high winds from U.S. mesoscale convective systems caused over $1.4 billion in damage, 72 deaths, and over 1,000 injuries. BAMEX will study how these damaging winds unfold at night, when low-level air usually cools and stabilizes.
During BAMEX, three research aircraft will track developing storm systems with bow echos as they move east across the Midwest from South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas to the Ohio Valley. Two of these aircraft have Doppler radar on board. A third will release dropsondes—instrument packages that sample the atmosphere and transmit weather data as they gently descend via parachute.
Ground-based crews will intercept the storms in mobile weather laboratories, deploying weather balloons and using atmospheric profilers and other instruments to sample the storm environment. The Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS)—part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which operates NCAR—has built a Web-based catalog to provide up-to-the-minute field data and to serve as an archive for later use. JOSS is also teaming up with NCAR and other participants to set up and staff the BAMEX operations center.
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Above-average precipitation throughout much of the United States during the past three months led to improving drought conditions in many areas, according to scientists at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina.
Twenty-four percent of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-extreme drought in April, down from 37% in January and 50% during the summer of 2002, based on a widely used measure of drought severity, the Palmer drought index.
NCDC researchers said precipitation averaged across the contiguous United States was 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) above the 1895–2003 long-term mean for the February through April three-month period, based on preliminary data. Twenty-seven states were significantly wetter than average and 11 states were significantly drier than average. Wetter-than-average conditions were prevalent in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and in most states of the western United States. Near-average to drier-than-average conditions stretched from Maine to the upper Midwest and southwest to Texas.
The precipitation helped alleviate extremely dry conditions in many areas, but the rain and snowfall were not sufficient to end the drought in many parts of the West, where severe drought has occurred for much of the past three to five years. In Colorado, which had its driest year on record in 2002, a single snow storm in March brought a near-record snowfall of 32 inches to Denver’s airport and totals exceeding 80 inches in higher-elevation locations to the west.
Snowpack, an important source of water for western states, was near or above average at the end of April in much of the front range of the Rocky Mountains from Montana to Colorado and the Sierra Mountains, but snowpack remained below average in large parts of the West. Reservoir storage was also below average in every western state, except forWashington at the end of April, and river flows remained below average in a large part of the western two-thirds of the nation.
In Montana, where conditions in parts of the state during the summer of 2002 were similar to those experienced during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s, above-average precipitation during the past several months led to a marked improvement in drought conditions. However, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, severe drought continued to affect a large part of the state at the end of April.
Based on the Palmer drought index, the percent of the West in moderate-to-extreme drought decreased from 81% in November 2002 to 44% in April. The most widespread drought in the instrumental record occurred in July of 1934, when 97% of the West and 80% of the contiguous United States were in moderate-to-extreme drought. The percent of the contiguous United States in moderate-to-extreme drought fell to 24% in April.
Temperatures during the February–April 2003 period were near average to slightly warmer than average across most of the country. The Northeast was the only region with significantly cooler-than-average temperatures. For the contiguous United States as a whole the February–April temperature was 43.3ºF (6.3ºC), slightly warmer than the 1895–2003 mean. In Alaska the three-month period was 6.0ºF (3.3ºC) warmer than the 1971–2000 average. During the past 25 years, temperatures in Alaska have averaged 3.2ºF (1.8ºC) warmer than during the preceding 50 years.
The moderate El Niño episode that began in 2002 weakened during the February–April period, while the average global temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces (based on preliminary data) during April was 0.9ºF (0.5ºC) above the 1880–2002 long-term mean. This was the fourth warmest April, but was 0.4ºF (0.2ºC) cooler than the record warm April, which occurred near the end of the 1997/98 El Niño episode. The land surface temperature average was the seventh warmest on record for April (1.4ºF above average), and the global ocean surface temperature was 0.7ºF above average, approximately 0.2ºF cooler than April 1998. The year-to-date global average for combined land and ocean surfaces was the third warmest on record.
National and global data are available online at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/apr/apr03.html.
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On the heels of El Niño’s departure the world could soon be facing the return of La Niña say scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Based on current sea surface temperatures and recent atmospheric and oceanic trends in the tropical Pacific, it is likely that La Niña will develop over the next few months.
During the last two months, sea surface and subsurface ocean temperatures and tropical rainfall decreased considerably across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. By early May sea surface temperatures were 1°–2ºF (0.5°–1ºC) below average across the east-central equatorial Pacific. Although there is some uncertainty in the model forecasts, the dominant trend is for the cooling in the tropical Pacific to continue, and for La Niña to develop during the summer.
“Oceanic and atmospheric conditions indicate that a transition to La Niña is already underway,” said Dr. Vernon Kousky, lead El Niño–La Niña forecaster at the agency’s Climate Prediction Center. If La Niña does develop as expected, it will likely bring increased Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm activity this year. Also, it will likely bring drier and warmer-than-average conditions to the southern United States next winter. Scientists at NOAA are continuing to monitor this evolving situation very closely.
According to the Climate Prediction Center, La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific that occurs on average every 3 to 5 years or so. La Niña represents the cool phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific cold episode. La Niña originally referred to an annual cooling of ocean waters off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation discussion is available online at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/.
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Dust from China’s Takla Makan desert traveled more than 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) in about two weeks, crossing the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean, before settling atop the French Alps. Chinese dust plumes had been known to reach North America and even Greenland, but had never before been reported in Europe.
An international team of scientists, using atmospheric computer models, studied dust that traveled the globe from 25 February to 7 March 1990. Their findings are published in a paper authored by Francis E. Grousset of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, and the University of Bordeaux 1 in France, and colleagues. It appears in Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.
Research conducted in 1994 showed that over the 20 preceding years, a score of red-dust events coated the snow cover in the Alps and Pyrenees mountains. The dust that topped these European mountain ranges was sampled and stored for comparison with dust from various parts of the world. Scientists analyze the minerals and composition of certain distinctive elements of the dust, especially neodymium, to determine its origin.
The researchers used the Global Ozone Chemistry Aerosol Radiation Transport (GOCART) model, which analyzes wind, soil moisture, and surface characteristics to simulate the generation and transport of dust. Meteorological information was taken from the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Data Assimilation System (DAS). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) showed the paths of air masses as they moved around the world from the time the dust was swept into the atmosphere to the time it settled on the mountaintops.
Grousset and his colleagues found several examples of dust collected in southern France that clearly originated from North African sources. The North Africa–Europe dust path was already well known. But data analyzed by the NASA and NOAA instruments independently of each other strongly suggested that some of the alpine dust originated in a huge dust storm in western China, whose transport across two oceans and the North American continent to Europe had not previously been documented.
The origin and final location of dust are important to help determine any effects from heavy metal or fungal, bacterial, or viral pollution that may be associated with it. Previous studies have indicated, for example, that fungi found in African dust causes sea fan disease in Mediterranean coral reefs. The National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has identified airborne dust as the primary source of allergic stress worldwide.
The research was funded mainly by France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Additional support was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
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The National Weather Service (NWS) is working with the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) and other partners, to enhance public awareness of the dangers of driving or walking into flooded areas. They recently kicked off a nationwide flood-safety campaign—“Turn around, don’t drown”—designed to help reduce flood-related deaths in the United States.
Storm data records, accumulated over a 30-year period (1972–2001), show that the average annual death toll for floods is 127—compared to 73 for lightning, 65 for tornadoes, and 16 for hurricanes. Approximately 80% of those deaths occur when people drive or walk into moving water.
Colorful posters, depicting the turn around, don’t drown slogan on barriers used to block access to flooded roadways, and small (4 in. x 4 in.) automobile window stickers were created for the campaign. The image will also appear on the flood-safety card in FLASH’s weather-safety package distributed to and through its participating partners in the government, insurance industry, and nonprofit community.
The poster; a turn around, don’t drown sign, window sticker, and FLASH card; and a NOAA National Weather Service flood-safety brochure are also available online at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tadd/index.htm. Visitors are encouraged to download, reproduce and distribute the images through community civic organizations, schools, government agencies, or private businesses.
The campaign concept originated with Hector Guerrero, warning coordination meteorologist for the NOAA National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in San Angelo, Texas. It began when he was teaching a SKYWARN storm-spotter training class, which included firefighters from Harlingen, Texas.
Based in Tallahassee, Florida, FLASH is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preventing and minimizing personal injury and property damage suffered in natural or man-made disasters. Formed by a coalition of private companies and public agencies with expertise in disaster prevention and relief, FLASH was created in 1998 to educate and inform people about preparing for and dealing with disasters. Originally established as the Florida Alliance for Safe Homes, FLASH expanded its mission beyond Florida last year and now serves the southeastern United States.
Detailed safety information about preparing for and dealing with weather-related disasters is available online at both FLASH and NOAA National Weather Service Web sites.
One can find the FLASH Web site online at http://www.flash.org, the NOAA National Weather Service site at http://www.nws.noaa.gov, and the turn around, don't drown materials online at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tadd/index.htm.
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A new analysis of satellite data collected since the late 1970s from the lowest few miles of the atmosphere indicates a global temperature rise of about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit between 1979 and 1999. The results are at odds with previous analyses that show virtually no warming in the satellite record over the 20-year period. The findings were published by the journal Science at its Science Express Web site on 1 May.
The team behind the study includes scientists Tom Wigley, Gerald Meehl, Caspar Ammann, Julie Arblaster, Thomas Bettge, and Warren Washington, all from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The lead author is Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
“It’s undeniable that the agreement with both global climate models and surface data is better for the new analysis than for the old one,” says Wigley.
Over the past 25 years, a series of instruments aboard 12 U.S. satellites has provided a unique temperature record extending as high as the lower stratosphere. Each sensor intercepts microwaves emitted by various parts of the atmosphere, with the emissions increasing as temperatures rise. These data are used to infer the temperature at key atmospheric layers.
Since the 1990s, skeptics have pointed to the absence of a warming signal in the satellite-derived temperatures, which stood in contrast to a distinct warming trend in average air temperature at the earth’s surface. A 2000 report from the National Research Council concluded that both trends might be correct—in other words, the global atmosphere might be warming more quickly near the ground than higher up. Although Wigley agreed, he felt there was more to be explained.
“The real issue is the trend in the satellite data from 1979 onward,” says Wigley. “If the original analysis of the satellite data were right, then something must be missing in the models. With the new dataset, the agreement with the models is improved, and the agreement with the surface data is quite good.”
In order to glean temperatures from the raw satellite data, several adjustments and corrections must be made. Until now, only one group, based at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), had produced a complete set of global temperatures from the raw data.
For the new study, a group based at Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California, applied a revised set of corrections to the satellite data. These corrections accounted for the effects of heating on the radiation sensor itself—the first time this source of error had been addressed fully, according to the authors—as well as new adjustments for the drifting orbit of each satellite and other factors.
The group found a warming trend of 0.16°F per decade in the layer between about 1.5 and 7.5 miles high, compared to a trend of 0.02°F in the previously published UAH analysis. Both estimates have a margin of error of nearly 0.2°F (plus or minus).
According to the authors, the new results are a closer match with surface warming, as well as with four computer-model simulations of twentieth-century climate produced by NCAR and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
As a further check on the new satellite dataset, the team examined regional patterns. Using a statistical technique, the group analyzed the twentieth-century simulations and searched for an underlying “fingerprint” of climate change. For instance, the rates of warming in the satellite-monitored data vary by latitude from north to south. The authors found that the overall fingerprint of climate change in the models resembled this and other regional patterns found in the new satellite dataset.
The study was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with contributions from the National Science Foundation through its institutional support for NCAR.
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Japanese meteorologists have begun using data from NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-9 environmental satellite to track typhoons and other weather systems that impact the western Pacific region. Following an agreement signed last year between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), forecasters there now have constant satellite data—a reality that appeared threatened when Japan’s previous satellite, the Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS)-5, began to fail.
Under the May 2002 agreement, Japan agreed to cover the cost of upgrading NOAA’s Command and Data Acquisition Station in Fairbanks, Alaska, which now enables NOAA to control GOES-9 and to provide data on weather systems affecting the western region. NOAA operates two GOES that circle the earth in geosynchronous orbit and can detect atmospheric triggers for disruptive weather, including tornadoes, floods, and tropical cyclones.
GOES-9 was launched in 1995, but has been in an orbit-storage mode because it no longer met NOAA’s full operational requirements. NOAA retrieved GOES-9 from storage on 14 April and began making it operational for the Japanese.
Japan plans to replace the GMS-5 with its Multifunctional Transportation Satellite, which is currently on schedule to be launched in 2004
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Jim Belville, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) NEXRAD Radar Operations Center (ROC) in Norman, Oklahoma, retired in May 2003, after completing 34 years of distinguished federal service.
Belville grew up in Texas City, Texas, developing an intense interest in the weather at an early age. He realized his dream to become a meteorologist by graduating from Texas A&M University with a degree in meteorology in January 1969. He started his career with the National Weather Service as a meteorological intern in Austin, Texas, later that month.
Belville’s subsequent assignments took him to Lubbock, Texas, as a hydrologist/meterologist (1972–82); Slidell, Louisiana, as a meteorologist/preparedness focal point (1982–85); the Washington, D.C. area as the meteorologist in charge of the Sterling, Virginia, Weather Forecast Office (1985–95); and finally, Norman, Oklahoma, where he was assigned as the director of the Radar Operations Center (1995–2003).
Belville participated in a variety of projects during his tenure in the NOAA National Weather Service. In 1985, he led a delegation of rainfall experts who visited China for three weeks as a part of a scientific exchange between the two countries. His work with China spanned a period of 10 years.
As the meteorologist in charge of the weather forecast office serving the nation’s capital, Belville and his staff provided support to many White House activities, including three presidential inaugurations, and visits by Mikhail Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth.
Belville was also frequently in the media spotlight during the NOAA National Weather Service modernization program. Belville appeared on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Late Night, 20/20, and Dateline as a NOAA National Weather Service spokesman. A career highlight for Belville was spending a Saturday afternoon with Walter Cronkite discussing the NOAA National Weather Service modernization and its impact on the sailing community.
Over his career, Belville has been active in the AMS and other groups in the scientific community. He was elected Fellow of the AMS in 1992. He served on the AMS Committee on Hydrology from 1984 to 1988 and was chairman of that committee for two years. He was a member of the Committee of Fellows and is presently a member of the AMS Radar Committee.
Belville has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to the NOAA National Weather Service. His most notable awards include the Department of Commerce silver medal, the AMS Riechelderfer Award, and the NOAA Administrator’s Award.
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has appointed Michel Jarraud, of France, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for a four-year mandate starting 1 January 2004.
Jarraud was appointed after receiving more than two-thirds majority vote. He has been deputy secretary general of the WMO since 1995.
Before joining WMO as deputy secretary general in January 1995, Jarraud devoted part of his career to the international European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). He was appointed deputy director of the Centre in 1991 having been director of the Operational Department since 1990. From September 1978 to December 1985, he was a researcher in numerical weather prediction at the ECMWF. Jarraud started his career with France as a researcher (September 1976–August 1978). He joined the French National Meteorological Service again in January 1986 as director of the Weather Forecasting Department, until December 1989.
Jarraud is a meteorologist with degrees from the prestigious French Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole de la Météorologie Nationale.
He is a member of the AMS, the Société Météorologique de France, the Royal Meteorological Society, and the African Meteorological Society. He was also awarded a first-class distinction (highest grade) by the Civil Defence of Venezuela, in recognition of services in relation to natural disasters, which affected the country in 1999.
Jarraud will succeed Prof. Godwin O. P. Obasi, Secretary General of the WMO from 1 January 1984 until 31 December 2003.
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The 14th World Meteorological Congress, held in Geneva, Switzerland, in May has elected Dr. Alexander I. Bedritsky to serve as president of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for a four-year mandate. His term began 26 May 2003. The Congress also elected the members of the executive council of the WMO for a four-year period also.
For the past 10 years, Dr. Bedritsky has served as Head of the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), with the overall responsibility for performance and development of the operational and scientific entities of Roshydromet at a time of economic reform in Russia. During his 33-year career in the field of hydrometeorology, Bedritsky held various positions, including that of senior engineer of a computer center, and successfully handled a wide range of technical, scientific, managerial, organizational, financial, regulatory, and legal challenges faced by the Hydrometeorological Services of the former USSR and Russian Federation. He has been an active participant in the activities of WMO, and other international organizations and conventions, as well as bilateral and multilateral agreements, since 1978.
The President of WMO chairs sessions of congress, the supreme body of the Organization, and sessions of the executive council.
Bedritsky succeeds Dr. John W. Zillman, permanent representative of Australia with WMO, who has been president of the organization since 1995. The congress highly commended Zillman for his excellent leadership during his two terms of office.
The WMO Congress also elected Dr. Ali-Mohammed Noorian (Iran) as first vice president, Mr. Tyrone Sutherland (British Carribean Territories) as second vice president, and Mr. Miguel Angel Rabiolo (Argentina) as third vice president.
Finally, the WMO congress elected the following as members of the executive council:
H. Al-Sha’er (Jordan), M. M. A. (Egypt), A. C. Vaz de Athayde (Brazil), M. L. Bah (Guinea), J.-P. Beysson (France), Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry (Pakistan), Chow Kok Kee (Malaysia), (Mrs.) M. Couchoud Gregori (Spain), M. D. Everell (Canada), P. Ewins (United Kingdom), U. Gärtner (Germany), B. Kassahun (Ethiopia), J. J. Kelly (United States), D. K. Keuerleber-Burk (Switzerland), T. Kitade (Japan), R. D. J. Lengoasa (South Africa), J. Lumsden (New Zealand), F. P. Mote (Ghana), J. R. Mukabana (Kenya), A. N’Diaye (Senegal), H. H. Oliva (Chile), Qin Dahe (China), B. T. Sekoli (Lesotho), R. Sorani (Italy), S. K. Srivastav (India), E. Zárate H. (Costa Rica), and J. W. Zillman (Australia).
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