Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor: Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Marcie Bernstein
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The American Meteorological Society (AMS) in association with the University of Oklahoma is planning a 2-day conference in Washington in October that will bring together leaders of government, academia, industry, and the private sector to discuss the nation’s energy crisis and the role weather and climate play in addressing that problem.
Entitled “A Policy Forum: Weather, Climate and Energy,” the meeting will be the third conducted under the AMS Atmospheric Policy Program (APP). The others were the special policy forum cosponsored by The Weather Channel in June 2000 and the first Presidential Policy Forum, held during the AMS 81st annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last January. The APP is planning a series of these sessions over the next 3 to 5 years dealing with a wide variety of significant national issues affected by weather and climate. They include such topics as transportation, health, economics, and the environment.
The October forum will be held at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill in Washington, 16–17 October.
Richard Greenfield, senior policy fellow of the APP in Washington, said the forum “will deal with the application of weather and climate information and the production and distribution of energy as a national priority. That information is a vital asset as national energy policy becomes even more critical in the face of a continuing decline in the state of the economy.
“The Forum will explore how weather and climate information produced by the public and private sectors can be used to effectively match energy supply and demand while reducing costs and increasing reliability.”
Energy producers, distributors, traders and users; public and private providers of weather information and services; academic leaders, and government energy policy makers will make presentations, Greenfield said. Additionally, a series of panel discussions will address such questions as: How is the energy sector changing and how can it improve its use of weather and climate information? What advances are needed in weather and climate science and services? What special requirements do emerging risk management techniques place on weather and climate services? And what public policies are needed to foster development of weather and climate services and their use by the energy sector?
At the conclusion of the forum, Greenfield noted, a report will be published summarizing the discussions, findings and recommendations and distributed to the public, the Congress, the Executive Branch, and the private sector.
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The American Meteorological Society made substantial contributions to the 21st International Congress on the History of Science (ICHS), held July 8–14, in Mexico City.
James R. Fleming, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College, and Chair of the AMS Committee on History of the Atmospheric Sciences, organized a two-day session on the history of meteorology.
The Congress was held under auspices of the International Union on the History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS), a member organization of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).
Fleming took the lead in establishing a permanent Commission on the History of Meteorology within the IUHPS, which will meet next in 2005, in Beijing, and was elected President of the Commission. He also gave a talk on Sverre Pettersen, the Bergen School, and the Forecasts for D-Day.
AMS’s first two graduate fellows in the history of science also made presentations. Greg Cushman gave a talk entitled “Enclave Vision: Foreign Networks in Peru and the Internationalization of El Niño Research during the 1920” and Kristine C. Harper spoke on “The Scandinavian Tag-Team: Providers of Atmospheric Reality to Numerical Weather Prediction Efforts in the United States (1948–1955).”
Edmund P. Willis of Kinsale Research and William H. Hooke of the AMS Atmospheric Policy Program also presented a paper on “Cleveland Abbe and the Birth of the National Weather Service, 1870–1891”; E. Philip Krider spoke on “Benjamin Franklin and the History of Lightning Protection.” Jinny Nathan, AMS archivist, also attended, and was elected Secretary/Treasurer of the Commission.
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In the next 35 years, Florida should experience 10 times the economic loss calculated in 2000 dollars that it suffered in the last 35 years (1966–2000) and about 5 times the per capita economic loss.
That’s the prediction of Dr. Bill Gray, professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University and internationally recognized expert on hurricanes, who outlined those prospects at a Capitol Hill briefing in Washington, D.C., on 26 July. The briefing was devoted to “Hurricanes: The Danger, The Impacts, The Outlook” and was sponsored by the Senate Natural Hazards Caucus, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), and AMS.
This was the fourth in a series of briefings for congressional staff and Members to highlight issues of importance to AMS and UCAR. More than 15 key congressional staff attended the event.
Gray was a member of a 4-person panel composed of Gray; Dr. Chris Landsea, research meteorologist with the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory; Dr. Baxter Vieux, director, International Center for Natural Hazards and Disaster Research, University of Oklahoma; and Dr. Mark DeMaria, scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), a joint Colorado State University–NOAA program. The program was moderated by Dr. Rebecca Morss, an NCAR scientist.
With this year’s Atlantic hurricane season having opened officially on 1 June, the timely briefing produced information on the latest research on tropical storms and hurricanes, the impacts of hurricanes and tropical storms and how they affect the economy and a historical perspective of hurricanes and their cycles of activity.
In the past 100 years, Gray said, there have been 73 cases where a category 3, 4, or 5 hurricane has made landfall in the United States and 158 cases where tropical storms have reached land. Between 1944 and 1968 (25 years), 18 category 3, 4, or 5 hurricanes made landfall, but in the 25 years from 1970 to 1994, only 5 were recorded as reaching landfall.
Gray said the arrangements and procedures that have been used for coping with hurricanes in the last few decades will be “quite inadequate” in the future. “New ways for dealing with the coming catastrophes need to be developed,” he warned.
Landsea discussed the 2001 hurricane forecast for 2001 and conditions affecting the Atlantic hurricane seasons during both active and inactive seasons. He pointed out that there have been fewer hurricanes during El Niño years and underlined the significance of the coastal population growth in Florida and in the Caribbean as a concern, sometimes doubling in a decade in some cases, he said.
Considerable attention was paid to Tropical Storm Allison this past June, which dropped 14 inches of rain on Houston in 9 hours, resulting in a multibillion-dollar flood without ever reaching hurricane status and serving as a sobering example of what might happen if a category 3 hurricane struck the area.
Vieux said that this summer’s Tropical Storm Allison resulted in flooding of 5 to 7 bayous in Texas. He stressed the importance of an early flood warning system and explained there is a need for warning system integration, crosscutting applied research to address flooding in urban and rural areas, and an improved public–private partnership.
“Having a custom warning system for each bayou in Houston and Harris County may prove to be the single most important flood mitigation effort to result from Allison,” he explained.
DeMario emphasized the high number of deaths from freshwater flooding in tropical storms, saying that of 517 death recorded from tropical storms from 1970 to 1998, 73% were from freshwater flooding.
In summarizing the briefing, Morss stressed that these storm continued to pose a threat to lives and property and that cooperative efforts involving many groups is needed to help reduce losses. She also cited a report resulting from The Weather Channel–AMS forum on hurricanes, held last year in Washington, which recommended guidelines for the media and government and proposed strategies and recommendations for addressing a wide range of issues and opportunities pertaining to emergency response to hurricane threats.
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The appropriations process on Capitol Hill continues in full swing, with spending bills of interest to AMS members having cleared Appropriations Committees and either passed by one or both chambers or ready to go to the Floor in either House, where committee recommendations are rarely changed. The House has progressed further than the Senate, but Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-North Dakota) has vowed to pass all 13 spending bills by the August recess, so that the two Houses may then begin the conference process in September to reconcile differences between their bills.
Both Houses of Congress have passed appropriations bills for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Department of Energy’s Biological and Environmental Research (DOE BER) program with positive outcomes. The bill to fund NOAA has been passed by the House and is relatively positive; the Senate version even more so as it awaits Floor action. Bills for NASA have cleared House and Senate Appropriations Committees but have not been passed by either House and are somewhat disappointing in their current configuration. National Science Foundation (NSF) proposals are uncertain in both chambers.
The President had originally proposed substantial cuts (a proposed 8% reduction) in funding for water programs at USGS, but both the House and Senate House and Senate bills call for increases of 2.3% and 1.4%, respectively. These outcomes were indicated during April hearings when Interior Secretary Gale Norton faced tough questioning from subcommittee appropriators on both sides of the aisle, according to the 2 July issue of the American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy.
Members were concerned about what reductions would mean in USGS core and related activities and did not seem happy with the Secretary’s assurances. The House Committee report noted that it believed that the Department of Interior and other Federal agencies should make resource decisions based on the best science available.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) said “the bill restores funding for the vital national science programs conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey.” The Streamgauge Program was fully funded to FY01 levels by both Houses, with adjustments for inflation.
The DOE’s BER program is currently funded at $482.5 million (FY01). The Senate proposes to increase this to $490 million, while the House has only allocated $445.9 million in its appropriations bill. The President requested $443 million.
The National Science Foundation currently has the most problematic funding situation. The NSF funding bill passed by the House included a relatively generous increase of 9.4% in funding for the agency. Traditionally, the Senate Subcommittee responsible for NSF appropriations has been more generous, supporting the principle of “doubling” of federal spending on basic science research. This year, however, the Senate only provided an increase of 5.6% (a figure partially accounted for by the fact that funding would be denied to the High Performance Aircraft Program supported by NCAR). Of the 5.6%, Subcommittee Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) stated that there was not enough room in the Subcommittee’s overall allocation for more funds for NSF. “We want to double the funding for NSF over the next five years, but we will need a stronger commitment from the President and the Congress to make it happen,” said Mikulski.
NOAA has done quite well with its budget in both Houses. The House has passed its appropriation, while the Senate’s at this writing is waiting for Floor action. Funding in both Houses for NWS, OAR and NESDIS are positive overall. The Senate Appropriations Committee bill, however, is more generous in some respects than the House-passed bill, which slighted data assimilation spending, the USWRP, as well as some funding for the observation system.
AMS communicated with Members of the Senate Subcommittee responsible for the NOAA budget on these items, urging that funding be included for the above items as priorities. In almost all cases this occurred and funding was restored when the bill was considered by the full Senate Appropriations Committee. The US Weather Research Program, however, was only provided $3.2 million (plus an “earmark” of $.5 million), instead of the President’s request of $3.7 million. The Senate also restored $2.3 million for data assimilation efforts, an increase over proposed funding of $100,000 in the House bill. Finally $1.4 million was restored for the COOP Network and observational buoys off the coast of Alaska.
In one respect, the National Weather Service (NWS) did not fare as well on the Senate side. The Senate version of the NOAA appropriation cut $1.9 in “adjustments to base,” which may impact NWS training and logistics programs. Over the August recess, AMS will be contacting Members of both Houses to urge them to restore this cut and to maintain funding for the data assimilation efforts.
On the NASA Earth Sciences budget, bills in both Houses are somewhat disappointing (certain accounting changes make it difficult to make direct comparisons, and as of this writing the report accompanying the House appropriations bill – which provides specific program numbers – has not been publicly released). In the Office of Earth Science, both the Senate and the House bills largely track the Administration request, with the most substantial increase being an addition of $31million in the Senate bill for the EOSDIS Program to collect and process satellite data. However, the Earth Sciences budget, overall, has declined – in the President’s request and as approved by House and Senate Appropriations Committees. This largely reflects a lack of funding for NASA’s small satellite program, with provision for only 1 launch every 2 years, as well as a decrease in funding for research.
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North Carolina Democrat Bob Etheridge and some of his colleagues whose districts have suffered from inland flooding associated with tropical storms have introduced legislation to improve forecasting of the flooding and to develop an inland flooding warning system.
The legislation was unveiled at a Capitol Hill press conference on 12 July when Etheridge and fellow legislators outlined details of the legislation, and two victims of floods from Hurricane Floyd recalled their harrowing experiences. The bill would authorize $5.75 million ($1.150 million a year) in funding over 5 years for NWS.
Etheridge said, “If we learned one thing from (Hurricanes) Floyd and Allison, it is that we have been more successful in preparing coastal communities for hurricanes than we have in forecasting and preparing inland residents for these storms… Inland residents must have a warning system that raises the awareness of the destructiveness of these storms so that they can protect their families and their property.
“The National Weather Service has made great strides in this area, and this legislation will help them move the ball forward and put in place an inland flood forecasting and warning system that communities can count on.”
Etheridge said that the 48 inland deaths and nearly $3 billion worth of property damage that occurred in inland communities as a result of Hurricane Floyd in September 1999 highlighted the urgency with which flood forecasting and warnings must be improved.
“More than 50 people died as a result of the floods following Tropical Storm Allison last month,” he explained. “From 1970 to 1999, more than 600 Americans were killed in hurricanes and tropical storms. A study published by the American Meteorological Society found that 82% of those deaths were drowning and more than half occurred in inland counties and parishes. Coastal storm surges only accounted for six fatalities.”
The bipartisan legislation is supported by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York) and Ranking Minority Member Ralph Hall (D-Texas). Hall is a co-sponsor of the bill, as are Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Mike McIntyre (D-North Carolina), Walter Jones Jr. (R-North Carolina), David Price (D-North Carolina), Tom Barrett (D-Wisconsin), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia), Donna Christensen (D-Virginia), and Tom Lantos (D-California).
Twenty-two people were killed as Allison dumped an estimated 28 to 36 inches of water on Houston during a 5-day siege in June, according to Hall.
“Automobiles, theaters, federal buildings, civil and military airports, and courthouses alike were severely damaged,” he said. Emergency officials estimated that about 20 000 homes were flooded, and thousands of people were left completely homeless. It was estimated that total property damage was approximately $4.88 billion.”
Of the $1.150 million requested annual funding, $250,000 a year for 5 years would be authorized to supplement ongoing research and modeling efforts to improve the ability to forecast coastal and estuary-inland flooding associated with tropical storms, according to the bill. Etheridge has suggested that the Saffir-Simpson scale, a widely recognized five-point scale used to warn coastal communities about wind speed and categorized by number to indicate the storm’s severity, could be used as a model. Currently, NWS forecasts flooding in terms of moderate and severe, a spokesman explained.
Under the proposed legislation, NWS would be directed to report to the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee 90 days after passage of the act, to be known as “The Tropical Cyclone Inland Forecasting Improvement and Warning System Development Act of 2001,” and annually thereafter until authorization expires on the progress for improving forecasting and developing a warning index or system, as well as the success and acceptance of the system by the public and emergency management professionals.
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Weather forecasting in Central America is getting a boost from some environmental satellite high-resolution imagery and data as part of a $1 billion, U.S.-financed reconstruction and development effort. The effort followed in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, a 1998 killer storm that took 11 000 lives. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operate the satellites. The data they provide will help to improve weather forecasts throughout the region. The improved forecasts will assist warning efforts to save lives and property at risk from severe weather.
On 26 July, the United States transferred to Costa Rica a satellite ground station that will bring high-resolution digital imagery from NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to the Central American region. This system will allow weather forecasters in the region to perform quantitative analysis of the data, which will lead to enhanced forecasting. From a hub in San Jose, Costa Rica, the data will be distributed to meteorological services in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama.
This new system builds on NOAA’s existing partnership with other nations in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Central American region by employing the latest in satellite meteorological technology to improve hurricane warning systems and programs. In bringing this about, SICA (Sistema de Integracion Centroamericana), a presidential-level regional coordinating body located in San Salvador, El Salvador, and the Comite Regional de Recursos Hidráulicos (CRRH), a regional meteorological and hydrological organization, provided critical regional coordination with Central American governments.
Through an international partnership, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) worked with Global Imaging, of Solana Beach, California, to install the GOES satellite data receive station. In addition, Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies in Madison, Wisconsin, developed and implemented systems architecture and training programs for meteorologists from the Central American region to help them take advantage of the new technology.
Based on technical assessments conducted by NOAA, and consultations with the national meteorological services of the Central American countries and with CRRH, a determination was made that the region needed access to higher resolution meteorological data to support better and more accurate weather forecasts and hurricane threats. As a result of these recommendations, each national meteorological office will be equipped with special computers that will allow them to detect hurricanes, heavy precipitation, wildland fires, volcanic ash movement, and cloud movement with new data available every 30 minutes.
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June, the first month of the 2001 Atlantic Basin hurricane season, passed with only 1 named tropical storm, Allison, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
That is typical of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin before July, officials explained. Of the 938 tropical storm events on record from 1886 to 1997, only 59 happened in June, they reported. Based on this data, NWS officials calculate that on average such storms occur in June once every other year.
June tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin have formed in 4 of the past 6 years. They included Allison this year on 4 June. Arlene on 12 June 1999, Arthur on 17 June 1996, and another Allison on 2 June 1995. Only the 1995 Allison strengthened to hurricane force, the first spawned in the Atlantic Basin during June since Hurricane Bonnie in 1986.
With the exception of 1999, July has played host to tropical storms in each of the past 5 years. In all, 11 such storms developed during the period, the last of which was Tropical Storm Alex in 1998. Five of the storms turned into hurricanes, including Bill and Danny in 1997, Bertha and Caesar in 1996, and Erin in 1995.
Interestingly, the last June tropical storm to be declared for federal disaster aid occurred in 1989 and also bore the name Allison. That storm, which made landfall on the Gulf Coast, caused an estimated $500 million in damage and resulted in major disasters being declared for Louisiana and Texas.
Twelve years later, the 2001 storm named Allison resulted in disaster declarations in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Final damage estimates are yet to be determined, officials said, but to date more than 110 000 have registered for disaster assistance.
Hurricane Agnes, which hit the East Coast in 1972, stands out as the only other June Atlantic storm on record that warranted federal assistance. Major disaster declarations were issued in Maryland, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia as a result of Agnes. An estimated $2.1 billion in damage ranks as one of the most costly hurricanes of the last century, officials said.
The National Hurricane Center table of tropical storm formations in the Atlantic Basin from 1886 to 1997 shows the following.
| Month |
Number of Storms |
| May |
14 |
| June |
59 |
| July |
76 |
| August |
229 |
| September |
316 |
| October |
195 |
| November |
44 |
| December |
5 |
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Some scientists are predicting that many of the hurricane seasons in the next 2 or 3 decades may be much more active than they were in the 1970s through the early 1990s. And they think they know why.
Stanley Goldenberg, a research meteorologist at NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, part of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami and a man who has flown into the eye of a hurricane more than 100 times, conducted research that shows warmer sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic combined with a decrease in vertical wind shear contribute to conditions for more hurricanes over a several-year period.
Goldenberg’s findings were published in the 20 July issue of the journal Science. In another article in the same issue of Science, Lennart Bengtsson notes that records are “too short and incomplete to claim that the coastal United States may be in for a longer period of hurricane activity.”
“From 1995–2000, we saw the highest level of North Atlantic hurricane activity ever measured,” Goldenberg noted. “Compared with the previous 24 years, there were twice as many hurricanes in the Atlantic, including two and a half times more major hurricanes—those reaching Category 3 strength with winds reaching more than 110 mph—and more than five times as many hurricanes impacting the Caribbean islands.”
Goldenberg and coauthors Christopher Landsea, a research meteorologist at Hurricane Research Division; Alberto M. Mestas-Nunez, a physical oceanographer at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies at the University of Miami, and William M. Gray, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, also tried to determine if the recent increase reflects a long-term climate shift.
“Looking at the changes in oceanic and atmospheric conditions, we think this shift is due to a natural ocean cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Mode, a North Atlantic and Caribbean sea surface temperature shift between warm and cool phases that lasts 25 to 40 years each,” said Mestas-Nunez. “The data suggest that we are in the beginning of a warm Atlantic phase and thus an active Atlantic hurricane era may be under way, similar to that last seen from the late 1920s to the late 1960s.”
The study finds that the record amount of hurricane activity possibly could be caused by a combination of the multidecadal scale of ocean temperature changes plus a small contribution from the long-term warming trend. However, deficiencies in the data record make this a difficult issue to resolve, officials said.
Bengtsson, however, believes we are not yet in a position to determine long-term trends in hurricane activity. In his article he notes that “because of the short period of reliable observations—about 60 years in the Atlantic and the western North Pacific and only about 30 years elsewhere—it is not yet feasible to determine a trend or reliable low-frequency variations.”
More hurricanes or not, Bengtsson stressed the tremendous risks of high damage costs of hurricanes because of continued population growth in the coastal regions.
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NASA scientists used a powerful new 512-processor supercomputer that developers say is 10 times more powerful than the current supercomputers to check its ability to evaluate the global impact of natural and human-induced activities on the world’s climate.
“This substantial increase in performance allows us to complete Earth climate simulations in days rather than months,” said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator for Earth Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“When we run the climate model after including Earth climate data from satellites, ground and air observations, we can simulate hundreds of days of global climate per day of computer processing time. This is a major milestone in our nation’s computing capability and sets the stage for our next steps in advanced computing for climate models.”
Scientists at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and its corporate partner SGI, Mountain View, California, are conducting research to advance state-of-the-art computer supercomputing. The 512 supercomputer is expected to lead to faster and better development of climate models for the earth science community, government, and industry, officials explained.
“What used to take a year to calculate on a single processor might be done in less than a day on a 512-processor machine,” Asrar said. “With large NASA computer codes, we now have a technique that speeds up the processing time ten-fold.”
Ames computer scientists plan to combine two 512-processor supercomputers to make an even more powerful machine. “The full 1024-processor system will be capable of doubling the speed of the climate models,” Asrar explained. “The assembly of the 1024 supercomputer is to be completed in August 2001.
“This 1024 processor will serve as a research test-bed and, once mature, will be shifted to routine operations. The next step in research and development will be linking clusters of similar processors located across the nation to create a “virtual supercomputer’ with a computational capability greater than the sum of the individual clusters.”
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The NWS and the University of Delaware have begun a test in New Orleans designed to improve forecasting dangerous heat conditions and issuing earlier heat warnings to the public.
The test, called the Operational Heat Stress Assessment System for Metropolitan New Orleans (OPHSAS), is similar to projects that have been conducted in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, Philadelphia, Rome and Shanghai. It is based on the research of Laurence S. Kalkstein, associate director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware.
Under the test, the New Orleans forecast office will continue to issue “heat outlooks” for heat conditions over a 48- to 72-hour period, “heat watches’ for 24- to 48-hour periods and “heat advisories” and “excessive heat warnings” for conditions within 24 hours. Forecasters said the test will add more focus to forecasting air masses that historically have led to increased summer mortality in the New Orleans area.
In New Orleans, summer brings three kinds of air masses—a moist tropical mass, which dominates most of the time; a second, more oppressive moist air mass, which occurs on average 13 percent of the summer, and a rare super-oppressive air mass, which accounts for nearly four additional fatalities each day, according to University of Delaware researchers.
After concluding the test on 30 September, NWS will evaluate the test results and decided whether to implement the test permanently in New Orleans, officials said.
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Earth science researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook have discovered that during period of increased solar activity much of the United States becomes cloudier, possibly because the jet steam in the troposphere moves northward causing changes to regional climate patterns.
The NASA-funded study supports earlier findings suggesting there is a relationship between increased cloud cover over the United States and the solar maximum, an 11-year cycle that sends increased ultraviolet radiation toward Earth. Previous studies have shown that during solar max, the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere moves northward. The jet stream guides storms and plays an important role in cloudiness, precipitation and storm formation in the United States, according to scientists.
Dr. Petra Udelhofen, a researcher at the Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres at SUNY-Stony Brook, is the lead author of paper that outlines this topic in the 1 July issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Based on these results and because the location of the jet stream influences cloudiness,” she explained, “we suggest that the jet stream plays an important role in linking solar variability and cloud cover.
“Our results show that cloudiness varies on average by about two percent between years of solar maximum and minimum. In most parts of the United States, cloud cover is slightly greater in years of solar maximum”
The research is part of the NASA Earth Science Enterprise program. More information is available on the Internet at http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20010712cloudcover.html.
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) launched a new Web site in July, opening the door to the public to much more of the 100 years of water data collected by the federal agency.
The new Web site by the National Water Information System (NWIS) can be found at http://water.usgs.gov/nwis/. It allows users to access several hundred million pieces of archival and real-time data from home or office computers.
“This not only save them (users) time, money and effort…but also allows our hydrologists and technicians to concentrate on collecting data and processing the information derived from it,” said Robert Hirsch, USGS associate director for water. “We have been providing real-time streamflow and historical streamflow data on the web for several years now. What this new system does is to improve that service and integrate it with many other types of water data, including historical water-quality data from rivers and aquifers, historical ground-water level data and real-time water quality, precipitation and ground-water levels.”
These data, officials explained, can help water managers, engineers, scientists, emergency managers, recreational water users, utilities, and others to
The NWIS Web site data come from a nationwide network of more than 1.5 million USGS water data collection stations, officials said.
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From a 2000 research announcement that attracted 288 proposals, NASA will provide 80 grants valued at $50 million over the next three years that will look at everything from forest health in the United States to the role oceans play as the planet’s “air filters.”
“These proposals represent the leading edge of research on the carbon cycle and how it affects our climate,” said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator for Earth science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “The administration is committed to providing sound science to government and industry leaders upon which decisions about human stewardship of the Earth can be made.”
NASA expects to learn much more about the global carbon cycle through the research grants. Carbon-containing molecules are a key factor in global warming. Carbon dioxide and methane are the two most important “greenhouse gases” that can affect temperatures around the world. Combustion of fossil fuels, use of land for agriculture or industry and human interaction with the environment all play a part in how Earth’s climate behaves.
Through these awards, Asrar said, researchers will take advantage of the unique vantage point of space and space age technology to look at the planet and how the global climate works.
“A solid understanding of how carbon cycles act among land, atmosphere and oceans will provide a vital key to reliable projections of carbon levels of the future, and hence a better understanding of what role humans are playing in Earth’s climate system. Combined with advances in computational-modeling capabilities and in teaming with other government agencies and international partners, NASA will advance short-term and seasonal weather forecasting capabilities and create an accurate projection of longer-term climate change around the globe. The research also will benefit our short-term weather and seasonal-prediction capabilities.”
The grants, he said, will go to researchers at universities, government laboratories and other organizations and will investigate virtually all aspects of the carbon cycle.
A complete listing of the research projects and their principal investigators can be found at http://research.hq.nasa.gov/.
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Preliminary estimates of damages caused by a fire at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) on 3 July have been placed at $1.8 million, according to NOAA officials.
The organization’s lease equipment storage facility, known as the “Balloon Barn,” was destroyed. Items lost include a new mobile radar, called a “SMART-Radar,” a mobile laboratory, a mobile mesonet instrumented vehicle, a Ford Expedition, the entire tool and shop inventory, three atmospheric sounding systems and a large inventory of balloons and radiosondes.
The SMART-Radar, a mobile C-Band radar mounted on a truck, was near completion and scheduled to be used to study tornadic thunderstorms, squall lines and hurricanes. A second SMART-Radar was not in the building and was not damaged, officials said.
In addition, equipment for a lightning mapping array that was scheduled to be installed in the next few weeks was destroyed. The system, created by engineers at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, was expected to provide 3D lightning data over a portion of central Oklahoma and 2D over most of the state. The cost to replace this system alone is estimated at more than $300,000.
“This fire is a major setback to our research and development efforts,” said James F. Kimpel, NSSL director and past president of AMS . “What we learn through our field campaigns—basic knowledge of storm structure, testing of new detection and measuring devices and development of new forecasting techniques—will be impacted significantly.”
The $1.8 million estimated replacement cost includes $1 million for general and ballooning equipment; $54,000 for the mobile mesonet instruments; $303,000 for equipment such as computers and electronic test equipment; $272,000 for the SMART-Radar; and $150,000 for supplies, tools, and furniture.
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The nation’s most advanced satellite to detect harmful solar flares and gather data on daily weather and severe storms in the United States was launched successfully on 23 July.
NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite was launched aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The GOES-M satellite is the fifth of five advanced weather satellites operated by NOAA and designed to help improve forecasting of Earth’s weather and space weather. GOES-M is the first to have a sophisticated operational instrument for detecting solar storms.
The solar X-ray imager will take a full and detailed snapshot of the sun’s atmosphere each minute. The images will be used by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force to forecast the intensity and speed of solar disturbances that could destroy satellite electronics, disrupt long-distance radio communications or surge power grids. The imager enables forecasters to better protect billions of dollars worth of commercial and government assets in space and on the ground.
In addition to solar flare warnings, the GOES-M will become a workhouse satellite for NOAA. It will be stored on orbit until needed as a replacement for GOES-8 or -10, the current GOES satellites. The real-time weather data gathered by NOAA’s GOES satellites, combined with data from the agency’s Doppler radars on the ground and automated surface observing systems, greatly aids weather forecasters in providing better warnings of thunderstorms, winter storms, flash floods, hurricanes, and other severe weather. These warnings help to save lives, preserve property, and benefit commercial interests.
It will take 17 days for the GOES-M to reach geostationary orbit, and it will then be named GOES-12. It will then undergo a series of tests before completing its checkout phase in about 3 months. GOES satellites orbit the equatorial plane of the Earth at a speed matching the Earth’s rotation. This allows them to hover continuously over one position on the surface. The geostationary orbit is reached at about 22 300 miles above the Earth, high enough to allow the satellites a full-disk view of the Earth.
The United States operates two meteorological satellites in geostationary orbit over the equator, one over the East Coast and one over the West Coast. NOAA GOES-10, launched in 1997, is currently overlooking the West Coast out into the Pacific including Hawaii; it is located at 135°W longitude. NOAA GOES-8, launched in April 1994, is overlooking the East Coast out into the Atlantic Ocean and is positioned at 75°W.
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Landsat 5, which had been scheduled for decommissioning on 30 June, will continue collecting Earth science information for at least several more months.
Launched in 1984, the aging, but important satellite, along with Landsat 7, launched in 1999, cover the entire Earth’s surface in alternating cycles every eight days. Users of USGS Earth satellite images were concerned over the loss of that once-every-eight-days cycle and the end of Landsat 5 as a backup for the technologically advanced Landsat 7, according to USGS officials.
“Users like the eight-day cycle from two satellites because it gives them greater opportunities to obtain critical, cloud-free images of forest clear-cutting, forest and wildland fires, agricultural crops, floods, tornado damage swaths, urban change, coastal erosion and a host of other landscape changes,” said USGS Landsat Program Manager R. J. Thompson.
Several large orders of Landsat 5 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA and other Federal agencies, universities and private users were sufficient to enable the satellite to continue collecting images for several more months. Thompson said.
Because commercial marketing rights to current and historical Landsat data expired on 1 July 2001, Landsat 5 users no longer will have restrictions on the use or redistribution of Landsat 5 products.
Landsat 5 has performed far beyond its 2-year-design lifetime, sending hundreds of thousands of 100-mile by 100-mile land surface images to U.S. and international ground receiving stations.
More information on Landsat 5 and ordering satellite data from USGS can be found at http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov.
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Following are brief profiles of candidates for the fall election of AMS President-elect and the Class of 2005 Councilors. The AMS membership will elect a new President-elect and four new Councilors. The Council will elect a fifth councilor to help ensure balance among the sectors of the Society in its governance.
Elbert W. Friday Jr. and Thomas R. Karl are the candidates for AMS president-elect. The candidates for AMS councilor are Phillip A. Arkin, Ana Barros, Mark A. Cane, Marie Colton, David J. Karoly, Ron Keener, Gene J. Pfeffer, and Scott A. Sandgathe.
Director, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., Elbert. W. Friday, a native of DeQueen, Arkansas, received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Oklahoma in Norman and was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. He was in the U.S. Air Force from 1961 to 1977, where among many duties he was detachment commander in South Vietnam, acting squadron commander in Thailand, and chief weather officer in the Special Projects Division of the Air Force Global Weather Center at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. He received numerous military medals, including a Bronze Star, a Defense Superior Service Medal, and two Meritorious Service Medals. More recently Friday has served as director, deputy director, and assistant administrator for weather services at the National Weather Service. He received the Federal Executive of the Year Award from the Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association in 1993, the National Weather Association’s 25th Anniversary Award in 2000, and the AMS’s Cleveland Abbe Award in 1998. He was an AMS councilor, 1987–89. Friday is currently chairman of the board of the Calvary Christian Church in Burke, Virginia.
Born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, Thomas R. Karl received his B.S. from Northern Illinois University in De Kalb and his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Much of his career has been spent at the NOAA/NESDIS/National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), where he has been director since 1998 and has also served as a meteorologist, research meteorologist, senior scientist, and chief of the Climate Perspectives Branch, the Climate Analysis Division, and the Global Climate Laboratory. Karl has received two Department of Commerce Gold Medals and one Bronze Medal. He received the NOAA Administrator’s Award in 1989, the Helmut Landsberg Award in 1993, and the Climate Institute Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award in 1996. He was chairman of the AMS Applied Climatology Committee (1989–91) and the AMS Global Change Symposia (1995–2000). He has served as associate editor (1989–95) and editor (1998–2000) of the Journal of Climate and received an AMS Editors Award in 1988.
A native of Eugene, Oregon, Philip A. Arkin received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland. He is presently the program manager for Climate Dynamics/Experimental Prediction in NOAA’s Office of Global Programs. Among his past experiences, he was a meteorologist in the Climate Analysis Center of the National Weather Service (NWS), a manager of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project of the World Meteorological Organization’s World Climate Research Programme, a science officer in the Office of the Director at the NWS’s National Meteorological Center/National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and a deputy director of Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate Prediction. He has been a principal investigator on NOAA’s Global Precipitation Climatology Project since 1986, and has participated in NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission since 1987. Arkin is presently a member of the AMS Committee on the Annual Meeting, and has also served on the AMS Committee on Climate Variations (1987–90) and the Committee on the Bulletin of the AMS (1998–2000).
Ana Barros, a native of Angola, is associate professor of environmental engineering, engineering, and applied sciences at Harvard University. She received a five-year diploma and professional certification from the University of Porto in Portugal and earned an M.S. in ocean engineering from the University of Porto and an M.S. in environmental science and engineering from the Oregon Graduate Institute in Beaverton, Oregon. She received her Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Washington. Prior to her experience at Harvard, she had been a lecturer at the University of Porto, a research associate at the Institute of Hydraulics and Water Resources in Porto, Portugal, and an assistant and associate professor at The Pennsylvania State University. She was named a NASA New Investigator in 1996 and received the Lorenz G. Straub Award in 1993 and the NSF Career Award in 1995. She is a member of the AMS Hydrology Committee, on which she also served from 1994 to 1997.
Mark A. Cane was born in Brooklyn, New York, and received his A.B. and M.S. degrees from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is presently a G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He was a Doherty Senior Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (1987–98), a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Columbia University (1984–97) and in MIT’s Department of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography (1979–84), and a staff scientist at the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences (1978–79). He received the AMS Sverdrup Medal in 1992 as well as the National Science Foundation Creativity Award (1984–86). Cane has served on a number of AMS committees, including the Committee on Climate Variations (1984–87) and the Committee on Air–Sea Interaction (1990–94). He was associate editor of the Journal of Climate from 1989 to 1992.
Marie Colton received her B.A. and M.S. degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She is currently the acting director of the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service Office of Research and Applications. Some of her professional experiences include environmental control and life support systems engineer on Space Shuttles Columbia and Challenger (1980–83), project scientist, DMSP Special Sensor Microwave Imager operations at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (1990–96), DMSP SSM/I Algorithm Research Panel chair (1990–96), and program officer for remote sensing at the Office of Naval Research (1996–99). She was a member of the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography in 1996, participated on the ad hoc Committee on Meetings for the AMS Ten-Year Vision (2000), and is presently chair of the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography and a member of the Standing Committee on the AMS Annual Meetings.
David J. Karoly is originally from Sydney, Australia. He received his B.Sc. from Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, and his Ph.D. from Reading University in the United Kingdom. He is presently professor of meteorology and head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Monash University, where he has also served as director and professorial fellow of the Cooperative Research Center for Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. Karoly received the World Meteorological Organization’s Norbert Berbier-Mumm International Award and NOAA’s Environmental Research Lab Outstanding Science Paper Award, both in 1998. In 1993, he received the AMS’ Meisinger Award. He was chair of the AMS Committee on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography from 1990 to 1993. He is a coeditor of the AMS monograph Meteorology of the Southern Hemisphere.
Ron Keener is originally from Newton, North Carolina. He received his B.S. from North Carolina State University. He has been employed at Duke Power Company in Charlotte, North Carolina, since 1981, first as an air quality program scientist (1981–86), then as an environmental services scientist (1987–92) and senior scientist (1992–96). Since 1997 his position has been manager of meteorology. His professional experience also includes employment at the U.S. Army Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, and at the NOAA Fluid Modeling Facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He received the Electric Power Research Institute Innovators Award in 1994. Keener founded the Greater Charlotte Chapter of the AMS in 1992 and was a member of the AMS Private Sector Board, 1998–2000.
Gene J. Pfeffer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and received a B.S. from St. Louis University, a B.S. from the University of Utah, an M.S. from St. Louis University, and an M.S. from Western New England College. He has been employed as a facility manager and production manager at Radian International/URS Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, since 1994. Pfeffer was twice employed at the Air Weather Service, once as deputy chief and chief of the Space Projects Division (1969–73) and later as chief of staff, vice command, Director of Program Management (1989–94). Among his many other positions, he was deputy director and director of weather for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the United States Space Command, and the Air Force Space Command (1985–89), assistant chief and chief of the Pentagon’s Air Force Weather Programs (1979–83), and staff weather officer for the Royal Air Force Base Bentwaters–Woodbridge (1974–76). He received the AMS Charles L. Mitchell Award in 1996 has served on the AMS Board of Private Sector Meteorology since 1997.
Scott A. Sandgathe, a native of Springfield, Oregon, received his B.Sc. from Oregon State University and his Ph.D. from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is presently the team leader of the Marine Meteorology and Atmospheric Effects Program at the Office of Naval Research. Some of his other work experiences have been as ocean duty officer for the Fleet Numerical Weather Center (1975–78), deputy director at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam (1983–86), head of the Research and Development Requirements Policy Branch in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (1988–90), deputy director of University Research Programs in the Office of Naval Research (1991–93), and associate scientist at The Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory (1993–97). Sandgathe chaired the Committee on Cooperative Research at the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, 1999–2001.
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On 1 August, Dr. Genene M. Fisher joined the Atmospheric Policy Program as a Policy Fellow. Earlier this year, Dr. Fisher completed a Master of Public Policy and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Space Science at the University of Michigan. Her Ph.D. dissertation, done under the supervision of Dr. Timothy L. Killeen, was entitled Experimental Investigation of the Dynamics of the Winter Northern Polar Mesopause. She will work for the AMS for one year under NSF auspices on a range of important space weather policy issues.
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Effective this month, CSA editors will begin handling production of database contents as the transition from the current vendor, Inforonics, Inc., of Littleton, Massachusetts, begins. The Web version of Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts will be distributed through CSA’s Internet Database Service and CSA is also taking over production and distribution of the MGA print journal and CD-ROM database.
Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts, in continuous publication since 1950, is the only abstract service devoted exclusively to covering the world’s literature on meteorology, climatology, atmospheric chemistry and physics, physical oceanography, hydrology, glaciology, and related environmental sciences. The MGA database contains approximately 250 000 abstracts from 1974 to the present. Where necessary, abstracts are translated into English from a total of 27 languages including Russian, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Danish, Polish, and Finnish. MGA is used by students, teachers, meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists to support their study of important atmospheric science topics.
CSA is a publisher of bibliographic databases and print journals used by more than 4000 research institutions worldwide. Inforonics, Inc., who have worked with AMS on MGA for nearly 30 years, is moving out of database publishing to focus its resources on building, hosting, and managing complete Internet and e-commerce solutions.
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Neither Flood nor Heat could stop Weather Camp ™ 2001. Over 100 campers from 5 years to adult participated in Weather Research Centers weather day camps. The camps are designed to teach the basics of weather, severe weather safety, hurricane safety, flood safety, climatology, weather surfing, and weather labs. The last two were the most popular classes with hands-on experiments in weather labs, which included putting water into a glass from a plate full of water without picking up the plate to weather surfing where campers built their own weather Web site.
Campers came from all around Texas and as far away as Louisiana. Local media also play a role in weather camp. This year Weather Camp was featured on Fox 26’s Building Better Minds thanks to Chief Meteorologist Ceilia Sinclair. Video on hurricane was provided by Dr. Neil Frank of KHOU-TV and guest appearances by Mike Iskovitz of Fox 26 and Keith Monahan of Channel 39 in Houston.
Weather Camp was developed by Jill F. Hasling and Dr. John C. Freeman both Fellows and Certified Consulting Meteorologists of the American Meteorological Society. The goal of the camp is to provide knowledge about the weather that can help save lives and property.
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