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GOVERNMENT NEWS
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
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ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
GENERAL NEWS
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The House of Representatives, in a strong show of bipartisan support, recently adopted 6 of the 10 science and technology authorization bills reported out by the Committee on Science. Included were legislation affecting the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Fire Authorization Act, and a bill amending the Energy Policy Act of 1992 by extending research into the exposure of electric and magnetic fields.
Passed by the committee but still under review by the full House are bills for the support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Sea Grant College Program. As proposed by the committee, NOAA would be authorized $1.45 billion in 1998 and $1.57 billion in 1999, DOE would be authorized $4.61 billion in 1998 and $4.62 billion in 1999, and EPA would be authorized $559.8 million in 1998 and $617.1 million in 1999.
The NSF bill provides funding to more than 19,000 research and education projects in science and engineering, accounting for approximately 25% of federal support to academic institutions for basic research. The bill authorizes $3.505 billion for FY98, an increase of 7.2% over FY97, and $3.613 billion in FY99.
The NASA bill authorizes spending for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. "The Congress acted properly by continuing the vital science work done on the Space Shuttle and by supporting construction of our most promising laboratory yet, the International Space Station," said Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). An amendment offered by Ranking Science Committee Democrat George Brown (D-CA) imposed a decision process on the administration with respect to Russian participation in the construction of the space station. The House defeated by the largest margin ever (112–305) an amendment that would have eliminated funding for the space station. The bill authorizes $13.5 billion for FY98, a decrease from FY97, and $13.8 for FY99, less than 1% over FY97 funding.
The FAA bill authorizes research and development projects designed to improve the nation's air transportation system by addressing issues of safety, security, and capacity to meet the future growth of air travel at $217.4 million for FY98, a 4.3% increase over 1997, and $224 million for 1999, a 3% increase over the proposed 1998 authorizing level. The bill also authorizes 231 million, a 3.1% increase, for 2000. The legislation authorizes a $17.4 million increase over the administration's request for FY98, an increase termed "necessary" to safeguard sensitive computer and information system data from unauthorized disclosure, to enhance weather research activities, recognizing weather as a major contributor to aircraft incidents, to strengthen research activities to assist the FAA to meet its goal of reducing aircraft noise 80% by the year 2000, and to establish a new undergraduate research grants program.
The NIST bill authorizes $609.3 million for FY98 and $627.7 million for FY99. The bill prioritizes funding for NIST laboratory functions, increasing their funding by 5% in FY98 and 3% in FY99, while reducing funding for such programs as the Advanced Technology Program (ATP). The bill fully funds the 75 existing Manufacturing Extension Partnership Centers and allows the "authorization of maintenance and infrastructure improvements for NIST in FY1998 and FY1999," according to Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD), who introduced the bill.
The Fire Administration bill authorizes $29.6 million in FY98 and $30.5 million in FY99.
The Energy Policy Act amendment extends the Electric and Magnetic Field Research and Public Information Dissemination Program (EMF-RAPID), a 5-year program designed to examine the possible health effects of exposure to EMF. The program was set to expire on 31 December 1997, and this bill extends the program through 1998.
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H.R. 1278, the House Authorization bill for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes a section amending the Organic Act of 1890, which created and defined the Weather Bureau, now the National Weather Service. Section 502 of the resolution, passed by the House Science Committee on 10 April 1997, is as follows.
Section 502 DUTIES OF THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
(a.) IN GENERAL—To protect life and property and enhance the national economy, the Secretary, through the National Weather Service, except as outlined in subsection (b), shall be responsible for—
- forecasts and shall serve as the sole official source of weather warnings;
- the issue of storm warnings;
- the collection, exchange, and distribution of meteorological, hydrological, climatic, and oceanographic data and information; and
- the preparation of hydrometeorological guidance and core forecasts information.
(b.) COMPETITION WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR—The National Weather Service shall not compete, or assist other entities to compete, with the private sector when a service is currently provided or can be provided by commercial enterprise, unless—
- the Secretary finds that the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide the services; and
- the service provides vital weather warnings and forecasts for the protection of lives and property of the general public.
(c.) AMENDMENTS—The Act of 1890 is amended—
- by striking section 3 (15 U.S.C. 313); and
- in section 9 (15 U.S.C. 317) by striking all after "Department of Agriculture" and inserting in lieu thereof a period.
(d.) REPORT—Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Science of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate a report detailing all National Weather Service activities which do not conform to the requirements of this section and outlining a timetable for their termination.
The bill is expected to reach the floor in June 1997.
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The Committee on Science adopted two amendments offered by Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK) during action on several authorization bills on 16 April.
Rep. Coburn offered an amendment to H.R. 1278, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Authorization Act of 1997, which includes authorization of funds for the National Weather Service. The committee adopted the amendment by voice vote and forces NOAA to use $22 million in previously appropriated and unused funds for the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). AWIPS will link the components of the National Weather Service modernization and allow meteorologists to integrate all meteorological and hydrologic data at NWS field offices.
"This amendment is common sense," Rep. Coburn said. "It simply mandates NOAA to use money it has in reserve before using additional taxpayer dollars."
Rep. Coburn also offered an amendment to H.R. 1275, the Civilian Space Authorization Act of 1997, which was adopted by voice vote and prevents NASA from transferring authorized funds to any private or public museums or to an international program called the U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program.
"The funding authorized by this committee for NASA should remain within the NASA budget to promote space science research," Rep. Coburn said. "I am pleased the committee adopted my amendment, which provides the American taxpayer with the greatest value for their dollars."
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Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on 24 April, Dr. D. James Baker, under secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, told the committee, "We share your concern that the Weather Service continue to provide the public adequate warning and forecast services. This is at the very top of our priorities."
His testimony came in answer to a question from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) who said she was "deeply concerned whether there will be adequate hurricane warnings. . .The last 3 years, we have been hit by more hurricanes than in the previous 10."
"This past year," Baker explained, "we had to take a number of cuts, including some Congressionally mandated cuts, and I asked the Weather Service to go back and find ways that they could do this without jeopardizing their warning services. They had to take some cuts in the Tropical Prediction Center, which includes the Hurricane Center, and some of our other centers. None of those cuts, however, involved a warning system."
Baker said that ". . .there was a lot of public concern about this. We listened to the public concern. I talked to (Commerce) Secretary Daley. Thanks to the fact that we were able to change our forward funding on satellites, we were able to release some money, and because of that we have announced that we will not take those reductions in personnel that we had originally proposed in the Hurricane Center. So, the Hurricane Center will be exactly the same level of staffing this year as it was last year, and we will continue to monitor that."
Senator Mikulski then asked, "So, we'll have adequate staff, and they will continue to be a priority with the warnings necessary for coastal protection and coastal evacuation if necessary?"
"Absolutely," Baker answered.
Mikulski also asked about moving some of NOAA's activities to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. Baker said NOAA has two major facilities, one in Suitland, MD, and one in Camp Springs, MD. "One is the headquarters of our satellite operations, and the other is our National Meteorological Center where we do the basic forecasts, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Both of these buildings we have to vacate. The lease is running out, and the buildings are old. They are really not going to be suitable after, roughly, the year 2000. . .so, we look for a combination of things. The lowest cost option. . .and the best possible synergy." At Goddard, he said, "we were able to find an arrangement that would be both the lowest cost option. . .but also build the synergy with NASA, because we have worked very closely with NASA on their Earth Observing Program and our operational satellite program. By putting things together, we're going to have a synergy of activity that will allow us both to do new things and to find ways to eliminate waste and duplication."
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) questioned Baker about the elimination of the NOAA Corps, pointing out that some sources maintain that action would result in "no savings at all."
Baker answered that while there will be an "initial cost for us to transition those personnel who have military retirement and military careers into civilian status. . .We save that cost. . .over the long term. In the long term, we're talking 5 to 10 years, we begin to show a savings. We also believe that over the course of this process. . .we will end up with fewer people in those positions than we would have had the NOAA Corps been in place, and so we also save money that way."
Stevens also complained about the allocation of NOAA ships, maintaining that Alaska has "more than half the fisheries of the United States in terms of volume and values. We've got seven NOAA vessels for hydrographic work, and none of them are off my state. I think there's more concern about the hydrographic than there is about the fishing research, even though we have half the fisheries."
Stevens said he understood that the ship allocations were based on population and that Alaska suffers from that breakdown. He explained that "these vessels seem to be doing work that has no relationship to the population at all. . .we don't understand why there are eight (vessels) for the rest of the United States and none in Alaska."
Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) joined with Stevens to question the elimination of the NOAA Corps. "Cheaper," he said. "That's what they all say. I mean, privatize. It's some kind of rhythm they got at some political call. We don't have to make a profit in NOAA. We can get the ships from the navy, some of them. . .We can do it more economically, actually, at the government level. That's why you're not going to save any on doing away with the NOAA Corps."
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A 4-day conference by NWS on how technologies might affect dissemination of weather service data to the public and private sector was considered "highly worthwhile," according to a NOAA spokesman. The meeting featured presentations by government and private sector representatives, panel discussions involving government, public and private sector users, and industry technology participants and largely fulfilled NWS Assistant Administrator Elbert W. Friday Jr.'s hopes for guidance on how the weather service might best move forward into the twenty-first century to meet the needs of the world and the nation.
In his opening remarks on 15 April, Friday reviewed some of the history of NWS communications and said that contracts for some of those communications systems will be up for renewal in the next few years. In that regard, he said, "It's time to become more sensitive to the environment in which we live and to know what each and every sector of the economy needs from us. NWS serves as an infrastructure component that everyone assumes will be there, like bridges, roads, and so forth." He explained that people assume also that the NWS will satisfy the needs for protection of life and property and also serve the nation's economic activity. He stressed that the conference was not designed as a government show. "Don't let us get by with showing you how it's going to be done," he emphasized. "We need your input. We want to understand the real capability of this tremendous explosion in telecommunications capabilities across the country."
Keynote speaker at the conference was Joe Coates, a futurist and author of the book 2025: Scenarios of U.S. and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology. Coates, whose firm had conducted a study of the NWS, spoke on "A Futurist's View of the Weather Service." He said looking at the future is important in any endeavor, but must be viewed in its proper perspective. The reason so many companies fail and why government agencies go belly up, he said, is because of poor leadership. The one common characteristic that goes with those failures, he explained, is that the leaders had assumptions about the future that were "unsound."
The study showed that there were three areas in which there is a need for improved information from the Weather Service. Better service is needed for (1) small organizations of all sizes, from small businesses down to the farms; (2) all of rural America ("80% of the people in this country live on 20% of the land and 20% of the people live on 80% of the land"), and (3) the health sector. He listed a number of maladies, such as asthma and arthritis, where weather has an influence and explained that the Weather Service has largely ignored this constituency. He did not blame the Weather Service entirely, saying the medical community has taken a "ho hum attitude" and failed to emphasize the need for improved forecast data that might help people suffering from these maladies. He said that there is a need for providing weather information in "smaller plots," so that people working on a construction site might know a couple of days in advance that they could not work outside or that vacationers might avoid going to a lake expecting sun but finding only rain. This type of information, he said, is particularly important to recreation, sports, agriculture, and farming.
"Government stinginess" in reducing NWS capabilities, he said, is having a negative impact on "citizens' ability to prosper." In the study, one of the main themes stressed by the people interviewed was "don't take away," he explained. He pointed out that the private sector has not filled the vacuum left by NWS reductions in capability and cited the storm in Florida that destroyed $300 million dollars of the citrus crop. "The private sector was not able to produce the information produced by NWS. It fell flat on its face, and $300 million dollars went down the tube." He said that the NWS needed to make more long-range forecasts on a more continuous basis in spite of the fact that their predictive accuracy might not be as high percentagewise as the short-range forecasts. "We don't have a Richter scale for storms," he said, so forecasters might predict "severe." What is needed, he suggested, is a forecast that says something like "this will be as bad as. . ." say, 1996, and then show images of what 1996 was like. "These long-range forecast profiles with images would be much more significant for the public."
Among other opening day speakers at the conference, held in the Department of Commerce Herbert Hoover Building, were Diana Josephson, deputy under secretary, NOAA; Richard W. Krimm, executive associate director, Mitigation Directorate, FEMA; Dr. Dave Sharma, administrator for research and special programs administration, DOT; and Barry Valentine, acting administrator, FAA.
The general conclusions agreed upon by participants by the end of the conference were that NWS data has to be an "open" system, available to everyone; emergency managers need greater use of the Internet; and greater use needs to be madeof satellites in the dissemination of weather information.
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Based on discussions with constituents who have urged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to increase its attention to critical ocean concerns, NOAA's Coastal Stewardship Task Force submitted a report to the agency's administrator recommending that NOAA improve its national leadership and facilitate coastal stewardship.
"I will begin implementing changes based on input from both the Coastal Stewardship Task Force and our external partners," said NOAA Administrator D. James Baker. "These changes will allow us to build on NOAA's strengths and increase our attention to critical ocean concerns."
As a first step, Baker will reassign the following personnel.
Dr. Stan Wilson, assistant administrator for ocean and coastal zone management, will take on a new assignment to serve as senior advisor on ocean issues and as NOAA deputy chief scientist. Specifically, he will lead NOAA's participation in organizing and implementing its objectives in support of the United Nations' 1998 Year of the Ocean. Wilson will continue to serve as the U.S. delegate to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
Dr. Nancy Foster, deputy assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), will assume the assistant administrator responsibilities for Ocean Services and Coastal Zone Management. Foster's charge is to direct and implement the operational, structural, and cultural organization changes necessary to strengthen NOAA's ocean and coastal programs.
Dr. David Evans, acting deputy assistant administrator for the National Ocean Service, will assume the responsibilities of deputy assistant administrator for NMFS. Dr. Evans's scientific credentials and management expertise provide an excellent foundation to contribute to important fisheries management issues and linkages to broader coastal responsibilities.
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Rising rivers caused by record snowpack in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and elsewhere in recent weeks have brought new public awareness of the importance of flood forecasting. Measuring snowpack is a vital part of the National Weather Service's efforts to provide accurate and timely flood forecasts and outlooks.
The art of measuring the water content of snow has advanced significantly from the days when Weather Service employees simply used rulers to measure snow depth. Light, fluffy snow contains less water than wet, slushy snow. For this reason, the water content of the snowpack, commonly referred to as "water equivalent," rather than the snow depth, is needed for hydrologic forecasting. Until the use of airborne measurements of snow water equivalent, collection of this information was difficult and not always accurate.
Airborne snow data collection is the responsibility of a single federal installation in Chanhassen, MN, a Minneapolis suburb. The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) employs a small group of specialists who collect the data, then analyze it and produce accurate estimates of snow water equivalent over most of the nation's river systems. NOHRSC provides critical data input to the National Weather Service River Forecast System.
Hydrologists at the National Weather Service's River Forecast Centers blend NOHRSC data with data from ground-based sensors, satellites, and volunteer observers to arrive at spring flood outlooks and flood forecasts.
NOHRSC's two-member flight crews collect snowpack data from Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, westward to California, north to British Columbia, and south to Arizona. The airborne network encompasses more than 1900 flight lines over 27 states and seven Canadian provinces.
Flights are conducted by officers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps (NOAA Corps), the smallest of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The NOAA Corps is responsible for operating and managing NOAA's fleet of research ships and aircraft in support of the agency's scientific and environmental programs, including the National Weather Service.
Snowpack data are collected by NOAA Corps flight crews flying an Aero Commander in the upper Midwest and the east and a Turbo Commander in the western United States. Both planes are equipped with instrumentation that records natural gamma radiation emitted from the soil under the snow.
"The process involved with airborne snow survey is pretty simple," according to NOAA Corps pilot Lt. Cmdr. Rob Poston. "The gamma signal is diminished by the overlying snowpack. The deeper the snow in a given area, the weaker the signal picked up by the sensors.
"Determining the snow-water equivalent is done onboard with sophisticated hardware and specialized software. The measurement is accurate to within one centimeter of water, and becomes the hard, quantitative data used by weather service hydrologists." Poston added that soil moisture data collected in summer months are accurate to within 4%, and are used to determine naturally occurring gamma radiation patterns that allow more accurate airborne snow water equivalent measurements in the winter.
Poston wrote the software program that collects global positioning satellite data to record the aircraft's navigational position every 5 seconds during flight. "We can combine today's data automatically now with other geographic information. It's given hydrologists more flexibility to process and individually disseminate the snow information for each individual user," he said.
The purpose of collecting all this data is to provide National Weather Service hydrologists and meteorologists with the best information to help prevent loss of life and minimize property losses caused by flooding. But the data are employed by many outside the weather service as well.
Water managers all over the nation utilize the data to more accurately plan the use of the country's limited water resources. Government and academic researchers use the data to enhance a number of interdisciplinary research programs.
"It would be easy to get lost in the scenic vistas and beauty of this country during a flight," Poston said, "and we certainly enjoy the scenery when we're up there. But we always know our main purpose is collecting data that may well save someone's life. That's what it's all about."
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NASA and the Air Force Space Command have agreed to work together in several areas of mutual interest in the hopes of saving both organizations costs and sharing in new technologies to benefit future spaceflight and spacecraft.
"This agreement exemplifies NASA's commitment to finding ways to reduce cost and, where appropriate, share our assets with the air force for greater efficiencies in our respective missions," said NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.
Under the terms of the agreement signed by Goldin and Air Force Space Commander General Howell M. Estes III, NASA and the air force will form partnership teams to study seven areas of potential cooperation. These areas include studying the cost feasibility of launching Defense Support Program satellites from the Space Shuttle in 1999, possible expanded use of the Shuttle for air force technology payloads, and consolidating plans that outline space transportation needs of NASA and the air force.
NASA and the air force also will examine their respective infrastructures and common-use facilities, develop and coordinate an implementation plan to address orbiting space debris, consider a possible collaboration on the Clementine II project, and expand cooperation in space weather environment research and data sharing.
The partnership teams are scheduled to provide an interim report on their findings to senior management of both organizations in mid-July of this year.
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Weather forecasters will be able to more accurately predict the path and intensity of hurricanes, winter storms, and other weather systems that form over the world's oceans with data obtained from the Japanese satellite ADEOS. Oceanic surface wind measurements of wind direction and speed will be used in numerical computer models and will give forecasters another valuable tool.
The Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has now completed preparations to distribute this important information to meteorologists in various countries.
"The NSCAT dataset represents a major breakthrough in our ability to alert mariners of weather hazards at sea," said Jim Hoke, director of NOAA's Marine Prediction Center. "The high accuracy and spatial resolution of the data were quickly recognized by our forecasters, who have been starved for data over significant expanses of the world's oceans. We're looking forward to incorporating the data into our daily forecast and warning operations."
The wind information is from data observed by the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), built and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The NSCAT instrument is carried on the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite, developed, launched, and operated by the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan.
As part of a triagency agreement with NASA and NASDA, NOAA will produce and distribute, within 3 hours of measurement, wind vector information from data captured at the three ADEOS ground stations—the Alaska Search and Rescue Facility at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks; the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia; and the NASDA Earth Observation Center in Hatoyama, Japan.
The NOAA operational products are merged wind vectors and radar backscatter values at 25-km resolution, for each orbit of ADEOS. Through its Central Environmental Satellite Computer System facility near Washington, DC, NOAA will continuously deliver digital products from each of 14 daily ADEOS orbits. The products will be used by U.S., Japanese, and European operational meteorological services for noncommercial, environmental monitoring, and prediction purposes.
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GOES-K, the latest in a series of sophisticated weather satellites, has reached geosynchronous orbit, according to NASA and NOAA officials. The Geostationary Opreational Environmental Satellite, launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station on 25 April, was commanded to perform its final apogee adjust maneuver on 3 May, beginning its final journey toward its on-orbit position at 105°W longitude and officially becoming known as GOES-10. "All operations continue to go extremely well,"said Doug McCuiston, NASA GOES-K operations manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Throughout the next few weeks, controllers will perform numerous tests on the spacecraft and instruments and, in July, it will be placed in storage while it waits its call to operational status.
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A major international field mission to study stratospheric ozone over the Arctic during the spring to late summer time period will begin this month, involving researchers from federal agencies, universities, and other nations. The study, dubbed POLARIS (Photochemistry of Ozone Loss in the Arctic Region in Summer), will investigate the large natural seasonal decrease of ozone that occurs at this time of year in the Arctic.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aeronomy Laboratory (AL) and the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) in Boulder, CO, will join other government and university researchers in loading scientific instruments aboard NASA's ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft. The scientists will participate in three 4-week sessions running from April to September. The scientists will be measuring ozone, reactive nitrogen compounds, and other reactive and trace gases, looking at the photochemistry that destroys stratospheric ozone and the dynamics that influence ozone transport in the region. High-altitude balloon measurements will also be made. "This mission represents one of the most intensive campaigns ever conducted to investigate summertime ozone above the Arctic," said scientist James Elkins, a principal investigator from CMDL.
Ozone in the Arctic atmosphere has a pronounced annual cycle, declining by approximately 30% between the spring equinox and fall equinox. Although this decrease is associated with chemical reactions that occur naturally in the atmosphere, compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons (fire retardants) released by human activities also play a role. Ozone in the upper atmosphere acts as a shield, protecting the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. POLARIS will evaluate Arctic summer chemistry and atmospheric motions in sufficient detail that theoretical models of atmospheric ozone can be critically tested.
"This project will evaluate how gases that have natural sources, such as reactive nitrogen compounds, affect the Arctic ozone layer. This will help us to better understand the influence of human emissions of CFCs, halons, reactive nitrogen, and other gases," said coproject scientist David Fahey of NOAA's Aeronomy Laboratory, in Boulder, CO.
The POLARIS mission begins at the end of an Arctic winter season in which unusually large ozone losses were observed. Although not as severe as the "ozone hole" losses in the Antarctic springtime that are annually reported, scientists are looking more closely at ozone changes over the Arctic and in the northern latitudes. The mission is now scheduled to arrive in Alaska to begin sampling the polar region in time to observe these low ozone values in advance of the summer season.
POLARIS is expected to help scientists better understand the complex processes that are involved in ozone's seasonal cycle over the Arctic. Paul Newman from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the other project scientist, states that "the main scientific objective of this airborne campaign is to evaluate the natural summer decrease of summer ozone over a range of altitudes and latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere region, where most of the world's population is located."
After gathering the data, scientists will use photochemical models to analyze the measurements. Insights from the measurements and modeling activities will increase researchers' ability to explain observed and future changes of ozone abundances in the Arctic region. In addition, it will give researchers a better understanding of the effects of gases and particles emitted by subsonic and supersonic aircraft on the ozone layer in that region and on global climate. Model predictions indicate that changes in ozone from aircraft emissions are greatest in summer at mid- to high latitudes. Researchers will be looking at this connection between the photochemical responses and aircraft emissions.
POLARIS is a large, international field campaign coordinated by NASA under the Upper Atmospheric Research Program of the Office of Mission to Planet Earth and the Atmospheric Effects of Aviation Project in the Office of Aeronautics. The ER-2 flights will be flown out of Fairbanks, AK; NASA's Ames Research Facility at Moffit Field, CA; and Barber Field, HI; where midlatitude and subtropical measurements will be used as a basis for comparison.
For further information on the POLARIS mission including a complete list of participating institutions, consult the POLARIS home page at http://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/polaris/.
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Plants growth in earth's northern regions increased by 10% from 1981 to 1991, and by the end of this period annual growth began about 8 days earlier, according to new NASA-funded research published in the 17 April issue of the scientific journal Nature.
These findings imply that vegetation in earth's northern high latitudes (between 45° and 70°N) is actively responding to previously reported measurements of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and warmer-than-average surface temperatures in the north during the past 3 decades.
"Our results demonstrate that earth's biosphere—its plants, animals, and life—is not a passive participant in our planet's environment," said Dr. Ranga Myneni of Boston University, a coauthor of the study. "The warming during springtime is particularly significant because of the related decline in snow cover. As a result, spring greening is happening significantly earlier."
While the global effects of such greening may be small, "regionally, they could be highly significant for interests such as agriculture and land-use planning," said coauthor Dr. Ghassem Asrar of NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "In addition, our initial analysis of data from 1992–94 indicates that the trends are continuing."
The published research was conducted by scientists from Boston University, Boston, MA; the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; and the University of Montana in Missoula, MT, using data from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments aboard the NOAA-7, NOAA-9, and NOAA-11 satellites. The Sahara Desert in Africa was used as a common reference point to adjust the measurements across the different sensors.
Vegetation in the latitudes north of 45° covers about 13.6 million square miles (35.3 million square kilometers), or approximately 35% of global vegetation during August, the greenest month of the year. In general, the greatest increases in vegetation took place inland from oceans. Bands of increased growth were measured from Spain in a northeasterly direction across central Europe and southern Russia, and in North America from Alaska in a southeasterly direction to the U.S. Great Lakes and northeast again to Labrador in Canada. Outside of this band, little change was seen in the continental United States.
Living plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the process known as photosynthesis. "Any predictions of future concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide must now include the response of global vegetation," said Myneni. "While plant growth tends to cool the immediate surroundings, we do not yet know what this finding means in terms of climate change."
"These findings add support to the emerging idea that regional changes in earth's land, air, and oceans are likely more extreme than those considered in an exclusively global context," Asrar added.
The full scientific paper and related color graphics are available on the Internet at the following URL: http://www.forestry.umt.edu/ntsg/nature/.
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There is no clear evidence that UV radiation decreased in the 1980s as had been previously reported in a 1988 Science paper, according to a new study published in the 20 April issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. Available measurements, reported the Journal, instead seem to support a slight increase in potentially harmful UV radiation over the midlatitudes during the 1980s.
E.C. Weatherhead, a researcher at NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) in Boulder, CO, and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago conducted a 3-year study in which data measured at 14 ground stations were analyzed. The data show that UV was increasing and is continuing to do so, according to the Journal. The previous study, published in 1988 by the National Cancer Institute, reported a decline in UV radiation during the time period 1974–85. "It is likely, based on ozone and cloud measurements and on our present understanding of the instruments," wrote Weatherhead, "that UV was increasing over the continental United States by a few percent in the 1980s and has continued to grow in the 1990s."
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from Zhenya Gallon, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
A comprehensive computer model of the earth's climate created by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, has been selected as one of six finalists in the Environment, Energy, and Agriculture category for the 1997 Computerworld Smithsonian Awards. As part of the award, the Smithsonian Institution is adding the NCAR Climate System Model to its Permanent Research Collection of Information Technology Innovation at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. First-place honors will be announced at an awards dinner in Washington on 9 June, and the entire 1997 collection will be formally presented to the Smithsonian on 10 June.
Developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, NCAR's Climate System Model (CSM) allows researchers to examine the potential impacts on the earth's climate of tropical deforestation, changes in agricultural practices, combustion of fossil fuels, and other human activities. Computer models are a critical tool for understanding the multiple interactions of the atmosphere, land surfaces, oceans, and sea ice—the four major components of the earth's climate system modeled by the CSM.
Previous climate models required artificial "flux correction" to make them resemble real-world observations. According to Maurice Blackmon, director of NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics division, the CSM runs without flux correction for long experiments and produces data that look very much like the real world. The large and intricate model, developed by a team of approximately 30 scientists over 3 years, uses all of the capabilities of NCAR's CRAY C-90 supercomputer.
"The quality of the early simulations was much higher than expected, so we have been able to begin a program of major experimental work considerably earlier than anticipated," says Blackmon. Over the next 3 years, NCAR scientists will use the CSM to conduct studies in preparation for the next review by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due in 2000. That review provides the international scientific consensus on global warming for use by policy makers and others.
The Computerworld Smithsonian awards were created in 1989 "to search out and publicly honor those men and women whose visionary use of information technology produces social, economic, and educational progress." Chief executive officers from 100 of the country's leading information technology companies select the nominees in 10 categories. In 1993, NCAR scientist Robert Chervin and affiliate scientist Albert Semtner won the first annual Computerworld Smithsonian Award for Breakthrough Computational Science.
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The National Weather Service has begun testing a new experimental computer model that will assist forecasters to predict weather conditions across the western United States with more detail than ever before. The model, known as the Eta-10, allows forecasters in 24 modernized National Weather Service offices in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington to monitor the development of weather systems down to a 10-km grid.
"The experimental Eta-10 Model represents an evolution in weather forecasting," said Ronald D. McPherson, director of the NWS's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). "By looking at weather systems in such a small area, forecasters can get more details of the weather conditions impacting the local community."
The NWS Western Region was selected for the test because it encompasses a wide variety of climatic areas within the eight state region. The western United States includes many terrain features, especially mountain ranges, which affect weather conditions. Testing the models at desert, coastal, and high-altitude sites will also help forecasters analyze high-resolution grid models. The NWS Western Region is headquartered in Salt Lake City.
"Forecast office evaluations have shown that the Eta-10 Model produces improved precipitation forecasts in the mountains," said NWS Western Region Scientific Services Division Chief Andy Edman. "A typical storm in the west can generate varying precipitation amounts ranging from a few sprinkles in protected valley areas to several inches of rain in high mountain basins. The Eta-10 forecast model often captures this important variation of precipitation, which can lead to improved flood forecasts."
The experimental Eta-10 Model is a refined version of NCEP's current Eta Model. The model forms the basis of twice-daily forecasts of weather elements such as precipitation, temperature, wind, dewpoint, and cloud coverage. The first operational implementation of the Eta Model began in 1993 as an 80-km grid. Currently, the NWS runs both a 29- and 48-km grid resolution of the Eta Model operationally. Forecasters put the new, experimental 10-km model to a test during the 1996 Summer Olympics to generate weather forecasts for specific sporting events.
Currently, the experimental Eta-10 experimental model runs on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Cray C-90 supercomputer in Suitland, MD. Once a day, the experimental model analyzes the high-resolution data and prepare forecasts for 33 hours into the future.
Because of the large amount of computer space needed to run the experimental model, the agency cannot use the Eta-10 on a regular, operational basis until it acquires the next generation supercomputer with more memory, disk space, and computing power. The NWS plans to acquire a new supercomputer in late 1998. Until the new computer is available, NCEP will run the experimental model for 3 months to complete a thorough evaluation of the model. After the 3-month test period, the model occasionally will be used to help forecast critical weather events wherever and whenever they occur, such as severe thunderstorms in the Midwest during the spring and summer and winter storms in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes regions.
When the new model becomes fully operational, the NWS intends to run the model four times a day, providing forecasts out to 48 hours for all of North America including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico
The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) is one of nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Located in Camp Springs, MD, EMC improves weather, marine, and climate predictions for the United States by developing and improving computer models of the atmosphere and oceans. For more information on the EMC and numerical modeling, visit the center's Web site at http://nic.fb4.noaa.gov:8000.
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Prof. John M. Wallace of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington is among 60 new members and 15 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Bert Bolin, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at Stockholm University, Sweden, was elected as a foreign associate. The pair were among scientists from 11 countries selected for membership in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
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Kathryn Schmoll and Dr. Jack Fellows have been appointed to positions of vice presidents of UCAR. Katy Schmoll has been the comptroller of the Environmental Protection Agency since 1993 and has now been selected for the position of vice president for finance and administration. In a reorganization, Jack Fellows will direct the UCAR Office of Programs. Since 1984, he has been branch chief of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, Office of Management and Budget, Science and Space Program Branch. Bill Pennell has decided to step down as Director of UOP, and Harriet Barker plans to retire in the next 2 years. Katy Schmoll and Jack Fellows will assume their positions officially in late August or early September.
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