Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributors: Alan Weinstein and Ginny Owen
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The 79th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society got underway in Dallas 10 January and ended 16 January with all appearances of having been one of the most successful in recent years. The week-long meeting at the Wyndham Anatole Hotel was attended by approximately 2000 scientists, educators, oceanographers, hydrologists, and other experts who delivered nearly 1900 scientific and poster presentations. Representatives from 31 countries were also in attendance.
The theme of the meeting was "Global Climate Change—Focus on the Americas." Presentations included discussions on developments in tropical meteorology; hurricanes and flooding; the success of forecasts for El Niño events; national and international assessments of global climate change research; climate and health; modernization efforts taking place in the nation's leading weather organizations—NWS, Air Force, and Navy; aviation and aerospace, agriculture, and education, to name some.
Leaders from NOAA, including Dr. D. James Baker, administrator, and John J. Kelly, NWS director; the National Science Foundation, including Dr. Rita Colwell, its new director, and Dr. Robert Corell, assistant director for Geosciences; the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland, including John Zillman, president, and Godwin O.P. Obasi, secretary-general, and representatives of other U.S. government agencies, academia, industry, and education brought the latest information and developments taking place in observing and forecasting.
As a prelude to the meeting, AMS President Eugene Rasmusson, AMS Executive Director Ron McPherson, and NSF's Bob Corell appeared on an hour-long World Net television interview program at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in Washington on 6 January. The trio discussed global climate challenges facing the Americas and answered questions from the press on a wide range of related topics. The program was taped for distribution to U.S. embassies around the world.
The Dallas meeting had one of the largest commercial exhibits in atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic, and related environmental sciences ever, representing more than 125 U.S. and foreign companies, universities, government agencies, and research institutions. As at past annual meetings, daily weather briefings were conducted as were electronic theater presentations produced by NASA's Dr. Fritz Hasler, demonstrating the latest developments in satellite imagery. Also, NOAA brought its hurricane-hunter Gulfstream-IV jet aircraft to Dallas's Love Field, where it was on display for press briefings and tours by annual meeting attendees.
The meeting brought the introduction of George Frederick Jr. as the new president of AMS, succeeding Eugene Rasmusson. It also marked the first annual meeting at which Ron McPherson served as AMS executive director. McPherson is succeeding Dick Hallgren, who retired but is staying on as executive director emeritus.
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from Audrey T. Leath, The American Institute of Physics
While science and technology funding received significant support from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 1998, there is concern about the outlook for next year. Twenty-four senators have written to President Clinton urging that, in his budget submission for FY2000, he request a 6%–7% increase in federal R&D funding.
Room for funding increases in the FY2000 budget is expected to be minimal. The caps set forth in the 1997 balanced budget agreement will pinch heavily in FY2000. In the last-minute scramble to pass the huge, final FY99 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress and the administration postponed payment for some items into FY2000, and designated as one-time "emergency" spending a number of items that are expected to continue, and need further funding, in FY2000. According to various sources, this will result in up to $28 billion of unplanned-for spending that appropriators will have to accommodate within the FY2000 budget caps. Yet another factor is that the "firewalls" separating defense and civilian discretionary funding will vanish; thus, efforts to increase DOD funding could cut into other federal programs. How all this will affect R&D, in the president's request and Congress's budget deliberations for FY2000, cannot be predicted. It is a warning, however, not to take the good fortune science experienced in FY99 for granted in the upcoming appropriations process.
The House vote to impeach the president and the ensuing Senate trial are also likely to affect Congress's ability to proceed with its normal legislative duties, including the FY2000 appropriations process. There are already reports that the two parties will have little inclination to work together next year, even on areas of significant bipartisan consensus, such as science funding.
Twenty-four senators, almost one-quarter of the Senate, signed an 11 December letter to President Clinton, calling for White House leadership "in promoting a 6%–7% investment level (for R&D) as the budget is drawn up by the Office of Management and Budget."
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The earth's mean surface temperature is expected to rise 0.2° K (0.36° F) per decade over the next four decades, according to a new modeling study. The study uses a climate system model (CSM-1) developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. NCAR's primary sponsor, the National Science Foundation (NSF), funded the research. Results were derived from a two-century simulation of Earth's climate. Other results expected by the end of the year include information on climate changes related to precipitation, cloudiness, and large-scale runoff.
The CSM-1 is a physical climate model that uses atmosphere and ocean general circulation models, a sea-ice model, and a land biophysics and simple hydrology model, explains Cliff Jacobs, NSF program manager for NCAR. It is one of the few current climate models that maintain a stable surface climate over hundreds of years without the need for artificial corrections. The climate simulations were driven by observed changes in atmospheric trace-gas concentrations for the period 1870–1990 and two projected trace-gas scenarios for the period 1990–2100. The greenhouse gases included in the model are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12. Emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) resulting from human activity are also included, with projected increases over time. Natural SO2 emissions were assumed to be constant. SO2 is important because it is converted in the atmosphere into sulfate aerosol, which reflects some sunlight back into space and may slow or reverse global warming trends in certain regions, according to NCAR scientist Byron Boville.
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Droughts more severe than the 1930 Dust Bowl could occur in the Great Plains sometime in the next century, according to NOAA scientists.Connie Woodhouse, a University of Colorado research scientist working at NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) in Boulder, Colorado, and Jonathan Overpeck, head of NOAA's Paleoclimatology Program, reported the results of their research in the December issue of the AMS Bulletin.
The authors reviewed existing paleoclimatic literature, including a variety of data sources, to determine what droughts were like before instruments were invented and to compare droughts of the past 2000 years with more recent droughts. The data sources consist of historical documents, tree rings, and archaeological remains, as well as lake, river, and wind-blown sediments.
The authors found a greater range of drought variability in the past than found in the instrumental record. Droughts of the 20th century have been only moderately severe and relatively short, compared with droughts of much longer ago. Woodhouse said that paleoclimatic records for the past 400 years strongly indicate that the severe droughts of the 20th century, the 1930's Dust Bowl and the 1950's drought, were not unusual events and suggest that we can expect to have droughts of that magnitude once or twice a century.
"However, when we look even farther back in time, we see indications of droughts with much greater duration," Woodhouse said. During the 13th to 16th centuries, there is evidence for two major droughts that probably significantly exceeded the severity, length, and spatial extent of 20th-century droughts, the authors report. The most recent of these "megadroughts" occurred throughout the western United States in the second part of the 16th century. This drought appears to have been the most severe and persistent drought in the southwest in the past 1000–2000 years. Another megadrought occurred in the last quarter of the 13th century.
"Conditions that lead to severe droughts such as that of the late 16th century could recur in the future, leading to a natural disaster of a dimension unprecedented in the 20th century," Overpeck said. "Besides the fact that natural variability could have more severe droughts in store for us in the future, two human factors could make the Great Plains even more susceptible to a severe drought in the future. These are land-use practices and global warming." "Even in the absence of significant greenhouse warming, however, future droughts may be much more severe and last much longer than what we have experienced this century," he explained.
Overpeck said that paleoclimate data in combination with instrumental data, satellite observations, and climate models are essential to understanding the full range of natural drought variability and also to reduce uncertainty with respect to what human-induced and natural climate change will occur in the future.
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NASA and other weather researchers have gained intriguing new information about upper-level winds that drive hurricanes and the devastating impact of the storms as they collide with mountains. The research is from a seven-week study conducted last summer during the Third Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX-3) that involved NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several universities in a concentrated effort to gauge the strength of Atlantic hurricane winds and rainfall.
"The wind patterns flowing into and out of the hurricanes at the upper altitudes were much more complicated than had been anticipated," said the lead mission scientist, Robbie Hood of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama. "At times, strong wind gusts were recorded at positions farther from the eyewall or with magnitudes greater than expected."
CAMEX-3 used a variety of data-gathering instruments aboard aircraft and spacecraft. Researchers flew aboard NASA's specially equipped DC-8 jetliner into hurricanes Bonnie, Danielle, Earl, and Georges. An instrument-laden NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft also was flown above the hurricanes to collect first-of-its-kind data. Researchers utilized data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite and from specially designed laser instruments aboard the DC-8. The data are expected to help weather forecasters better predict storm strength and direction—potentially saving lives and reducing evacuation zones along coastal areas.
"The multiaircraft datasets obtained by NASA aircraft in these hurricanes are unprecedented in their comprehensiveness," said Dr. Ed Zipser, a weather expert from Texas A&M University in College Station. "They will provide researchers with the raw material to understand severe storms and their environment, and lead to improved track and intensity forecasts in the future." "The amazing thing about this data from Georges is that the rain was enhanced significantly by the mountains in the interior of the Dominican Republic," said NASA researcher Dr. Gerald Heymsfield of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. "We got a glimpse of the storm's impact with the mountainous island and the subsequent rain that eventually caused significant loss of life."
Heymsfield's images from a Doppler radar on the high-altitude aircraft show Hurricane Georges slamming into 9000-foot mountains, producing what appeared to be huge thunderstorms over the mountains. "Understanding this very complicated interaction between Hurricane Georges and the mountains will keep us busy for a while," said Heymsfield.
The two NASA aircraft were flown a combined total of 132 hours over the month-long mission to sample various aspects of the hurricane environment. Information from three storms was captured while they made landfall. The hurricane team also utilized ground-based instruments on Andros Island, Bahamas, to monitor the daily tropical environment before and after each storm.
"Since each hurricane has its own personality with varying characteristics, having information describing four different storms represents a tremendous opportunity to improve our understanding of how hurricanes develop, change and move," said Hood. "Although these opportunities don't provide immediate comfort to those who directly experienced this season's devastating storms, the wealth of information collected by all the agencies will lead to better hurricane forecast capabilities in the future," she added.
"The real success of CAMEX-3 was the breadth of hurricane information collected," said Dr. Ramesh Kakar of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., who is the atmospheric dynamics and remote sensing program manager. "The combination of scientists from eight NASA centers, and the multiagency, multiuniversity teamwork of CAMEX-3 was a tremendous example for future research activities."
Kakar said key to the success of CAMEX was assistance to NASA from numerous universities; the pilots and crews from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California; team members from Goddard and NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia; and the project management staff from NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. "We're very grateful for the advice and coordination efforts of NOAA and the support from the Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. Help from the Federal Aviation Administration allowed the CAMEX-3 investigators to capitalize on key research opportunities when they arose," he added.
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For the past decade, scientists have studied the West Antarctic Ice Sheet hoping to discover if or when the giant ice mass will slide into the ocean and send sea level upward, submerging coastal communities. While rapid sea level changes have occurred in the past, the important question for scientists is what is going to happen in the future?
A story in the October issue of EOS's The Earth Observer reviewed a recent conference of the world's leading experts on the ice sheet who met for the first time to discuss the latest findings on the stability of the earth's most precariously perched ice sheet. Known as the Chapman Conference, the meeting, held in September at the University of Maine at Orono, was sponsored by the AGU and cosponsored by the International Glaciological Society.
"For the last 4000 to 5000 years, there haven't been any major jumps in sea level," the story quoted conference organizer Robert A. Bindschadler, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Now about half the world's population lives near the coast. We've set ourselves up to be vulnerable." He reported that sea level is currently increasing very slowly, just a few millimeters each year, but if the ice streams moving toward the sea start speeding up, sea level could rise several inches a year. He said the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet has enough mass to raise sea level more than 15 feet. The ice sheet lies mainly in the South Pacific Ocean and contains over 3 billion cubic kilometers of ice, covering about 10% of the total Antarctic area. It is the world's only ice sheet that could possibly collapse and slide into the ocean, according to Bindschadler.
The story reported that Charles R. Bentley, a glaciologist from the University of Wisconsin, warned that it is important to keep in mind how long such a collapse might take. If it takes more than 5000 years, the change in sea level would only be about 1 millimeter a year, about half as fast as the current rise. However, if it takes only 100 years, he said, sea levels could rise 50 millimeters (2 feet) a year.
To understand the behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the story reported, scientists must understand how the ice moves. Ice streams, currents of fast-flowing ice, are the ice sheet's superhighways, swiftly transporting ice from land into the sea. Ice streams are different from glaciers in that they are bordered by ice instead of rock. The ice streams flow 10 to 100 times faster than the ice surrounding them, with speeds between 500 and 1000 meters (1500–3000 feet) a year. Ice streams average about 80 kilometers (50 miles) across and 100 kilometers (62 miles) long. Each stream dumps 15–30 cubic kilometers (3.5–7 cubic miles) of ice into the ocean each year. Measuring the flow of these ice streams from the ground can be treacherous, so many researchers rely on satellite observations. Bindschadler compared satellite images taken over the last 35 years and found that ice streams once thought to flow at a constant rate are actually slowing down, making the question of whether the West Atlantic Ice Sheet as a whole is wasting away much more complicated.
Bentley and Mark Senoien, also from the University of Wisconsin, used radar data from ESA's ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites to study the Pine Island Glacier, a vast river of ice that flow from the West Atlantic Ice Sheet directly into the sea. They found that the glacier is actually fed by many different tributaries, challenging the current views that assume that streams have a single starting point where the ice starts to speed up. Eric Rignot, a glaciologist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, studied satellite radar of the Pine Island Glacier and the Ronne Ice Shelf, a massive slab of floating ice attached to the West Atlantic Ice Sheet. He found that ice streams flowing onto the Ronne Ice Shelf were not retreating and are very stable. But the point where the Pine Island Glacier hits the ocean is retreating very quickly, he reported, moving back over 3 miles in just a few years. He termed that finding a "fire alarm," saying, "it provides some very strong incentive to study this area. If that's where the action takes place, we better not miss it."
Data from Radarsat, a Canadian satellite launched by NASA in 1995, are being used to create the first complete satellite image of Antarctica by researchers at the Byrd Polar Research Center. It is expected to be finished in a year.
For the first time, satellite elevation measurements of the West Atlantic Ice Sheet are being planned using a laser instead of radar. ICEsat, a NASA satellite set for launch in 2001, will use the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) to gather very accurate elevation measurements. Bentley said that radar-derived measurements sometimes are suspect because radar uses a wide area and is not very accurate on steep slopes. The benefit of using laser is that it can be highly focused like a laser pointer, he explained.
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For the first time in history, scientists around the world were able to observe a major climate event from the earliest stages of development through its decline. These observations have brought unprecedented insight into El Niño, years of research data to analyze, and the opportunity to issue valuable predictions.
The 1997–98 El Niño "event of the century" was the best monitored and the first ever predicted El Niño on record, according to NASA and NOAA scientists, who presented joint papers at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December.
Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist, reported that "the 1997–98 El Niño will be the first time a major El Niño event and subsequent La Niña will have been observed globally from start to finish." Following the last strong El Niño in 1982–83, the international science community deployed an extensive surface observing system in the tropical Pacific Ocean in support of monitoring and predicting El Niño. In addition, within the past 10 years, a series of oceans and atmospheric remote sensing satellites have been launched that supplement and enhance the observations being taken at the surface, and at depth, of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These global observations have provided unprecedented information on sea surface temperature, sea surface topography, sea surface winds, ocean color, and precipitation.
"The observations of the climate system, combined with sophisticated ocean–atmosphere prediction models, and the science communities increased understanding of the atmospheric response, led to an incredibly bold forecast of El Niño nearly six months prior to the onset of the major impacts," said Dr. Ants Leetmaa, director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. "Working with the emergency management community and other users we were able to start applying the forecasts for practical use and widespread education about climate variability. With this event, we were light years ahead of the last major El Niño." Leetmaa added that NOAA learned the impacts if El Niño are typically communicated through changes in the number and intensity of storms in areas that make up the midlatitudes, such as the United States. As a result, he said, the El Niño phenomenon sets the stage for more extreme weather events.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center monitors, analyzes, and predicts climate events for the entire nation—from weeks to seasons. NOAA operates the network of data buoys and satellites that provide vital information about the ocean and initiates research projects to improve future climate forecasts. Beyond the impacts on U.S. and global weather patterns, the observation system also provided incredible insight on the impact of El Niño on marine life. The observations of the marine environment for the first time have shown how the physical climate system during El Niño obliterated the lowest levels of the marine ecosystem and subsequent impacts at higher levels in the food chain, added Busalacchi. Among the lessons learned to date from the 1997–98 event have been the need for the global observations in addition to just those in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the need for more regionally specific forecast tools, added Leetmaa and Busalacchi.
The experience of the 1997–98 El Niño has illustrated the global scale of the El Niño phenomenon and its impacts. It has demonstrated that today's El Niño monitoring system, coupled with ocean—atmosphere models, and scientific understanding are capable of giving a 3- to 9-month advance warning of significant shifts in global precipitation and temperature patterns. It has also demonstrated the need to refine such forecasts to regional scales and where additional observations are needed.
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from Bob Benson, NCAR
El Niño may have been less of a factor in Northern Hemisphere climate around 4000 B.C. than it is now, and global warming may be working to accentuate El Niño's current and future impacts. These conclusions by two scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) were presented along with other research on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on 13 January at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in Dallas, Texas.
Bette Otto-Bliesner used NCAR's recently developed climate system model (CSM) to study the behavior of ENSO, which affects much of the globe, and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a more regional cycle that alters temperatures and precipitation across the northwest Atlantic and Europe. She found that the impacts of ENSO on Northern Hemisphere winters (for instance, a general warming across Canada and the northern United States during El Niño) were up to 50% weaker 6000 years ago. Her research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's primary sponsor.
To reproduce the climate of 4000 B.C., Otto-Bliesner altered the incoming solar radiation to account for the planet's greater tilt and a shift in perihelion (the earth's closest annual approach to the sun) at that time. The result is accentuated seasonality, with up to 6% more solar input during the Northern Hemisphere summer and a corresponding reduction in the winter. As a control run, Otto-Bliesner used the CSM to simulate present-day conditions. In both the 4000 B.C. and present-day runs, the model captured the ebb and flow of El Niño and La Niña, but the impacts of ENSO were considerably weaker in the 4000 B.C. run.
What about the future of El Niño? According to NCAR senior scientist Kevin Trenberth, ENSO's impacts may be enhanced by human-produced climate change. El Niños have been unusually frequent since the mid-1970s. The same period has seen a dramatic rise in global temperature. The year 1998 set a global record and was one of the United States's two warmest years since records began in the late 1800s.
Trenberth has found that the global mean temperature peaks three to four months after the peak in El Niño. "It is no coincidence that the exceptional warmth in the first 7 months of 1998 occurred as the Pacific Ocean lost heat following the peak of the 1997–98 El Niño in December 1997," notes Trenberth. During El Niños, warm waters spread across the tropical Pacific, evaporating large amounts of water vapor that release heat when the vapor condenses into clouds and rain. Thus, El Niño events tend to transfer heat from ocean to atmosphere, warming the globe about 0.1° C for each standard deviation of departure from average temperatures in the Southern Oscillation index, according to Trenberth.
Trenberth theorizes that much of the additional heat trapped by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases may be going into the oceans. It is later released through El Niños that are larger, more frequent, or less efficient in releasing the ocean-stored heat. The atmospheric warming induced by El Niño also helps to further dry out regions already prone to drought during El Niño, such as Indonesia, Australia, and parts of Africa and Brazil. "Naturally occurring droughts, such as from ENSO, are likely to set in quicker, plants will wilt sooner, and the droughts may become more extensive and last longer with global warming."
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In a study showing climate changes that may represent a health threat, particularly to the elderly, two researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report an increasing frequency of extremely hot and humid days nationwide. Their statistical study of temperature and humidity data for the United States from 1949–95, was published inNature.
In an analysis of hourly temperature and humidity observations at 113 NOAA weather stations nationwide, NOAA scientists Dian J. Gaffen and Rebecca J. Ross found that the frequency of extreme heat stress days is increasing across the United States by about two days a year per decade. "Meteorologists calculate heat stress using the apparent temperature, or heat index, which is an estimate of human discomfort in sultry weather due to a combination of high temperature and high humidity," said Gaffen, a research meteorologist at NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland. "We have found that average summertime temperature and humidity have both increased during the past half century," Gaffen said. "Accompanying these trends in mean conditions, we found that the frequency of extremely high heat stress conditions has also increased, especially at night. We saw the largest and most statistically significant trends in some of the most populated parts of the country, the eastern and western thirds of the conterminous United States. There has also been an accompanying increase in the frequency of multiday heat waves, with increases of about 88% nationwide during the study period."
According to Gaffen and Ross, it is possible that the trends since 1949 are, in part, associated with increased urbanization. If the spatial extent of urban heat islands has been growing, they report, it is possible that weather stations near large cities might experience more frequent high temperatures, especially at night. But the NOAA scientists conclude, "The regional consistency of the trends suggests that their origins are not strictly local. Regardless of the root causes, if these climate trends continue they may pose a public health problem, particularly in light of the growing population of elderly people most vulnerable to heat-related sickness and mortality."
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aircraft Operations Center has been honored with two prestigious awards from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The silver medal was awarded for AOC's extraordinary response to NOAA's call to study and forecast the unusual weather associated with this past winter's severe El Niño episode. In a separate ceremony, the bronze medal was awarded to AOC for achieving continuous and multiple flight operations through Hurricane Georges and providing critical data that saved lives and greatly reduced property damage in the U.S. coastal areas.
Dr. James McFadden, a physical scientist on AOC's program staff, accepted the silver medal on behalf of AOC from Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C. Stan Czyzyk, who serves as a flight meteorologist for AOC's Science and Engineering Division, was presented the bronze medal on behalf of the center by NOAA Administrator D. James Baker at a ceremony in Silver Spring, Maryland. For the silver medal, AOC and NOAA's Environmental Technology Laboratory's Meteorological Applications and Assessment Division were recognized for their dedication and efforts during the California Land-Fall Jets Experiment and the Northern Pacific Experiment. The results obtained from these two experiments were a key part of early warnings that saved lives and reduced property damage during the El Niño-induced storms along the California coast during the winter of 1998. In the longer term, their research will greatly enhance the nation's ability to respond to future short-term climate variability.
For the bronze medal, the Aircraft Operations Center was recognized for the extraordinary efforts of all its employees in sustaining high-tempo flight operations during Hurricane Georges. NOAA's two WP-3D's and Gulfstream-IV "hurricane hunter" aircraft conducted 23 missions, totaling more than 170 hours. Throughout the entire evolution of the storm, the aircraft maintained a 100% readiness rate, exceeding programmatic requirements for hurricane reconnaissance, research, and surveillance. Ground crews made rushed repairs at remote sites, while support personnel in Tampa worked around the clock providing logistical support, as well as shutting down the center and running operations from the field during the base closure when Tampa came under a tropical storm watch.
Despite the stressful conditions, fatigue, and hazardous flights into extreme weather conditions, adherence to established procedures and safety considerations were maintained. The data obtained from the aircraft provided vital storm tracking and measurement information to the National Hurricane Center. This information was used to assist the American public in storm preparations and evacuations, and contributed significantly to public safety and reduced property damage in the U.S. coastal areas.
The Aircraft Operations Center is part of the Office of NOAA Corps Operations, composed of civilians and commissioned officers of the NOAA Corps. AOC is located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
The Secretary grants the silver medal, the department's second highest honorary award, to employees who have made contributions of exceptional value in support of overall departmental goals that serve the nation. The bronze medal is the highest honorary award given by NOAA, an agency of the Department of Commerce. It is granted by the administrator for a significant contribution to NOAA or the department.
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Scientists are gaining new insights into the electrodynamic processes surrounding lightning by examining measurements of more than 2 million individual lightning strokes recorded by a sophisticated radio receiver aboard the FORTE satellite. The measurements are sufficiently detailed that the researchers can pick out signals from the separate processes that build to form an atmospheric discharge, providing a new, high-quality tool for deepening understanding of the physical processes governing lightning. The researchers also are linking FORTE recordings with ground-based measurements from the National Lightning Detection Network and from a network of sensors that measure low-frequency electromagnetic emissions, or "sferics," and changes in the direction of the electric field.
Matching FORTE's readings with others could identify those radio signatures useful for remotely identifying important storm systems, convective cells that spawn tornadoes, for example, or unleash damaging hail.
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory presented several papers based on the FORTE data at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco. FORTE, which stands for Fast On-Orbit Recording of Transient Events, was developed jointly by Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. Launched August 1997, the satellite began acquiring radio data almost immediately, and kicked into high gear when it unfolded a 30-foot long antenna that had been stowed in a foot-high canister for launch. The sophisticated radio receiver samples a wide range of radio frequencies at a very high rate, essential since the impulsive radio emissions associated with lightning last less than a thousandth of a second. The receiver can make a recording and reset its trigger almost instantaneously.
FORTE also has two sensors that detect and measure the optical emissions from lightning. It developed to demonstrate advanced technologies for detecting nuclear weapon detonations, and thus help curb nuclear proliferation. "Lightning is of interest to Los Alamos's national security missions because there is a parallel between the spectrum of lightning emissions and the electromagnetic pulse created by a nuclear weapon detonation," said Los Alamos physicist Abe Jacobson, who heads the FORTE science team. "FORTE's measurements will allow us not only to build a better trigger to discriminate between natural and human-caused events of interest, but we get tons more data about natural phenomena. We can see changes in the pattern of data as the satellite passes over a storm," Jacobson said, which will help increase understanding of storm processes.
FORTE's circular, low-Earth orbit is inclined 70% to the equator, so it makes several passes per day over lightning-prone tropical regions, notably South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Due to its global coverage and its large data-acquisition and archiving capability, FORTE provides a tremendously improved opportunity to gather statistics on the characteristics of lightning radio-frequency emissions.
"Global warming could drive the hydrologic cycle with increasing vigor. We're getting a handle on how to use radio frequency and optical signals for remote sensing of storm processes," Jacobson said. FORTEs radio technology is a follow-on to the successful Blackbeard experiment carried aboard Los Alamos' ALEXIS satellite, launched in 1993. Blackbeard added to the scientific literature observations of TIPPs, Trans-ionospheric Pulse Pairs. These were extremely short, intense, paired radio pulses known to originate from near storm systems, but otherwise of unknown origin.
FORTE has conclusively shown that TIPPs are generated by lightning, the second pulse produced by a reflection of the first pulse off Earth's surface. Blackbeard's radio technology could only detect the strongest lightning-related events, and TIPPs are generated by extremely strong discharges. FORTE's more sophisticated technology can distinguish all the lightning signals that are generally buried in the noise of manmade radio emissions and show that TIPPs are at the tail end of the distribution of events. FORTE can also see signals from the individual events that develop and radiate from the buildup and discharge of a lightning stroke, whereas Blackbeard looked only at the integrated signal.
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Many rarely observed conditions occurred in the Bering Sea during the summers of 1997 and 1998, including extensive die-offs of seabirds, rare algal blooms, unanticipated low salmon runs, warmer than usual ocean temperatures, and altered ocean currents and atmospheric conditions. These changes prompted scientists from NOAA, the federal agency that protects and predicts the nation's marine resources and atmospheric environment, to convene an international workshop in Seattle, Washington.
"People whose livelihood depends on the Bering Sea need to know if these are fleeting anomalies or persistent large-scale changes," said James Balsiger, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. "Scientists want to determine the cause of these unusual conditions and their portent for the future of this national resource."
The eastern Bering Sea provides almost half of the fish and shellfish caught in the United States. Most of the catch comes from the continental shelf, a broad, shallow area larger than the state of California, that borders Alaska's western coast. Besides producing abundant fish and shellfish, the shelf also supports large numbers of resident and migratory birds and marine mammals.
A prominent theme of the workshop was the implication of recent environmental changes on the management of living marine resources. Reports from those attending the workshop will now be available via the Internet for a broader review and comment by U.S. and world environmental scientists.
"We wanted to bring together scientists, environmentalists, administrators, resource managers, native Alaskans, representatives of the fishing industry, and others at this crucial time," said Eddie Bernard, director of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "During the workshop, more than 75 participants shared information, proposed reasons for these environmental changes, and suggested future research needs. They also discussed ways to use Internet technology to report news and facilitate communication."
Workshop participants reported information related to the environmental occurrences. Atmospheric processes in 1997, partially in response to El Nino, caused clearer skies, calmer seas, and warmer sea temperatures than normal in the eastern Bering Sea. "The warmest water temperatures ever recorded on the eastern Bering Sea shelf occurred during the summer of 1997," said Phyllis Stabeno, an oceanographer at the Seattle lab.
The most striking event was the appearance of extensive areas of milky, aquamarine water over most of the shelf in 1997. The water's unusual color was caused by a massive bloom of coccolithophores (a type of nontoxic, microscopic marine plant). These blooms have never before been observed in the Bering Sea for extended periods. The coccolithophores replaced the normal summer plankton community. This replacement made profound, but not well understood, effects on the rest of the food chain. Despite different atmospheric conditions in 1998, the bloom recurred.
Other recent changes in the ecosystem included unprecedented mortality of short-tailed shearwaters and unsuccessful reproduction rates for kittiwakes (both common seabirds frequenting the area during summer). Salmon runs were far below expected levels. The fish were smaller than average, and traditional migratory patterns seemed altered. There was an unusual sighting of Pacific white-sided dolphins in Bristol Bay, and large numbers of baleen whales appeared on the shelf. Taken together, these events show how responsive the ecosystem is to climate and suggest that climate change would have a strong effect on the ecosystem.
Although these unusual conditions did not seem to have an immediate effect on the groundfish of the area, they may impact future abundance. NOAA Fisheries surveys in 1997 and 1998 located fewer young-of-the-year pollock than in previous years. However, other studies conducted in 1998 suggest that young pollock, in fact, were quite abundant but located farther onto the shelf than usual. This displacement could derive from transport of pollock larvae northeastward from their spawning area due to windy conditions during spring. Ramifications of these recent changes will not be known for several years until the young pollock mature into adult fish and are harvested.
An important task is to determine linkages between the unusual conditions and the Bering Sea's bountiful resources of salmon and pollock. Workshop participants agreed that focused, long-term, integrated research is needed and recommended the recently written Draft Science Plan for the Bering Sea Ecosystem. Incorporating traditional knowledge from native communities into the information available to research programs is also vital, scientists acknowledged. Participants discussed the challenge of preserving the diverse populations of fish, marine mammals, and birds in this highly variable environment.
NOAA scientists are seeking review and input from scientists throughout the globe. A summary of the workshop is available on the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean Web site http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/bering/. A chat room for timely exchange of information will be incorporated into the web site, as recommended by workshop participants.
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At least 8928 people were reported killed from earthquakes world wide in 1998, according to the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) in Golden, Colorado. Although this is a three-fold increase over the 1997 toll of 2907, and a 20-fold increase over the 1996 total of 419 deaths, it is still under the long-term average of about 10 000 earthquake-related deaths in the world each year.
"This is the fifth consecutive year in which the death toll has been below average world wide," said Waverly Person, director of the USGS NEIC. "The border area of Afghanistan and Tajikistan bore the brunt of fatalities in two events (at least 6323 fatalities), neither of which was the strongest earthquake for the year or even classified as a major earthquake," Person explained.
The strongest earthquake in 1998, one of only two great earthquakes recorded in the world in 1998 (magnitude 8.0 or above), occurred on 25 March in the Balleny Islands region, between Australia and Antarctica. Its magnitude was 8.3. The other great earthquake occurred on 29 November in the Ceram Sea, near Sulawesi, Indonesia. That earthquake's magnitude was 8.1 and at least 34 people were killed. Only 10 earthquakes were classified as "major." Major earthquakes have a magnitude of 7.0–7.9. According to long-term records, an average of 20 major earthquakes occur in the world per year.
"No fatalities occurred in the United States in 1998 from earthquakes; however, two people were reported injured in the 12 August magnitude 5.3 earthquake in southern Santa Cruz County, California," said Person. Three earthquakes of magnitude 6.2 were the strongest recorded in the United States in 1998 and all occurred in Alaska: 9 July in southern Alaska, 20 August, and 14 September in the Aleutian Islands.
"A magnitude 5.2 earthquake on the Ohio—Pennsylvania border on 25 September generated the greatest number of inquiries to the NEIC. Although this earthquake did not cause very much damage, it was felt strongly throughout northern Ohio and most of Pennsylvania. It was also felt in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and southern Ontario, Canada," said Person. "We continue to hear from many people throughout the world that earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, this is not the case. In fact, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher have remained fairly constant throughout this century," Person noted.
A partial explanation for the impression of increased earthquakes may be that in the last 20 years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes USGS has been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. Besides enhancing public safety, this increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed seismological centers to locate many small earthquakes that were undetected in earlier years, and we are able to locate earthquakes more rapidly. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.
Also, the effect that earthquakes have when they strike is generally more pronounced. Although we have gained much knowledge in building safer structures, when earthquakes occur today, losses (both human and property) are greater in many areas of the world. This is not because the earthquakes are stronger, it is simply because the earth's population is increasing and more property (much of it not built to withstand earthquakes) exists that can be destroyed in an earthquake.
USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many of these earthquakes go undetected because they occur in remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The USGS locates about 18 000–20 000 earthquakes each year (about 50 per day).
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The Earth and Sky radio series has forged a partnership with NASA's Earth Science Enterprise and developed a radio series being broadcast to a measured 3.8 million listeners.
The series of 20 90-second pieces have been aired on approximately 700 stations in the United States—and more throughout the world—in late 1998 and will continue into1999, according to the EOS publication, The Earth Observer. Topics covered range from algae to volcanoes and study the stress of Earth on an interconnected system as well as new approaches to studying changes in global climate.
In the Washington area, the programs can be heard on WETA at 8:15 a.m. weekdays, 90.9 on the FM dial. Other stations carrying the program are listed on the Earth and Sky Web site: http://www.earthsky.com.
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Two top-level National Weather Service directors were named 13 January by the Department of Commerce. The newly appointed NWS directors are Vickie L. Nadolski for Western Region Headquarters, Salt Lake City, Utah and Louis W. Uccellini for the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Camp Springs, Maryland.
"I am fully committed to ensuring that we have the best weather service in the world and I am confident that these individuals have the experience and expertise to help us maximize the $4.5 billion dollar investment American taxpayers have made in modernizing the National Weather Service," said Commerce Secretary William M. Daley.
D. James Baker, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator announced the personnel selections at the 79th annual American Meteorological Society meeting in Dallas, Texas. "Individuals such as Nadolski and Uccellini will help NOAA and the United States remain a leader in weather and climate science and service."
As NWS regional director, Nadolski will manage all operational and scientific meteorological and hydrologic programs for the Western portion of the country including observing networks, weather services, forecasting, and climatology, and hydrology. Nadolski will direct weather services for eight states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.
"Our Western states have diverse and challenging weather. Vickie Nadolski's strong leadership and management skills are well suited to meet the demands of this part of the country," said John J. Kelly Jr., NOAA assistant administrator for weather services and NWS director.
Nadolski, a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, and Herndon, Virginia, resident, joined the NWS in 1975 and has held a variety of meteorology and technical positions. She is best known for her work as the program manager of the Automated Surface Observing System, one of the new technologies of the modernized weather service. Since 1995, Nadolski has been responsible for directing the $230 million tri-agency system acquisition, managing system development and deployment across the country and integrating this technology into NOAA's data stream. As part of the Senior Executive Service Candidate Program, she assists the NWS director with special projects such as developing a strategic plan for the future and reorganizing the agency's headquarters. Nadolski graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.S. in mathematics and has studied meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University.
As the director of the National Centers of Environmental Prediction (NCEP), Uccellini will direct a central component of the NWS mission to protect life and property, as well as mitigate economic loss, by providing accurate forecasts and forecast guidance products to weather service field offices and many external users.
Uccellini, a native of Bethpage, Long Island, New York, and Columbia, Maryland, resident, has been the NWS's director of meteorology since 1994. During his tenure, he has established the scientific and operational requirements for NWS weather data, forecasts, and warnings and the dissemination of these products to a diverse user community. Uccellini's federal career began as a research meteorologist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres, Greenbelt, Maryland, from 1978 to 1989. Uccellini joined NOAA as the chief of the Meteorological Operations Division, Camp Springs, Maryland, in 1989. The author of more than 50 journal publications, Uccellini is perhaps best known for his coauthorship (with Paul Kocin) of the AMS monograph, Snowstorms Along the Northeast Coast of the United States 1955 to 1985. Uccellini earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
"Louis Uccellini's meteorological track record at the National Weather Service is impressive," said Baker. "NCEP is the starting point for nearly all weather and climate forecasts in the United States," said Kelly. "With Louis Uccellini's expertise, NCEP will continue to provide invaluable service to National Weather Service field offices, other government agencies, and private meteorological services who rely on our products and services."
Uccellini will manage the direction and administration of all NCEP activities including technical and operational management of daily operations; ensuring timely and adequate implementation of new programs, products and services; and responding to the short-term and long-term needs of the NWS field operations and external customers.
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Carl Staton has been selected as director of the National Centers for Environmental Predictions' Central Operations, the component of the National Weather Service responsible for operating the sophisticated computer systems that run numerical weather prediction models and build the nation's huge real-time weather databases. Nearly every weather forecast made in the U.S. and many others worldwide is based on these models and databases.
NCEP Central Operations, located in Camp Springs, Maryland, is one of the nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction, operated by the National Weather Service. The NWS is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates under the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Staton will manage the daily operations of the center and the installation of a new supercomputer, designed to improve weather, flood and climate forecasts as part of the extensive modernization of the NWS. "Carl will be a tremendous asset to our organization," said Jack Kelly, director of the NWS. "He has excellent skills in managing computational systems and in networking them together, and will bring strong leadership to an already highly skilled team."
Staton joins the NWS from a sister agency, the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service's Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution, responsible for processing, distributing, and archiving data from NOAA and non-NOAA polar and geostationary satellites. Prior to his work at NESDIS, which began in 1979 as a computer specialist, Staton worked with General Electric and Singer-Link Inc. in programming and systems integration.
He earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from North Carolina State University. Throughout his tenure with NOAA, he has earned numerous awards, including the bronze medal.
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Internationally recognized shuttle processing director Robert B. (Bob) Sieck, who has served as shuttle launch director at the Kennedy Space Center for 52 space shuttle missions, has announced his retirement from NASA.
Sieck recently received one of NASA's most prestigious awards, the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor NASA confers on an individual. In presenting the award to Sieck, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin identified Sieck as "one of the finest people ever to work at NASA" and said, "I don't know of anyone that has done more for America's space program than Bob Sieck. We've relied on him for making sure that the shuttle is safe, because that's the most important thing."
Sieck will be succeeded in his position as director of Shuttle Processing by David A. King, who has been Sieck's deputy since 1996.
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