Volume 24, Number 7, July 2003

INDUSTRY AND RELATED NEWS

NASA Selects RSIS for $61 Million Systems Support Contract

RS Information Systems (RSIS) has been awarded a $61 million contract to support systems applications, network security, and advanced computing at NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

The contract, a direct follow-on to a $50 million contract awarded to RSIS in 1999, includes software engineering and development; high-performance computing and networking at Glenn’s Advanced Computational Concepts Laboratory; advanced network communications and security; and configuration, installation, and equipment maintenance of the data systems at Glenn’s experimental test facilities.

Earlier this year, RSIS received NASA’s George M. Low Award, the agency’s premier award for contractor quality. An AMS corporate member and a sponsor of the Society’s undergraduate minority scholarship program, RSIS supports key elements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s environmental observation infrastructure: operations and engineering support of the National Weather Service’s next-generation weather radar, software and systems engineering for the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, and the data processing and distribution of satellite imagery. RSIS also provides systems development, science support, and system administration across NOAA’s line offices.

AccuWeather Celebrates 40 Years of Weather Innovation

Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather celebrated its fortieth anniversary in June 2003. Before companies such as AccuWeather, the commercial weather industry was in its infancy, with very few businesses willing to pay for weather forecasts and most people getting their forecast from the government weather service. Today, weather forecasting is arguably the most sought-after news in the world.

“No other endeavor impacts as many daily lives as weather and the accurate forecast of it,” said Dr. Joel N. Myers, founder and president of AccuWeather. “For 40 years we at AccuWeather have been committed to developing the technology and expertise, enabling us to understand the causes and to accurately forecast weather events. By making our forecasts available to consumers through every possible media, we enrich the lives of consumers, add to the wealth of the economy, help to protect property, and even save lives.”

AccuWeather was started by Myers in 1963 when a local gas utility company contacted the Pennsylvania State University seeking a meteorologist to help forecast winter demand. The Meteorology Department head recommended graduate student Joel Myers, who signed his first client. Initially the company specialized in targeted forecasts for ski resorts, forensics, and other sectors. In 1971, AccuWeather expanded service into media with the signing of its first radio station client, WARM in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania, who is still a client today. Today, AccuWeather continues licensing its exclusive forecasts to affiliate and network TV stations, regional daily newspapers, and major metropolitan radio stations.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Legislation for USGCRP Reauthorization Defeated in House Science Committee

A bill (H.R. 1578) introduced by Representative Mark Udall (D-Colorado) that would have reauthorized the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was defeated in the House Science Committee. Entitled the “Global Change Research and Data Management Act of 2003,” the legislation would have substantially reconfigured the USGCRP as the overarching program of climate change research.

Apparently, top Republican leadership, led by Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), was concerned about introducing climate change issues into any legislation this congressional session because they would have likely become part of another, larger bill. This is a concern because if any climate change provisions whatsoever—and in whatever manner—were introduced into a larger bill, it would have opened the way for other climate change issues, including more controversial ones, to be similarly included. Republican leadership figures, therefore, asked Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-New York) to hold off support for H.R. 1578 or any USGCRP reauthorization.

Because the chairman had earlier indicated to the Democrats on the committee that he would at least allow the bill to be considered, he felt duty-bound to do so. When the bill was considered in a “mark up” session, however, the Republicans present all voted against it (even if a number of them were otherwise generally sympathetic), and the Democrats, with one exception, supported the legislation. Given their majority, the Republicans prevailed.

During discussion of the legislation, however, the chairman indicated that he would like to see a USGCRP reauthorization considered sometime during this Congress and made a commitment to work toward a bipartisan bill at what he considers an appropriate time.

WEATHER AND CLIMATE BRIEFS

New Climate Model Predicts Greater Twenty-First-Century Warming

For the first time, scientists have incorporated multiple human and natural factors into a climate projection model. They predict that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, due to changes in the carbon cycle, combined with a decrease in human-produced sulfates, may cause accelerated global warming during the twenty-first century, as compared with simulations without these feedback effects.

Results of the study, completed by Chris D. Jones and colleagues at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Bracknell, Berkshire, United Kingdom, appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Previous studies have indicated that human activities, such as carbon-dioxide and sulfate emissions, as well as natural factors, such as changes in solar radiation, emissions from volcanic eruptions, and interactions between climate and the carbon cycle, are important mechanisms for causing climate change. No previous climate studies have, however, integrated all of these factors into a single climate experiment.

The climate–carbon cycle experiment completed by Jones and his colleagues is the first to take a more comprehensive Earth systems approach to climate modeling. This “all-forcings experiment,” or ALL, incorporates carbon-dioxide emissions, noncarbon-dioxide greenhouse gases, human-produced sulfate aerosol levels, the reflection of solar radiation associated with sulfates in the atmosphere (the “albedo effect”), atmospheric ozone levels, levels of solar radiation, the effects of volcanic eruptions, and climate–carbon cycle feedbacks.

Discrepancies between observed temperature trends in the twentieth century and climate simulations that consider only a limited number of factors have hindered the ability of some models to predict future climate change. The ALL model was, however, able to recreate observed temperature records for the twentieth century, illustrating the importance of including multiple factors in climate change projections. Also, the rise in carbon dioxide simulated by ALL more closely matches the observed carbon-dioxide rise than did previous models. The researchers say that this indicates that mechanisms other than direct carbon-dioxide emissions caused by human activity also contribute to the observed trend. Jones and his colleagues were also able to replicate estimates of the amount of carbon currently stored in the oceans and on land worldwide.

With regard to future climate predictions, ALL shows that predicted reductions in human sulfate emissions will cause a reduction in the cooling effect associated with sulfates in the atmosphere, or a net warming. The model predicts that the resultant warming will enhance soil respiration, meaning that the increased amounts of carbon stored in the soil during the twentieth century will be released into the atmosphere, causing a faster rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. By the end of the twenty-first century, the authors state, the increase in carbon dioxide and decrease of sulfates will cause a substantially higher global warming of 9.9°F (5.5°C) compared with 7°F (4°C) when these interactions are neglected.

The research was supported by the U.K. Department for the Environment, Food, and Regional Affairs.

Antarctic Research Vessel Heads North to Map Arctic Waters

An ice-breaking Antarctic research vessel will sail to the Arctic for the first time this summer to conduct a comprehensive survey of the chemistry, temperature, and other characteristics of the waters off Alaska.

Other scientists who are seeking to untangle the complicated web of relationships between the shallow ocean shelves and deep basins of the Arctic Ocean will use the survey to guide their research. They hope to understand to what extent climate change is already occurring in the Arctic, what its effects might be on the plants and animals that live there and the people who depend upon them, and what measures might be taken to compensate for any change.

The research vessel the Nathaniel B. Palmer usually operates in the Southern Hemisphere for the U.S. Antarctic Program, which is managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF). But this summer, a team of NSF-funded Arctic researchers will use it as a platform to map the distribution of salinity, temperature, nutrients, and other characteristics over the outer shelf to deep basin region of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off of northern Alaska.

The Palmer will conduct the marine survey as part of NSF’s western Arctic Shelf Basin Interactions (SBI) project. SBI researchers are trying to identify processes that govern the exchanges of water of the shallow shelves that surround the Arctic Ocean basin and the deep-water basin itself.

Currently, the ocean basins act as carbon-dioxide reservoirs, or sinks, locking up some of the gas and preventing it from escaping into the atmosphere. Any change in the current carbon-dioxide balance could have direct effects on air temperatures and the amount of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean. For example, they might cause some species to flourish that currently cannot and sufficiently change the habitat of others to make it impossible for them to survive in their present ecological niche.

James Swift, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, the chief scientist for the summer research cruise, said his team will map the various characteristics of the waters in the SBI study region to provide a reference grid for the other SBI cruises in this three-year field program.

Using a variety of methods, including sampling with a conductivity–temperature–depth sensor, or CTD, which is lowered over the side of the ship, the scientists will collect water, which they will analyze for such variables as salinity and dissolved oxygen, as well as the concentrations of chlorophyll and nutrients.

The Palmer, which was undergoing routine maintenance in Lyttleton, New Zealand, is scheduled to arrive in Alaskan waters in early July and to complete its cruise by late August.

For more information about the SBI program, see the information available online at http://utk-bioweb.bio.utk.edu/sbi.nsf, and TEA James Rogers will record his trip aboard the Palmer on the TEA Web site at http://tea.rice.edu/tea_jrogersfrontpage.html.

Study Finds that Space Shuttle Exhaust Creates Night-Shining Clouds

Exhaust from the main engines of NASA’s space shuttle, which is about 97% water vapor, can travel to the Arctic in the earth’s thermosphere, the highest part of the atmosphere, where it forms ice to create clouds that shine at night, according to a new study.

The thermosphere is above 55 miles (88 kilometers) altitude. The clouds settle to around 51 miles (82 kilometers) altitude in the layer directly below, called the mesosphere. The stratosphere and the troposphere lie in that order below the mesosphere.

Michael H. Stevens, a research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington and the paper’s lead author, reports that exhaust from the shuttle and other launch vehicles may help explain how some of these mysterious clouds are formed. The paper, coauthored by scientists in Sweden and Germany, appears in the June issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Noctilucent clouds, sometimes called polar mesospheric clouds when observed from space, are too thin to be seen by the naked eye in broad daylight. However, they shine at night when the sun’s rays hit them from below the horizon, when the atmosphere under them is dark. They typically form in the cold, summer polar mesosphere and are made of ice particles.

The study uses data from the Naval Research Laboratory’s middle atmosphere high-resolution spectrograph investigation (MAHRSI) instrument, launched on the shuttle for eight days of observation in August 1997. MAHRSI allowed scientists to follow the plume’s rapid poleward movement and then to observe a discrete region of ice clouds as it appeared in the Arctic near the end of the mission. Stevens and his colleagues found that the water contained in these clouds was consistent with the amount injected into the thermosphere by the shuttle during its ascent from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“This study is important because it shows that there is a new source of water ice for the polar upper atmosphere,” said Stevens, lead scientist for MAHRSI. “Our results indicate that the water vapor released by launch vehicles can end up in the Arctic mesosphere.”

About half of the water vapor exhaust from the shuttle’s main fuel tank is injected into the thermosphere, typically at altitudes of 64 to 71 miles (103 to 114 kilometers). Stevens and colleagues found that this water vapor could be transported all the way to the Arctic in a little over a day, much faster than predicted by models of atmospheric winds. There is currently no explanation for why the water moves so quickly.

The researchers also discuss observations from a ground-based experiment in Norway, which measured water vapor moving toward the Arctic Circle. These observations reveal the passage of a large plume of water vapor overhead a little over a day after the same shuttle launch (STS-85), confirming the plume trajectory inferred from the MAHRSI measurements.

As the water vapor moves to the Arctic it falls from the warmer thermosphere down to colder levels in the mesosphere. Over the North Pole in the summer, mesospheric temperatures can plummet below minus 220°F (140°C), the lowest in the earth’s atmosphere. At these temperatures, water vapor condenses into ice particles and forms clouds.

New Supercomputer Advances Weather Forecasts

A new supercomputer that can make more than 450 billion calculations per second was dedicated last month. Operating as a parallel computer system known as “Frost” and “Snow,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) latest weather and climate supercomputer will help improve weather and climate predictions.

The new generation IBM supercomputer is poised to give the National Weather Service the ability to improve local and national forecast accuracy, as well as to extend watch and warning lead times for potential severe weather, such as winter storms, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.

“Frost” handles the operational forecasting tasks while “Snow” is assigned model development for weather, climate, and ocean applications. Combined, the IBM supercomputer is a high-performance computing system designed, installed, and implemented to run more sophisticated numerical models of the atmosphere and oceans to improve weather, climate, flood, and ocean forecasts. It is currently the world’s second largest supercomputer dedicated to operational weather and climate processing.

By 2009, the supercomputer is expected to provide 48 times the computing power of the current IBM SP that is being replaced by the new “Frost” and “Snow.” The new supercomputer is the foundation for all National Weather Service weather and climate forecasts. It runs complex numerical weather models, which generate forecast guidance products that meteorologists use as the basis for their forecasts.

The nine-year, $224.4 million contract was awarded to IBM Corporation of Bethesda, Maryland, in 2002. The computer is part of the NWS’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Global Garden Grows Greener

A NASA–Department of Energy jointly funded study concludes the earth has been greening over the past 20 years. As climate changed, plants found it easier to grow.

The globally comprehensive, multidiscipline study appears in the 2 June issue of Science magazine. The article states that climate changes have provided extra doses of water, heat, and sunlight in areas where one or more of those ingredients may have been lacking. Plants flourished in places where climatic conditions previously limited growth.

“Our study proposes climatic changes as the leading cause for the increases in plant growth over the last two decades, with lesser contribution from carbon-dioxide fertilization and forest regrowth,” said Ramakrishna Nemani, the study’s lead author from the University of Montana, Missoula, Montana.

From 1980 to 2000, changes to the global environment have included two of the warmest decades in the instrumental record; three intense El Niño events in 1982/83, 1987/88, and 1997/98; changes in tropical cloudiness and monsoon dynamics; and a 9.3% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), which in turn affects man-made influences on climate. All of these changes impact plant growth.

Earlier studies by Ranga Myneni, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, and Compton Tucker, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, also coauthors of the study, reported increased growing seasons and woody biomass in northern high-latitude forests.

Another coauthor, Charles Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, cautions that no one knows whether these positive impacts are due to short-term climate cycles, or longer-term global climate changes. Also, a 36% increase in global population, from 4.45 billion in 1980 to 6.08 billion in 2000, overshadows the increases in plant growth.

Nemani and colleagues constructed a global map of the Net Primary Production (NPP) of plants from climate and satellite data of vegetation greenness and solar radiation absorption. NPP is the difference between the CO₂ absorbed by plants during photosynthesis, and CO₂ lost by plants during respiration. NPP is the foundation for food, fiber, and fuel derived from plants, without which life on Earth could not exist. Humans appropriate approximately 50% of global NPP.

NPP globally increased on average by 6% from 1982 to 1999. Ecosystems in tropical zones and in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere accounted for 80% of the increase. NPP increased significantly over 25% of the global vegetated area, but decreased over 7% of the area, illustrating how plants respond differently depending on regional climatic conditions.

Climatic changes, over approximately the past 20 years, tended to be in the direction of easing climatic limits to plant growth. In general, in areas where temperatures restricted plant growth, it became warmer; where sunlight was needed, clouds dissipated; and where it was too dry, it rained more. In the Amazon, plant growth was limited by sun-blocking cloud cover, but the skies have become less cloudy. In India, where a billion people depend on rain, the monsoon was more dependable in the 1990s than in the 1980s.

The climate data for NPP calculations came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Researchers used two independently derived 18-plus-year satellite datasets from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers on NOAA satellites. The team processed and improved the data at GSFC and BU.

NOAA Issues First Experimental Eastern Pacific Hurricane Outlook

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued its first experimental eastern Pacific hurricane outlook calling for 11–15 tropical storms (normal is 15), with 6–9 becoming hurricanes (normal is 9), and 2–5 becoming major hurricanes (normal is 4–5).

Scientists at NOAA predict there is a 50% probability of a below-normal eastern Pacific hurricane season during 2003, a 40% probability of a near-normal season, and a 10% probability of an above-normal season.

Similar to the Atlantic hurricane season, one of the major factors in eastern Pacific hurricane development is the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon (El Niño/ La Niña). This month, NOAA scientists continued to report the dominant trend is for cooling in the tropical Pacific to continue, and for La Niña to develop during summer 2003.

“La Niña tends to suppress Pacific hurricane development in contrast to increasing Atlantic hurricane activity,” said Muthuvel Chelliah of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. “The expected activity is based on a 70% likelihood that La Niña conditions will develop during the next few months, combined with the overall reduced hurricane activity observed since 1995.”

This is the first year NOAA has issued an experimental outlook for the tropical eastern Pacific region. This outlook covers the tropical North Pacific east of 140°W latitude. The eastern Pacific hurricane season officially begins on 15 May and ends on 30 November. The peak of the season runs from 1 July through 30 September. NOAA’s experimental hurricane outlook for the eastern Pacific region is expected to become official beginning with the 2005 season.

Atmospheric Mercury Has Declined—But Why?

The amount of gaseous mercury in the atmosphere has dropped sharply from its peak in the 1980s and has remained relatively constant since the mid-1990s. This welcome decline may result from control measures undertaken in Western Europe and North America, but scientists who have just concluded a study of atmospheric mercury say they cannot reconcile the amounts actually found with current understanding of natural and man-made sources of the element.

An international group of scientists, led by Franz Slemr of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Chemie) in Mainz, Germany, studied the worldwide trend of total gaseous mercury at six sites in the Northern Hemisphere, two sites in the Southern Hemisphere, and on eight transatlantic ship cruises since 1977. They have published their findings in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The fixed sites ranged from the Canadian Arctic to Antarctica. In both hemispheres, total gaseous mercury increased in the late 1970s, apparently peaked in the late 1980s, decreased to a minimum in the mid-1990s, and has remained relatively constant since then. Concentrations in the Southern Hemisphere are about one-third less than in the Northern Hemisphere. These observations accord well, the researchers say, with data on mercury deposited in peat bogs and found in ice cores.

Scientists have believed that natural processes and human activities put about equal amounts of mercury into the atmosphere. Assuming that natural emissions and reemissions of the historically deposited mercury have remained constant, the observed reduction of about 17% in concentration from 1990 to 1996 would have to result from a reduction of about 34% in man-made emissions during that period. This, the scientists say, is 3 to 4 times larger than the 10% decrease in man-made emissions suggested by previous studies. Therefore, either our understanding of man-made emissions or of the ratio of natural to man-made emissions probably has to be refined, they say.

Further, Slemr says, some of the atmospheric mercury is deposited into soil and water, where it can be “transformed to methyl mercury, one of the most toxic compounds.” In ocean water, methyl-mercury concentrates in plankton and further accumulates in fish, especially those high in the food chain, such as tuna. High methyl-mercury levels in tuna can lead to chronic diseases in persons who eat the fish, with pregnant women most in danger.

Therefore, the researchers say, it is essential that we better understand the amount and sources of mercury in the atmosphere. The amount of mercury emitted naturally is not well understood at present. With regard to man-made emissions, coal burning definitely emits mercury, and it was recently discovered that biomass burning is another important source. Waste incineration is also a source, but not yet well quantified. Further, says Slemr, the annual reemission of a small fraction of the 200,000 metric tons of mercury deposited into the environment since Roman times is uncertain.

Slemr and his colleagues conclude that future emission inventories must take into account the difference between atmospheric mercury levels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, as well as the historic and present day emission trends. Further research will be necessary with regard to the quantitative and qualitative sources of atmospheric mercury, both natural and man-made, for any emission inventory to be credible.

Wettest Spring on Record for Several East Coast States

Parts of the East Coast, including Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, experienced their wettest spring on record, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). By contrast, Texas endured its second driest spring in the 109-year record. Regionally, spring in 2003 was the ninth driest in the South, while the Southeast had its fourth wettest spring.

“The increased storminess in the East this spring is linked to the jet stream, and a stubborn circulation pattern with a ridge of high pressure over the western United States,” said James Laver, director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland. “The jet stream’s position helped bring up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and led to record statewide average rainfall in Virginia and the Carolinas.”

The 2003 spring ranked as the twenty-first warmest March–May period in the 109-year record for the nation, according to the NCDC. The preliminary national average temperature was about 53ºF, which was 1.3ºF above the long-term mean. The Northeast was cooler than average, with Massachusetts and Maine ranking twenty-fourth and twelfth coolest on record, respectively.

Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico were much warmer than average for the March–May period, respectively, ranking fifth, sixth, and tenth warmest on record. The NCDC also reported that much of the United States was wetter than average, ranking as the thirty-fourth wettest spring on record.

SATELLITE AND SPACE NEWS

New Personal Emergency Locator Beacons Become Available

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Air Force have announced the authorization of a new, digitally encoded distress device called, the personal locator beacon (PLB), which will become available for nationwide use beginning 1 July 2003.

“These new personal beacons have advanced features and use the global positioning system (GPS) technology, which makes it easier, and quicker for NOAA satellites to pick up their distress signals and relay an accurate location to the rescuers,” said James R. Mahoney, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator.

All owners of PLBs and other types of 406-megahertz beacons are required by law to register them with NOAA. The registration includes critical information, such as the owner’s name, address, telephone number, and the PLB’s unique identification number. The distress signal is checked against a registration database, which contains information to locate the missing person.

The PLBs send out digital distress signals on the 406-megahertz frequency, which are detected by NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). GOES, the first to detect a beacon’s distress signal, hover in a fixed orbit above Earth and receive the signals, which contain registration information about the beacon and its owner. The POES constantly circle the globe, enabling them to capture and accurately locate the alerts.

The satellites are part of the worldwide satellite search and rescue system called, COSPAS-SARSAT. The COSPAS-SARSAT system is a cluster of NOAA and Russian satellites that work together to detect distress signals anywhere in the world from PLBs and beacons aboard ships and airplanes.

The signals are relayed to the U.S. Mission Control Center, based at the NOAA Satellite and Information Center in Suitland, Maryland, for processing. From there, they are sent to rescue agencies around the world. In the United States, the PLB alerts will be routed to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC) at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, which acts as the single federal agency for search and rescue in the 48 contiguous states. The AFRCC notifies the state rescue agency, or state police in the area where the PLB was activated.

COSPAS-SARSAT and emergency locator beacons information is available online at http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov.

U.S. and European Satellite Agencies Sign Agreement to Share Data

Europe’s Meteorological Satellite Organization (EUMETSAT) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) signed the Joint Transition Activities Regarding Polar-Orbiting Operational Environment Satellite Systems Agreement at EUMETSAT headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, on 24 June 2003. The agreement will ensure the ongoing delivery of vital environmental data well into the second decade of the twenty-first century.

The two agencies also signed an agreement for access to data from the Meteosat second generation (MSG) satellites. This agreement is a follow-on to the 1995 agreement between EUMETSAT and NOAA, which granted NOAA and its official U.S. affiliates access to METEOSAT data. The current MSG agreement will allow NOAA and its official U.S. affiliates access to the new products available from the MSG satellite that was launched in August of 2002.

For additional details on the agreement see relevant information online at www.noaa.gov.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS IN THE NEWS

NCAR Scientists Win Award for In-Flight Turbulence Prediction

A warning system to help pilots navigate storms without encountering air turbulence has earned a NASA award for its design team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). NASA will present the NCAR team and other NASA team members with a “Turning Goals into Reality” award on 11 June.

“The purpose was to create something industry could put on aircraft and help prevent accidents,” says Larry Cornman, one of two leaders on the project from NCAR. “This new technology shows that it is possible for airborne radars to be used to give pilots warnings of at least 30 seconds in advance of turbulence.”

The project started several years ago with the goal of upgrading radars on commercial aircraft to provide useful turbulence information. Specifically, the NCAR team wanted to determine which regions of low radar reflectivity are safe from turbulence.

Reflectivity refers to the amount of radar signal bounced back by raindrops, ice crystals, and snow. Pilots use reflectivity readings from on-board radars to maneuver around storms. A pilot may assume a region of low reflectivity is safe and fly through it only to experience turbulence in this drier area.

The team tackled the problem in two steps. First the scientists ran computer models that simulated clouds and turbulence. Then they simulated radar returns within the clouds. The radar simulations helped them develop the NCAR efficient spectral processing algorithm (NESPA), a quality control and turbulence prediction formula for use with airborne Doppler radars like those on commercial airlines. NESPA will help pilots decide which low-reflectivity regions are safe to fly through.

In a test flight last summer, scientists used NESPA on the NASA B-757 aircraft as it flew through numerous thunderstorms. The plane encountered 42 cases of moderate or greater turbulence. NESPA had an 80% detection rate and made very few false predictions, even in areas where the radar return was very low.

California Student Wins 2003 Thacher Scholarship for Work on Satellite Remote Sensing

Yimin Yao, a senior at La Jolla High School in La Jolla, California, has won the 2003 Thacher Scholarship, given annually to an exceptional high school student displaying the best use of satellite remote sensing in understanding our changing planet.

Yao was selected from six first-place finishers in the NASA Student Involvement Program’s (NSIP) Watching Earth Change competition. Her paper, “The Transcontinental Journey of Dust,” detailed the migration of an April 1998 Asian dust storm across the Pacific Ocean.

The Thacher Scholarship was founded by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in honor of the late Peter S. Thacher, an internationally recognized leader in promoting the use of satellite remote sensing worldwide and former United Nations assistant secretary general.

The $4,000 prize was announced at the NSIP award dinner on 6 May in Hampton, Virginia.

“Until my name was announced . . . I never thought I could’ve come this far,” said Yao, who moved to the United States from Hangzhou, China, just four years ago. “It’s absolutely a great honor, and also a great encouragement to my future research in science.”

Using daily images from NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrophotometer (TOMS), a space-based instrument that also tracks dust, smoke, and other particles, Yao set out to determine how much dust from a storm that originated over China and Mongolia reached North America.

Because the images depicting the traveling dust were qualitative in nature, a creative approach was needed to quantify the data. After enlarging and printing each of the 10 images, Yao cut out and weighed the colored areas representing the dust. Because the mass of the paper was proportional to the area, Yao was able to calculate the percentage of original dust remaining for each day’s image.

Yao plans to continue pursuing her interest in science this fall as a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley.

Peter Thacher dedicated more than three decades of work at an international level on remote sensing and other practical applications of space science. He played a special advisory role for NASA and provided a unique and extremely valuable contribution to geographic information systems on local, regional, and global levels.

U.S. News & World Report and Canadian Broadcasting Producers Win AGU Journalism Awards

Charles Petit, science writer for U.S. News & World Report, and Patric Senson and Jim Handman, producers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Quirks & Quarks radio program, are the winners of the American Geophysical Union’s 2003 journalism awards. Both winning entries dealt with climate change issues.

Petit won the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—News for his article, “Perilous Waters: A Climate Surprise may be Brewing in the North Atlantic,” which was published on 1 April 2002. As one of the judges on the award committee noted, “It was the first popular media article on the recently released data about freshening in the North Atlantic, and led to a host of other articles and media coverage on the topic in 2002.” The story was based on a presentation at the 2002 AGU/ASLO Ocean Sciences Meeting by Robert Dickson of CFAS, The Laboratory, and colleagues in the United Kingdom and Germany.

As reported by Petit, Paris is currently almost 20°F (10°C) warmer on average than Gander, Newfoundland, although it is at the same latitude. The North Atlantic Ocean’s currents account for Europe’s milder climate, but for four decades, an increased flow of fresh water has entered the North Atlantic and threatens to chill Europe and disrupt weather patterns worldwide. Petit interviewed a number of scientists who helped explain the phenomenon and commented on Dickson’s research.

Petit’s winning article may be read online at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/features/petit_climate.htm.

Patric Senson and Jim Handman won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—Features for their program, “The Science of Climate Change,” broadcast by CBC Radio on 16 November 2002. Handman is senior producer of Quirks & Quarks, and Senson was producer of this program. It was pegged to Canada’s accession to the Kyoto Accord and the Canadian government’s release of a plan to achieve the country’s climate change targets.

The award committee noted that the program “involves a host who leads a discussion that draws on contributions from a variety of experts who discuss various aspects of this important—and not without some controversy—subject. And it is done in a fashion that both informs and maintains listener interest, so that, in the end, each can arrive at their conclusion.

The winning Quirks & Quarks broadcast may be heard at http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/archives/02-03/nov16.html#1.

The Perlman and Sullivan Awards will be presented on 10 December, during the honors evening at AGU’s 2003 fall meeting in San Francisco, California. Each award consists of a plaque and a $2,000 stipend.

Michael P. Crosby of NOAA Named As National Science Board’s New Executive Officer

The National Science Board (NSB) has named Michael P. Crosby, senior advisor for international science policy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to be the board’s new executive officer.

Crosby is a marine biologist with more than 20 years of research, teaching, science management, and leadership experience. He also served as executive director for the NOAA Science Advisory Board. He has played an active role in leading multidisciplinary research programs and in developing national policy for U.S. science programs.

Prior to joining NOAA, Crosby held faculty positions at the University of South Carolina, Coastal Carolina University, the University of Charleston, and Salisbury State University. He has also had previous science positions with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Crosby received his Ph.D. in marine–estuarine–environmental sciences from the University of Maryland, and received a Master of Science in biology from Old Dominion University.

Crosby will assume his post 27 July, replacing Gerard Glaser, who has served as acting executive officer since July 2002.

The U.S. Congress established the National Science Board (NSB) in 1950 to serve both as an independent national science policy body and to oversee and guide the activities of the National Science Foundation. Further information on the NSB can be found online at http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/start.htm.

AMS Member Tim D. Crum Receives Top NOAA Award

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded an Administrator’s Award to Tim D. Crum of NOAA’s Radar Operations Center. Crum is responsible for the operational data management aspects of the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) data.

The NOAA Administrator’s Award is the agency’s top personnel award, and is a combination honorary–monetary award given annually in recognition of employees who have made significant contributions to NOAA.

As a recipient of this award, Crum has been recognized for exhibiting consistent high-quality leadership, skill, and innovation in revolutionizing the data management of weather radar data from the 120 National Weather Service, 12 Federal Aviation Administration, and 26 Department of Defense radar sites. He directed the initiation, coordination, and implementation of the concepts and procedures to migrate the WSR-88D data management from a partially manual tape (level-II data) and optical disk (level-III products) operational environment to a totally electronic process, significantly reducing the time from data observation to user access.