Editor: Jim Elliot
Contributors: Alan Weinstein, Ginny Frost, and Julie Burba
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GOVERNMENT NEWS
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
SATELLITES AND SPACE
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
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The FY98 budget request for the Office of Energy Research is $2.5 billion, an increase of approximately 1% from the 1997 appropriation. Approximately $2.0 billion is for Basic and Fusion Energy Sciences and High Energy and Nuclear Physics.
The request for FY98 Biological and Environmental Research is $376.7 million, down by $13 million from the FY97 appropriation. The budget request for the program in FY98 in Atmospherics and Climate Research is $110 million, a decrease of approximately $3 million from the FY97 appropriation.
|
BER Budget |
FY96 |
FY97 |
FY98 |
|
Climate and Hydrology |
$64,475 |
$63,697 |
$62,356 |
|
Atmospheric Chemistry and Carbon Cycle |
25,596 |
26,020 |
23,993 |
|
Ecological Processes |
13,195 |
10,991 |
12,029 |
|
Human Interactions |
9,513 |
8,951 |
9,172 |
|
Small Business Innovative Research Science and Technology Transfer Research |
0 |
2,674 |
2,576 |
|
Total, Environmental Processes |
$112,752 |
$112,333 |
$110,126 |
Climate and Hydrology includes $20 million in funding for climate models and $42 million for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program and the ARM Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Program. Climate models are being improved based on increased understanding of physical phenomena that define cloud and radiation processes, especially from data acquired through ARM. Intercomparison of climate models will also continue in FY98.
Under the ARM Program, research will continue on the data gathered from the ARM southern Great Plains site. The program plans on completing the installation of instrumentation at two additional sites, the tropical western Pacific and the North Slope of Alaska, which are climatologically significant to the cloud-radiation aspects of climate change.
The funding request for FY98 for DOE's Atmospheric Chemistry and Carbon Cycle Research is $24 million, down from $25.5 million in FY97. The program includes studies of air quality in the NARSTO Program and support for complete analysis of ocean–urban measurements collected in the Indian and North Atlantic Oceans. Funding is also provided to continue modeling of terrestrial carbon processes, implementing a carbon dioxide flux measurement network to quantify annual net exchange of CO2 between the atmospheric and terrestrial ecosystems and to generally improve understanding of terrestrial ecosystem processes.
The Research in Ecological Processes Program will continue experimental studies to quantify forest ecosystem responses to climate variation, as well as to develop an understanding of interactions and feedback effects between the atmospheric and ecological systems.
The Objective Integrated Assessment Program aims to develop integrated assessment models, support research on important gaps in these models, and support research to help guide global change policy. The funding requested for these programs in FY98 is $9.1 million.
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President Clinton has proposed a budget of $7.645 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency in FY98, which is a 12.4% increase over the FY97 appropriation of $6.8 billion. The proposal was cited as a clear and compelling illustration of the administration's commitment to "protect the environment while advancing the prosperity of the American people and people throughout the world."
Most areas in EPA will receive budget increases, including Superfund cleanups, expanding brownfields development efforts, improving the public's right to know about pollution in their neighborhoods, assessing health risks to children, revitalizing our urban areas, applying new research tools to the state of the environment, and ensuring the safety of the nation's water and food supplies.
The president is requesting a budget of $614.3 million in FY98 for Science and Technology. This is an increase of approximately 11% over the appropriation of $552.0 million in FY97. These funds support the operating programs of the Office of Research and Development, the Office of Air and Radiation, the Office of Mobile Sources, and the Program Office laboratories.
A number of new and critical areas with significant uncertainties will be funded in the S&T account in 1998: Assessing Health Risks to Children, Americans' Right to Know, the Advanced Measurement Initiative, and the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments and the Food Quality Protection Acts of 1996.
The FY98 requests include $91.1 million, a 10% increase, for research on reducing air pollution. Air toxic research will increase programs in the area of urban toxins; the Criteria Air Pollution Research Program will enhance efforts on understanding the risks associated with particulate matter; and the Global Change Research Program will focus on integrated assessment of the potential ecological risks of climate change in coastal, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. EPA will also consider regional vulnerabilities for coastal ecosystems by developing a conceptual model to identify principal areas of change.
The budget request is for $87.5 million to strengthen air standards and regulations, including continuing the Ozone/Carbon Monoxide/Nitrogen Program and the Particulate Matter/Visibility/Regional Haze/Lead Program. Waste Management research will continue on understanding the fate of contaminants in soils and groundwater. The budget for strengthening the scientific basis for drinking water regulation is decreased by 10% to $35.9 million.
The agency will continue their large program in Ecosystem Protection Research, investing $105.5 million in FY98. This program, in addition to many standard programs on clean air and water and healthy terrestrial ecosystems, will investigate three agency objectives: a Risk Assessment link between ecosystem and human health, the scientific basis of environmental indicators of stressors, and integration of information through risk management models.
The Human Health Protection Research Program will be increased by approximately 20% to $53.6 million with additional emphasis on studies of health effects of sensitive populations to pesticides and toxic substances and determining risks to children.
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The Authorizations and Appropriations committees and subcommittees of the House of Representatives and the Senate on the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency are taking place at a rate of four or five hearings each week, much more frequently than can be covered and reported in the AMS Newsletter. However, we will report on some of the hearings.
The House Science Committee held the first of three planned hearings on the NSF budget request for 1998 on 5 March 1997 with Dr. Richard Zare, chairman of the National Science Board, and Dr. Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation, testifying. The Science Committee is planning the authorization for NSF for the next 2 years. On 13 March, the Science Committee will hold hearings on NSF's Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education programs, and on 9 April a panel of outside witnesses will provide testimony to the Science Committee on the proposed Millimeter Array Radio Telescope, the Polar Cap Observatory, the Next Generation Internet, and the future of supercomputer centers.
At the hearing on 5 March, the chairman of the subcommittee, Congressman Vernon Ehler, expressed support for the budget increase of about 3% in the NSF Research and Related Activities Account proposed by the president, but at the same time expressed concern over the adequacy of the 1% proposed growth in the budget of Education and Human Resources.
Dr. Lane presented the major features of the foundation's program for FY98. Dr. Lane eloquently described many of the remarkable new products that now are available to all people resulting from basic research supported by NSF. Both Drs. Lane and Zare described the new Initiative on Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence. The Next Generation Internet also received considerable attention.
Concerns about a reduction in the number of supercomputing centers received substantial attention, and obviously this sensitive issue will be front and center at the hearing on 9 April.
The House Science Subcommittee for Space and Aeronautics held authorization hearings on NASA's proposed budget on 4 March 1997. In his opening statement, the chairman, Congressman Dave Weldon, expressed support for NASA's budget stability as indicated by the president's request. Weldon was concerned with the financial and scheduling problems of our Russian partners in the Space Station and asked for decisive action by the administration for the project.
Congressman George Brown indicated he had mixed feelings on the proposed budget. Brown stated, "I know Administrator Goldin will call it a good budget—and it is compared to the budgetary outlook in the FY97 request and which would have done significant damage to NASA's programs. However, such a rosy view represents in part a triumph of lower expectations."
Brown stated that the budget request for FY98 represents a continuation of the trend that has led to a reduction of almost a billion dollars in absolute terms since FY94. He also expressed concern about funds being diverted from the science payload for the Space Station to cover Space Station hardware development costs.
Administrator Dan Goldin confirmed Brown's prediction by describing the NASA budget request in FY98 as being ample and by presenting the enormous progress that has been made by NASA since he took over as administrator in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of NASA's programs. He pointed out the remarkable transition during his term: the budget overrun in NASA's programs, according to a GAO survey, was 77% in 1992. Today they are underrunning cost estimates by 6%. NASA's workforce has decreased from 24,900 in 1993 to about 21,000 at the end of 1996. By FY2000 Goldin predicted that NASA's workforce will be about 18,000.
NOAA's Science Committee hearings will begin on 13 March. We will cover the hearings in the April issue of the Newsletter.
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Scientific leaders representing more than one million scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have joined together to warn of the decline of U.S. investment in science and to call on the federal government to reverse the trend. The rapidly growing list of organizations that AMS is now joining was organized by the presidents of the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, and the American Mathematical Society.
At a press conference on 4 March 1997 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, they called for an increase in FY98 of 7% over the FY97 science and technology budgets. The Clinton administration's proposed budget for FY98 would result in the fifth consecutive year of constant dollar declines in the nation's federal investment in research. Only the science budget of the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation have kept up with inflation over the past 4 years. The largest percentage change in federal science and technology budgets during the period FY94–FY97 (constant dollars) has been in the Department of the Interior, 23.8%. The Department of Energy's Science and Technology budget has decreased by 13.8%, DOD's by 11.1%, DOT's by 8.0%, the Department of Commerce's by 7.5%, and the Environmental Protection Agency's by 5%. The average decrease has been 5% in constant dollars. So, a 7% increase in FY98 would nearly recover the losses over the last 4 years.
"Our nation must strike a balance between the current fiscal pressures and the need to invest in the science and education activities that enable long-term economic growth," said Dr. D. Allan Bromley, president of the American Physical Society and former presidential science advisor. He added, "The scientific leaders believe that an increase in the federal investment in research in the range of 7% for FY98 is not only appropriate, but essential."
The leaders noted that, in his State of the Union Address, President Clinton declared, "To prepare America for the 21st century, we must harness the forces of science and technology to benefit all Americans."
"Yet," Dr. Arthur Jaffe, president of the American Mathematical Society, pointed out, "the president's proposed science and technology budget for FY98 does not even keep pace with inflation. The proposed budget is inconsistent with President Clinton's stated national goals." He concluded, "The government must increase the priority of science."
In analyzing the president's proposed budget, Representative George Brown, ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, reached the same conclusion. In a recent statement, he warned that "it falls far short of what needs to be done—R&D will continue to decline in real terms over the next 5 years under this budget."
The call for an increased federal commitment to scientific research also has strong bipartisan support among other key congressional leaders. Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm, a fiscal conservative, has introduced the National Research Investment Act of 1997—a bill calling for doubling federal investment in research over the next 10 years. The bill is cosponsored by Florida Republican Senator Connie Mack and Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The need for strengthening the U.S. investment in research has also been endorsed by the new bipartisan Senate Science and Technology Caucus. The caucus is chaired by Tennessee Republican Bill Frist and includes New Mexico Republican Pete V. Domenici, Connecticut Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman, and West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller.
In their first meeting, held 3 weeks ago, Frist commented that the caucus identified science as "one of our nation's highest priorities." "The senators," he said, "recognize that we face an overwhelming challenge from Asia," and that "science and technology, by any definition, are the engine of economic growth."
Senator Domenici, who chairs the powerful Senate Budget Committee, noted that while Congress must proceed to balance the budget, it must also recognize that "investment in science is key to our nation's economic future."
At the meeting of the Coalition of Scientific Societies, Bromley concluded, "We are confident that the leaders of scientific and engineering organizations will continue to cooperate to see that the government restores the commitment to research."
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The global climate system might be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than many scientists think, according to a paleoclimatologist at the National Geophysical Data Center, who reports his findings in the 20 February issue of Nature magazine.
Robert S. Webb, of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a team of scientists performed a series of global climate simulations. They found that incorporating near-modern ocean heat transports, reduced glacial atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and large terrestrial ice sheets, together with feedback mechanisms, is sufficient to lower annual average global surface temperature by 8°C (14.4°F) and tropical sea surface temperatures by 5.5°C (9.9°F) at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
"While debate continues on the role of the Tropics and the ocean in climate change, our results suggest greater climate sensitivity and cooling in the past," Webb concluded. "Furthermore, the greater global cooling shown in our simulations implies a much greater climate sensitivity than previous estimates. This suggests that the expected warming from carbon dioxide doubling may be closer to 4°C warming, rather than more modest estimates of 2.5°C."
Webb's results indicate that the new, cooler tropical LGM temperatures inferred from coral material and noble gases in fossil groundwaters could have resulted from the combined impacts of greenhouse effects and of ocean heat maintained at near-modern levels during the Last Glacial Maximum. The coral and groundwater evidence and mechanism for tropical cooling described by Webb undercut previously posed arguments that tropical sea surface temperatures have changed little throughout the Cenozoic and that such stability will persist in the future.
In addition to Webb, the team consists of David H. Rind and Richard J. Healy, both of NASA, Scott J. Lehman of the University of Colorado, and Daniel Sigman of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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from Bob Henson, UCAR
Computer models and temperature-gleaning satellites are useful tools in the quest to diagnose global change, but only when their limitations are well understood. This is the message conveyed by two scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, in two articles appearing in the journal Nature on 13 March. One article provides new findings on an ongoing controversy involving the reliability of global temperature trends obtained via satellite. The other provides an overview of how to use—and how not to use—computer models that mimic the earth's atmosphere for research on climate change.
A puzzling discrepancy between global temperature trends ascertained by surface instruments versus satellites is analyzed by NCAR's James Hurrell and Kevin Trenberth in the article "Spurious Trends in Satellite MSU Temperatures from Merging Different Satellite Records." Since 1979, microwave sounder units (MSUs) have been deployed aboard polar-orbiting satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. MSUs measure the brightness of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere and thus infer the temperature across the globe at various heights.
MSU readings for the lowest several kilometers have been averaged and yearly trends calculated since 1989. These show a drop in global temperature of -0.03° to -0.05°C per decade since 1979. More traditional global temperature averages taken near the ground show a rise of about 0.1°C/decade over the same period. The difference in trends has been a subject of spirited debate because of its implications for the projection and measurement of global warming. (The projected rate of warming is typically around 0.2°C/decade.)
In their Nature article, Hurrell and Trenberth argue that the MSU data, while useful for many purposes, are poorly suited for gauging long-term surface temperature trends. MSUs monitor the globe more thoroughly than surface reports, which are concentrated over land and approximated over oceans. However, each MSU lasts only a few years, to be replaced by another deployment on a different satellite. According to the NCAR scientists, the transitions between satellites may be producing spurious temperature drops that mask an actual rise in global readings. "The surface and MSU records measure different physical quantities," write Hurrell and Trenberth, "so that decadal trends should not be expected to be the same." However, they add, "unreconciled discrepancies among the different records remain."
To study the matter further, the scientists focused on the Tropics between 20°N and 20°S, where "noise" from short-term weather variations is lower than it is in temperate and polar zones.
Hurrell and Trenberth compared simultaneous MSU records to each other, to sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and to air temperatures simulated by an NCAR climate model using SSTs. They found that most of the difference between MSU and surface trends could be explained by two significant drops in MSU data for 1981 and 1991, years when satellite transitions took place.
Some newspaper and magazine articles now cite only the MSU or only the surface data in reporting on global temperature trends, without noting the counterpart to each. Hurrell and Trenberth stress that both datasets are needed to unravel the mysteries of global climate. "The MSU data are excellent for analyzing year-to-year changes, but not necessarily for longer-term trends," says Hurrell.
Trenberth provides an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of global atmospheric models in his article "The Use and Abuse of Climate Models." He points out that humankind is now "performing a great geophysical experiment" by modifying the environment in a way that threatens to change the climate. Lacking a spare earth on which to run a true experiment, "we have to do the next best thing—try to understand the climate system well enough to build a good model of the planet earth system . . . a virtual model of the earth in a computer."
However, Trenberth notes, a climate model is only as realistic as the theoretical understanding behind it and the complexity allowed in it. Computer resources, while growing rapidly, still restrict the detail and sophistication of current models. NCAR's climate system model, for example, requires weeks of actual time for a single 100- or 200-year climate simulation. "Computing power is one key to future progress," says Trenberth. Another is to improve the representation of common processes such as cloud formation and ocean circulation in order to minimize the number of "flux adjustments"—shifts in energy, water, and momentum exchange that are artificially prescribed in order to make a model more stable. These adjustments run the risk of causing unforeseen and unrealistic side effects in the modeled climate.
In his article, Trenberth describes a strategy for carrying out climate experiments that removes much of the impact of flux adjustments and other potential sources of error. However, this strategy does not eliminate the possibility of complicated feedback effects. Among other sources of difficulty, clouds represent "probably the single greatest uncertainty in climate models," notes Trenberth. "The enormous variety of cloud types, their variability on all space scales . . . and timescales (microseconds to weeks) poses a special challenge."
To help gain confidence in model results, Trenberth advocates the use of such tools as sensitivity tests, to see how much a result varies with small changes in the input conditions or model procedures, and simplified models, which require less computer time, to check approximations and assumptions. He also suggests that the burden of proof for claims that model results are incorrect should be on the critic, not the modeler.
For policymakers hoping for guidance from computer models, Trenberth emphasizes the value of using pooled knowledge and results from a number of different models, such as those used in the estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of a projected global warming from 1.3° to 2.9°C by the year 2100. "Statements such as these, given with appropriate caveats, are likely to be the best that can be made because they factor in the substantial understanding of many processes included in climate models. Such projections cannot offer certainty, but they are far better than declaring ignorance and saying nothing at all."
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NASA scientists using weather forecast models with newly incorporated data from the wind-measuring NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) instrument onboard Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) are seeing significant improvements in their ability to analyze weather patterns and generate more accurate forecasts, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.
"Initial experiments with the wind measurements taken by the scatterometer indicate the potential to extend the useful range of weather forecasts in the Southern Hemisphere by about 24 hours," said Dr. Robert Atlas, a NSCAT science team member from the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "We have also seen improvement in early analyses and forecasts of storms in the Northern Hemisphere. Specifically, NSCAT appears to more accurately locate both cyclones and fronts, and to improve the forecasts of their location by as much as several hundred kilometers."
Such information should assist meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Prediction Center, Camp Springs, MD, to issue more accurate warnings that could help reduce the loss of life and property at sea and along the U.S. coastline.
Accurate measurements of wind velocity in the Southern Hemisphere have been virtually nonexistent due to the vastness of the southern ocean. The scatterometer takes 190,000 wind measurements per day, mapping more than 90% of the world's ice-free oceans every 2 days. The instrument is giving scientists more than 100 times the amount of ocean wind information than is available from ship reports or buoys. Because the scatterometer is a radar instrument, it operates 24 hours a day, collecting data day or night, regardless of sunlight or weather conditions.
"Since the August launch, we've set a new standard in terms of how quickly we have been able to calibrate and validate our instrument and get the data into the hands of the people who are using it," said Jim Graf, NSCAT project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
"Weather forecasters will be able to use these data to better predict the evolution of fronts and storms over the oceans and track them as they approach land and major population centers. The maritime industry will benefit by steering ships away from storms and toward areas with favorable tailwinds," Graf said. "By combining the scatterometer wind data with ocean height data from the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, earth scientists are getting a firsthand look at the forcing function, the winds, and the ocean's response, ocean height and waves, or the yin and yang that control much of our planet's weather and climate change."
The NSCAT project also is making the wind images available to the public via the Internet at the following address: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/winds.
"Each day, we provide a 'daily wind movie' of the Pacific Ocean that allows people to see the last 26 hours of NSCAT wind data. Anyone who has an interest in what the winds are doing—weather forecasters, scientists, boaters, surfers, fishermen—can log on and get an up-to-date picture from NSCAT," Graf said. Data of the Atlantic Ocean and other oceans will be on-line in a few weeks.
The scatterometer uses an array of sticklike antennas that radiate microwave pulses in the Ku-band across broad regions of the earth's surface. A small fraction of the energy in the radar pulses is reflected back and captured by NSCAT's antennas. At any given time NSCAT's array of six dual-beam antennas scans two swaths of ocean—one on either side of the satellite's near-polar, sun-synchronous 500-mile orbit. Each swath is 375 miles wide. The swaths are separated by a gap of about 215 miles directly below the satellite where no data collection is possible.
The NSCAT instrument was launched on 16 August 1996 on Japan's ADEOS. ADEOS is an international global change research mission of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, which includes instruments from the United States, Japan, and France, with investigators from many other countries. The satellite is a key part of an international environmental research effort that includes NASA's Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) program, a long-term, coordinated research effort to study the earth as a global environmental system. The goal of MTPE is to develop a better scientific understanding of natural environmental changes and to distinguish between natural and human-made changes and impacts.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed, built, and manages the NSCAT instrument for NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth, Washington, DC.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the GOES-K satellite will be launched on 24 April and will go into a holding orbit to be ready to replace either of the two current stationary weather satellites.
The GOES (Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellites) satellites orbit at the same rate the earth turns, allowing them to remain above the same spot on the planet, watching the weather as it changes. They are the mainstay of short-term weather forecasting, producing the images widely seen on televised weather reports.
The satellites also measure water vapor in the atmosphere, ground and sea surface temperature, winds, heat radiation from the earth, reflection of sunlight, rain and snowfall, and ozone in the air, and can detect forest fires and plumes of volcano ash that can endanger airliners.
Currently, GOES-9, launched last year, watches over the western states and the Pacific Ocean, while GOES-8, launched in 1994, observes the east and the Atlantic. Once it reaches orbit successfully, GOES-K will be renamed GOES-10.
NOAA is spending about $1 billion for five GOES satellites, with two more yet to be delivered.
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Margaret Lemone, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, has just been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the academy is one of the highest professional distinctions accorded engineers and other technical specialists, recognizing those who demonstrate "unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology." She will be inducted during a ceremony at the next annual NAE meeting in Washington, DC, on 7 October.
LeMone is an observational meteorologist who studies the behavior of large, organized storm systems and other aspects of the lowest kilometer of the atmosphere, called the planetary boundary layer. She is one of 46 women inducted into the 1,893-member academy since its creation in 1964. Her election recognizes her "for advances in understanding the dynamics of the planetary boundary layer and its role in the predictability of atmospheric processes."
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