Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor:Stephanie Kenitzer
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With more than 2800 attendees, including registrants, students, and exhibitors, the American Meteorological Society’s 81st Annual Meeting was a success, according to AMS Executive Director Ron McPherson.
Built on two interdisciplinary symposia, “Precipitation, Impacts and Responses” and “Climate Variability, the Oceans and Societal Impacts,” the meeting also featured the first AMS Presidential Policy Forum on “Opportunities for 21st Century Meteorology: New Markets for Weather and Climate Information.”
A record number of exhibitors also participated in the meeting, representing 130 companies in nearly 290 booths. Nearly 80% of this year’s exhibitors already have reserved space for next year’s meeting in Orlando, according to Yale Schiffman, director of meetings operations.
New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici’s science advisor Peter Lyons officially opened the 81st Annual American Meteorological Society meeting this year with encouraging words about the strong economy and the Senate’s commitment to increasing funding for science and technology research (see related story).
According to Lyons, a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion bodes well for science and technology investments. While some of those dollars will be applied to tax cuts and Social Security, Lyons notes that a portion of those funds can be made available for science and technology research.
“We have an extremely healthy economy at this time and that presents spectacular opportunities for science and technology that you (AMS members) should be poised to capitalize on,” said Lyons, who spoke on behalf of Senator Domenici, who could not attend due to health reasons.
During a session devoted to NASA research, Dr. Ghassem Asrar, the agency’s associated administrator for Earth Sciences, told the audience that NASA Earth Observation satellites would be capable of monitoring every aspect of the earth system by the end of 2003, capturing the multiple actions taking place.
A Town Hall meeting by the Board of Private Sector Meteorology and the National Council of Industrial Meteorologists (NCIM) brought about a discussion of critical themes and issues affecting the private sector meteorological community. Moderated by Chris Bedford, Certified Consulting Meteorologist and member of both the AMS board and NCIM, the panel members included Gary Rasmussen, private sector coordinator for AMS; Edward R. Johnson, director of strategic planning and policy at the National Weather Service; and Jill F. Hasling, Certified Consulting Meteorologist with the Weather Research Center.
Rasmussen reported that the AMS 10-year vision estimates that by 2010, half of the AMS membership would be from the private sector. He said the AMS staff has developed a strategic plan, available on the AMS Web site, to address this group of members. The AMS also intends to extend outreach efforts to convey the importance of the AMS as the leading meteorological organization and expand its membership to include a broader diversity of members. Rasmussen also mentioned that AMS now has an e-mail based service, AMS_PLS, specifically designed for private sector members. Johnson pointed out that the public–private partnership has evolved into a “multilogue” involving all levels of government, academia, the AMS, and the research community.
The Annual Meeting luncheon speakers provided an interesting evaluation of the differences between journalists and scientists. Journalist Jim Hartz and scientists Rick Chappell lectured on the distance between the two professions, explaining how research by the First Amendment Center Report, Worlds Apart, showed that both professions recognize their deficiencies, as well as the need to close the gap.
Hartz, an award-winning television journalist and former cohost of NBC’s Today show, said the survey of more than 1400 journalists and scientists indicated a great deal of “goodwill,” as well as a willingness to work to get closer together.
Journalists, he explained, believed scientists were “hard to get to” and “spoke in a language they couldn’t understand.” Chappell, now director of Science and Research Communications at Vanderbilt University, and a former NASA scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said scientists thought the journalists were “ill informed” or not informed at all, often drawing conclusions that did not represent the facts.
At the First Presidential Policy Forum, discussions by two panels concentrated on opportunities for atmospheric sciences in industry and policy implications. Introduced by Bill Hooke, AMS senior policy fellow, the first panel was chaired by AMS President Jeff Kimpel and composed of Bill Coley, president, Duke Power; Darius Gaskins, senior partner, High Street Associates, Inc.; and Dennis O’Brien, director, Energy Economics Institute, University of Oklahoma. The panel discussed the significant role meteorology plays in the operation of electric power companies, railroads, and the gas and oil industry, respectively (see related story).
A second panel, chaired by Bob Corell, AMS senior policy fellow, composed of Alan Bromley, Sterling Professor, Yale University; John Dutton, Dean of Earth and Mineral Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University; and Jack Kelly, National Weather Service director, directed their attention to policy implications. A fourth panelist, Brad Leach, senior director of the New York Mercantile Exchange, joined the panel and discussed the energy crisis in California.
In another significant event, Subaru presented a multiyear $125,000 contribution to kick off the AMS 21st Century Campaign. The Subaru contribution, the largest corporate funding of AMS programs, will be used for graduate fellowships, undergraduate scholarships, and K–12 teacher training. Subaru made the contribution as part of its commitment to science education (see related story).
The annual awards banquet was held on Wednesday 17 January, at which the many AMS award winners were honored. The gathering concluded on Thursday 18 January with a closing keynote address by Jean-Michel Cousteau, founder and president of the Ocean Futures Society.
“Eighty-one years ago, who would have imagined that you could see storms forming from a vantage point of space and use that information to save lives?” said Cousteau. “And 81 years ago who would have imagined the depth of the bond between the ocean and the atmosphere in forming the climatic conditions that govern weather around the world.”
Because oceanographers and meteorologists have a “deep and abiding common interest in the ocean,” he continued, “perhaps there are ways we can work together to achieve the goal of greater public awareness, understanding, and of course, action.”
“All of us have a vested interest in increasing knowledge of the ocean. And, in turn, a vested interest in sharing that knowledge with others.”
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A morning-long session by an impressive list of panelists discussed “Opportunities for 21st Century Meteorology: New Markets for Weather and Climate Information” during the fourth day of the 81st Annual Meeting, Wednesday.
Following introductions by Bill Hooke, AMS senior policy fellow, an industry panel, chaired by AMS President Jeff Kimpel and composed of Bill Coley, president, Duke Power; Darius Gaskins, senior partner, High Street Associates, Inc.; and Dennis O’Brien, director, Energy Economics Institute, University of Oklahoma, discussed the significant role meteorology plays in the operation of electric power companies, railroads, and the gas and oil industry, respectively.
A second panel, chaired by Bob Corell, AMS senior policy fellow, composed of Alan Bromley, Sterling Professor, Yale University; John Dutton, Dean of Earth and Mineral Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University; and Jack Kelly, National Weather Service director, directed their attention to policy implications. A fourth panelist, Brad Leach, senior director of the New York Mercantile Exchange, joined the panel and discussed the energy crisis in California.
Coley, whose company serves two million customers in a 22 000-square-mile area, pointed out that “timely and accurate weather forecasting is absolutely critical to our business.” He said daily and seasonal forecasts with accurate temperature predictions could save us millions of dollars annually.
Gaskins, formerly CEO of the Burlington Northern Railroad, devoted his presentation to railroads and their principal customers. Most improvements in forecasting, he explained, have been in the short term. “…the railroads…are more interested in long-term climate forecasts than in weather forecasts,” he said. The burning issue with railroads involves public policy, he explained. “If the United States were, for example, to actually implement the Kyoto Protocol in its present form, we would virtually eliminate the transportation of coal in the western United States. In discussing the use of coal for electric power generation and the stockpiles of inventory often required, he said, “we are beginning to substitute information for inventory.”
O’Brien talked more in terms of global markets. While the 1999/2000 winter was one of the warmest we’ve had, he explained, people in the northwest suffered, causing heating oil and natural gas prices to zoom. Weather information is a “very critical” tool and “very useful” in planning, he added. How to factor weather information into one’s operations is a value-added product, he explained.
Bromley said that relationships between the federal government and the private sectors in the United States are now “loosely defined and changing very rapidly.” The government, he explained, “accepts taxpayer-supported responsibility for providing the very expensive infrastructure for observation and analysis of weather information and or the issuance of weather and climate forecasts…Traditionally, our government has provided the output of their studies to the private sector at no cost.” In closing , he urged that AMS play a role in developing policy “badly needed in this country. In doing so, you can make a remarkable difference.”
Dutton pointed out that the National Research Council had noted that “the weather and climate services partnership will be more effective in serving the nation and individual clients if the public, private, and academic sectors focus together and collaboratively on the priorities and resources that are critical for progress. We need to invest in a major national initiative to create an atmospheric observation and modeling system tuned to twenty-first century requirements and capabilities.” And he suggested that steps be made to impress that idea upon the incoming administrator of NOAA.
Kelly said “the single most important factor is for both the public and private sectors to better understand and harness the rapid development of new information technologies…Working together as partners keeps hazards from becoming disasters. The NWS can’t do it without the private sector and the private sector can’t do it without the NWS.”
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New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici’s science advisor Peter Lyons officially opened the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society this year with encouraging words about the strong economy and the Senate’s commitment to increasing funding for science and technology research.
According to Lyons, a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion bodes well for science and technology investments. While some of those dollars will be applied to tax cuts and Social Security, Lyons notes that a portion of those funds can be made available for science and technology research.
“We have an extremely healthy economy at this time and that presents spectacular opportunities for science and technology that you (AMS members) should be poised to capitalize on,” said Lyons, who spoke on behalf of Senator Domenici, who could not attend due to health reasons.
Lyons stressed that Congress increasingly appreciates the role of science and technology in addressing national priorities, as is evident in the recent efforts to double spending on science research.
The so-called science “research doubling” bills, cosponsored by Senator Domenici, called for significant increases for science and technology research funding on all levels from health to basic and advanced sciences, including atmospheric sciences. The bills first introduced last year had 41 cosponsors in the Senate and was passed by the full Senate, but failed to pass the House of Representatives.
“Even though the bills did not pass through Congress, the debates have been healthy in increasing understanding of the importance of science and technology among members of Congress,” said Lyons. It is important to note that the proposed bills were authorization bills, not appropriations bills, added Lyons.
The most important aspects of the research doubling bills are that they raised the prominence of science and technology on the Hill and highlighted the treated federal funding of science and technology as investment in the nation’s economy and standard of living. Another key point in the bills is the recognition that federal funding in science and technology is a strong driver of innovation in this country.
“We’ve already seen strong increases in funding for science and technology over the past years,” said Lyons. For example, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, federal R&D exceeded $90 billion for the first time in 2001, a 9.1% increase over 2000. Agencies such as NASA, NSF, and DOE’s Office of Science all saw increases in the past year.
AMS can play an important role in shaping science budgets by getting involved added Lyons. To make sound decisions about science policy, Congress needs a variety of sources, he said. “Having someone on staff with a background in science and technology is extremely helpful,” he said. To that end, he encouraged all AMS members to explore the AAAS fellowship program, which places scientists with congressional offices.
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Student applications for the 2001 AMS–UCAR Atmospheric Policy Colloquium, to be held in Washington, D.C., 3–12 June, must be made by 10 March.
Bill Hooke, senior policy fellow with AMS, said selection of the 15 to 20 successful candidates will be made by 1 April.
Student applicants must be U.S. citizens and AMS (student) members or applicants for membership. Additionally, the student application package must include
The letter of intent (no more than one page) should summarize why the student wishes to participate, as well as the candidate’s qualifications—a mix of both scientific training and policy experience and/or interest.
The cover letter should include the student candidate’s name and address, phone number and e-mail address, names of references, citizenship status, AMS student membership status, and degree status. Undergraduate applicants should be completing at least their junior year in college.
Student applicants must request letters of reference from two individuals who can address professional competence and other qualities that demonstrate the applicant’s potential aptitude for policy as well as scientific matters. The applicant is responsible for contacting the references and providing them with the reference letter guidance. Reference letters are considered confidential and must be mailed to the person and address listed below.
The reference letters must describe the
The colloquium will provide an overview of policy basics and of how decisions are made governing the course of atmospheric science and services. Participants will have an opportunity to interact with federal official, congressional staffers and others who make policy decisions.
All materials should be sent to Dr. William H. Hooke, Senior Policy Fellow, American Meteorological Society, 1200 New York Ave., N.W., Suite 410, Washington, DC 20005; (202) 682-9006; hooke@ametsoc.org.
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Subaru and the AMS announced a new partnership at the Annual Meeting that will further the goals of the AMS education programs. Subaru, recognizing the value of science education, helped kick off the AMS 21st Century Campaign with the largest-ever corporate contribution to the AMS. The multiyear contribution of $125,000 per year provides funding for graduate fellowships, undergraduate scholarships, and K–12 teacher training.
The new relationship between Subaru of America and the AMS also includes discounted pricing on new vehicles to AMS members. Watch the AMS Bulletin for more information.
The AMS 21st Century Campaign—Science, Service, Society—will provide a focused institutional mechanism for AMS members to make meaningful contributions to the advancement of their science and to societal betterment. This campaign supports the goals of the AMS 10-Year Vision, which is to employ the remarkable advances in the atmospheric and related sciences and services for the benefit of society as a whole. The AMS 21st Century Campaign ensures a strong future for the atmospheric and related sciences and services. Additional details on the campaign will follow.
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Forty-one years ago, the AMS published the Glossary of Meteorology. Containing 7900 terms, more than 10 000 copies have been sold over four decades through five printings. It is a tribute to the editors of the first edition that it has withstood the test of time and continued to be among the leading reference sources in meteorology and related sciences.
Now, over five years in the making, the second edition is available. The volume contains over 12 000 terms, including those from “new” disciplines, such as satellite meteorology and numerical weather prediction. In addition, related oceanographic and hydrologic terms are defined.
The Glossary of Meteorology, 2d ed., was produced by an editorial board composed of 41 distinguished scientists and the participation of over 300 contributors. The CD-ROM version is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, and most UNIX platforms, and features hyperlink cross-references.
Ordering info: ISBN 1-878220-34-9, approximately 850 pp., hardbound. To place an order, refer to the pricing below and submit your prepaid orders to Order Department, AMS, 45 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108-3693; call 617-227-2425 to order by phone using Visa, Mastercard, or American Express; or send e-mail to amsorder@ametsoc.org. Please make checks payable to the American Meteorological Society.
The book cost is $75 list, $50 AMS members, and $25 AMS student members. The CD-ROM cost is $90 list, $60 AMS members, and $30 AMS student members.
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The Congressional Natural Hazards Caucus held a public roundtable discussion on Monday 22 January focused on the recent earthquake in El Salvador and the broader natural hazards challenges that face the United States. The participants were Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and John Edwards (D-North Carolina), cochairs of the caucus; Dr. William Hooke, AMS senior fellow; and Dr. P. Patrick Leahy, Associate Director for Geology, U.S. Geological Survey. (For remarks, see http://www.agiweb.org/workgroup/forum.html#roundtable12201.)
The senators released a discussion document that says the United States is becoming more vulnerable to natural disasters and suggests actions Congress might take to solve the problem. These include the gathering of accurate data on the true costs of natural disasters, the cost and effectiveness of current mitigation efforts, improved warning systems, and better coordination of long-term recovery efforts.
The Congressional Natural Hazards Caucus was formed last year to help improve America’s response to such potentially devastating events as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. It seeks to coordinate responses of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the private sector in dealing with natural disasters.
The discussion document was prepared by a group of organizations concerned about staggering human and economic losses caused by natural hazards. The group is asking the incoming administration to take a new national approach to disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires.
Led by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), more than 30 cosigning organizations want the Bush administration to make natural disaster reduction a national priority and take specific steps to build the country’s resilience to natural hazards.
Natural disasters are taking a tremendous toll on the country. For example, 1992’s Hurricane Andrew resulted in 61 deaths, hundreds of thousands homeless, and more than $23 billion in damages; the 1993 Midwest floods displaced more than 50 000 and created losses of nearly $21 billion; 1994’s Northridge earthquake resulted in 65 deaths, 12 000 hospitalized, and $45 billion in damages; and Hurricane Floyd in 1999 triggered the evacuation of 4 million people and drove more than 10 000 into shelters. These four events alone caused damages of over $100 billion.
The group predicts that the incoming administration will face disasters carrying price tags ranging from $10 to $100 billion, such as regional water shortages costing at least as much as the gasoline price increases of 2000, multiple power shortages due to weather extremes, and military operations compromised by severe weather and other hazards.
What can be done to build our resilience? The group has nine specific recommendations. First and foremost, the administration should conduct a national assessment of community vulnerability. This assessment can then be used to prioritize mitigation efforts and identify potential vulnerabilities. The other recommendations are to
Cosigning organizations are the Alliance of American Insurers, American Association for Wind Engineering, American Geological Institute, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Red Cross, Applied Technology Council, Association of American Geographers, Association of American State Geologists, Association of Contingency Planners, Association of State Floodplain Managers, Blue Sky Foundation, Circum Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, Consortium of Organizations for Strong Motion Observation Systems, Dewberry & Davis LLC, Disaster Recovery Business Alliance, and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. Also, Emergency Information Infrastructure Project, Institute for Business and Home Safety, International Association of Emergency Managers, International Code Council Inc., IRIS Consortium, MLC & Associates, Multihazard Mitigation Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences, National Emergency Management Association, National Fire Protection Association, Reinsurance Association of America, Seismological Society of America, State Farm Insurance Companies, Telcordia Technologies, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, The Weather Channel, Western Disaster Center, Western States Seismic Policy Council, and W.F. Baird & Associates. The cosigners are members of the Natural Hazards Caucus Work Group (http://www.agiweb.org/workgroup/), designed to support the Congressional Natural Hazards Caucus (http://www.senate.gov/~edwards/cnhc/).
The full document is available on the AMS and UCAR Web sites: http://www.ametsoc.org/ams and http://www.ucar.edu/communications/awareness/2001.
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Robert Serafin, former director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, assumed the office of AMS President at the Annual Meeting last month. Following is an excerpt from an interview with Serafin.
What led to your decision to accept a nomination to run for president of the AMS?
I was honored to be asked to run so the decision was easy. The AMS is a wonderful organization with which I have been affiliated for many years. I felt it would be a privilege to serve and to represent the AMS.
As president, what goals have you set both for yourself and the Society?
There is a lot on our table in the AMS strategic plan. My primary goal will be to help Ron McPherson and the Council continue to implement the plan. There are great opportunities to serve society in the coming years. Solutions to society’s problems are inevitably dependent upon the integration of science with technology. That alone is not enough, however. It is also necessary to build the bridges to society that enable effective solutions. The AMS is exceptionally well positioned to respond to society’s needs because of its breadth in 1) science and technology, 2) unique emphasis on prediction in the operational community, 3) strong private sector involvement, 4) strong emphasis on education, and 5) strong interactions between the research and operational communities and other interdisciplinary interactions.
Within this framework, I plan to place special emphasis on the interactions among disciplines and on the interdisciplinary approaches that enable society to address its problems. I also want to emphasize the increasing roles that women and minorities must play in our future and will be involved on the public policy activities of AMS.
This year the AMS implemented a new format for its Annual Meeting and in the near future we are going to see a new format for the Bulletin. These are two very visible elements of the Society. How do you see these changes affecting the Society’s membership?
The Annual Meeting will be more appealing to our diverse membership as will the new Bulletin. Both will create new opportunities for us to discuss and communicate interdisciplinary issues. I expect that the membership will respond positively to these changes and will enjoy the new formats and emphasis.
One of your jobs is to begin preparations for the 2002 AMS Annual Meeting in Orlando. What should we expect at that meeting? Are there any special events you have planned or are in the process of planning?
We are using for the first time a standing program committee for the Annual Meeting. There will be special symposia of interdisciplinary nature and the President’s Symposium will focus on the expanding role of the AMS’s interactions with society.
Without question, technology has had a huge impact on our science. Where do you see technology leading us next? Or is there some other factor that you believe will make a significant impact?
Technology will have a great influence on our future as it has in the past. Perhaps the greatest influence will be in the area of information technology, which will revolutionize our ability to simulate, visualize, and disseminate user-relevant information about our environment. I also see the widespread use of microsensors, especially in urban areas, that will provide high spatial and temporal resolution observations for much improved high-resolution forecasts. Environmental forecasts will evolve from our present weather forecasts. Satellite and other remote sensing observations will be used in ways not even imagined as merged models and observations become the norm for describing the weather, climate, and environment.
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A 45-country group in Africa and the Indian Ocean plan to create an advanced meteorological network in collaboration with Eumetsat that is expected to improve weather forecasting, disaster monitoring, climate and environmental study and related resources across the continent, according to a story in the 8 January issue of Aviation Week.
Funded by the European Commission’s Fund for Economic Development and coordinated by Kenya’s Department of Meteorology, the Euro$11 million (U.S.$10.3 million) project will upgrade 120 existing weather stations so they can interface with Eumetsat’s second-generation satellite system.
The first spacecraft in that system is expected to be launched in 2002.
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The United States and Vietnam have signed an agreement that allows NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) to provide advanced weather models and other scientific expertise to that nation to help strengthen its ability to predict, warn, and manage river and coastal floods caused by tropical storms.
In ceremonies at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C., on 9 January, NWS Director John J. Kelly Jr. and Director General of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Dr. Nguyen Cong Thanh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Technical Cooperation in Meteorology and Hydrology. The MOU allows the two countries to exchange scientific resources, technical knowledge, and weather forecast services.
Under the agreement, the United States and Vietnam expect to
In his remarks, Kelly pointed out that the agreement is the first that allows scientific and technological exchange between the two nations. He said both countries share a common problem in that both face challenges from severe weather events and flooding.
The Vietnamese director general expressed his thanks to the NWS for its help in that nation’s 10-year effort to modernize its weather forecasting capabilities and said that the new agreement opens a “new era of cooperation” between the United States and Vietnam.
NOAA Administrator Dr. D. James Baker described the event as a “historic moment,” saying the United States looks forward to even greater cooperation in weather services. “We are looking forward to expanded cooperation in other areas,” he explained.
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A team of Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) recently spent a week in a huge barren salt lake in Australia’s interior helping to test a new NASA Earth Observation satellite (EO-1) instrument.
The team went to Lake Frome, about 150 kilometers north of Adelaide in South Australia, to make sure that EO-1 was working properly. EO-1, launched in November, contains the Hyperion imaging equipment. It is the first of its kind in space, and it measures much more detailed information about the earth’s surface than previous satellite instruments.
“Hyperion is unique because it records the brightness of the earth in 220 different spectral bands, or colors,” said Dr. David Jupp, from the CSIRO Office of Space Science and Applications (COSSA). Other earth observation satellites typically detect a maximum of only 7 spectral bands.
“One of the best ways to test the satellite is to have it look at a very white surface, such as Lake Frome, because it is one of the brightest spots on the Australian continent, and it is very uniform.”
Susan Campbell, one of the team members, said, “A salt lake is a difficult place to work. It’s incredibly hot, the surface is boggy, and it is very easy to get lost because there are no landmarks—just a blindingly white surface for as far as the eye can see.
“Each day, with a backpack full of instruments, we rode across the salt on balloon-tired motorbikes to the center of the lake. The bikes were the only things that wouldn’t break through the salty crust and get stuck in the black mud below.”
In addition to measuring the brightness of the salt, she explained, the scientists also measured the amounts of water vapor and dust in the atmosphere, and balloon soundings measured the atmosphere above the lake.
Over the next year, Hyperion will be tested at other extreme landscapes, like the darkness of the deep waters of Lake Argyle in Western Australia, according to the scientists.
The Australian effort is headed by Dr. Jupp and involves scientists from CSIRO and the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES). It is one of 10 teams chosen to work on Hyperion data with NASA and U.S. instrument makers.
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Europe’s second-generation Meteosat weather satellite system faces a two-year delay and probably will not be operational before 2002, according to Tillmann Mohr, director-general of the 17-nation Eumetsat organization.
Mohr attributed the delay to technical problems among companies working on Meteosat ground installations under separate contracts, according to a story in the 8 January issue of Space News.
Meteosat satellites operate in geostationary orbit above the equator. Eumetsat’s first polar-orbiting satellite system, Metop, also is two years behind schedule, with initial operations now expected in late 2005 or early 2006, according to the publication.
The Space News story reported that one reason for the Metop delay is that Eumetsat underestimated the complexity of the ground hardware and software needed to retrieve and process data from the satellites. Mohr also is quoted as saying that Eumetsat’s members took longer than expected to give final approval to the program.
Metop satellites will carry several United States–supplied instruments and will be part of a coordinated United States–European fleet providing global weather coverage.
Mohr acknowledged that the two-year delay “has created a problem” for NOAA, which now faces the challenge of extending the life of its own spacecraft to cover the Metop delay.
Unlike the Metop slip, the delay to the Meteosat Second-Generation satellite system was due solely to Eumetsat’s industrial contractors, according to the article. Without naming any companies, Mohr said several contractors were unable to meet the technical specifications of their contracts and did not inform Eumetsat of the trouble until recently.
The installations affected by the problem include the Meteosat Second-Generation image-processing center, the primary ground station, and the central facility.
Mohr told the publication that he may order the launch of a Second-Generation Meteosat satellite even if the ground stations are not ready. The satellite would be maintained in a parking orbit until the stations are up and running, he said.
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Florida holds on to its number 1 position with the highest annual average costs for total damage from hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes, according to the 2001 edition of the Extreme Weather Sourcebook (http://www.esig.ucar.edu/sourcebook/). Louisiana and Texas rank second and third. Since 1999, the Extreme Weather Sourcebook has provided reporters and the public with quick access to data on the cost of damages from major weather events in the United States.
“Florida’s hurricane history puts it in the number 1 position,” explains Roger Pielke Jr., the political scientist who leads the research team that created the site at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Louisiana and Texas have the unfortunate situation of being hit by all three hazards used in the composite ranking.
The Web site reports decades of information in constant 1999 dollars (updated from the previous 1997 benchmark). By taking data supplied in multiple, incompatible formats and harmonizing them to specific standards, the site allows relative comparisons among extreme-weather impacts and among states or regions. For 2001 the NCAR team has uncovered new data that adds as much as three decades of information for some hazards.
A new section on lightning was added because “lightning is one of the most significant weather-related killers in the United States,” says Pielke. The lightning section is based on research published in 2000 by E. Brian Curran (National Weather Service Forecast Office, Fort Worth, Texas) and Ronald Holle and Raul Lopez (both of the National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma) in the Journal of Climate. Also new in the 2001 edition is information on hail, wind storms, thunderstorms, winter storms, and other phenomena, provided courtesy of Stanley Changnon, of the Illinois State Water Survey.
The NCAR team collaborated with the Office of Hydrology of the National Weather Service to comb NWS archives for data extending the flood record from the first edition’s 1983–97 to the current 1955–99. “We think these are much more robust data,” says Pielke. The composite data from which the comparative rankings are derived has been extended to the same period.
The 2001 Sourcebook pegs the U.S. average annual cost from tornadoes, hurricanes, and flood damage at over $11.4 billion (excluding Hawaii and Puerto Rico). The composite rankings for the top 10 states are as follows.
| Rank |
State |
Average damage per year in 1999 U.S.$ millions from tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods 1955–99 |
| 1 |
Florida |
$1,665 |
| 2 |
Louisiana |
$967 |
| 3 |
Texas |
$909 |
| 4 |
North Carolina |
$715 |
| 5 |
Pennsylvania |
$702 |
| 6 |
California |
$525 |
| 7 |
Mississippi |
$464 |
| 8 |
New York |
$426 |
| 9 |
Connecticut |
$368 |
| 10 |
Iowa |
$366 |
Pennsylvania might look like a surprise at number 5, but that area experienced significant floods in the 1950s and 1970s, and has had tornadoes, too, Pielke says. “There’s really no place that’s ‘safe’—every place has some amount of damage.
“The Sourcebook is a starting point for those interested in understanding how weather affects people’s lives,” says Pielke. “The dollar amounts are approximate and are most useful in comparing states and regions.” He hopes the Sourcebook acts as a catalyst for more attention to the societal impacts of weather. He also warns that historical costs cannot predict what future damage might be.
The flood and tornado data were updated to 1999 dollar values using the Gross National Product Implicit Price Deflator, which is published annually by the White House. In addition to inflation, the hurricane data were normalized to 1999 values by adjusting for growth in population and wealth, based on a 1998 paper coauthored by Pielke. A detailed report of the data sources is available on the Web.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Global Programs supported the flood data reanalysis project. NCAR, NOAA, the U.S. Weather Research Program, and the National Science Foundation, in partnership with the American Meteorological Society sponsored the Extreme Weather Sourcebook.
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Researchers at NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), studying changes in tropical precipitation patterns, have noted a higher frequency of El Niños and La Niñas over the last 21 years. In addition, when either of those events occur, the world can expect more months with unusually high or low precipitation with droughts more common than floods over land areas.
Scott Curtis of UMBC and Robert Adler of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are coauthors of a paper titled “The Magnitude and Variability of Global and Regional Precipitation Based on the 21 Year Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) and 3 Year Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Data Sets.” The paper was presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last month.
El Niño events occur irregularly at intervals of 2–7 years, although the average is about once every 3–4 years. Curtis said the global precipitation database shows El Niños or La Niñas occurring almost every 2 years throughout the last two decades. These events typically last 12–18 months and are accompanied by swings in the Southern Oscillation, an interannual seesaw in tropical sea level pressure between the eastern and western Pacific. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events are characterized by large changes in precipitation over the Tropics, which extend around the globe.
Curtis and Adler used data from the World Climate Research Project’s Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), a database of monthly precipitation around the world, to study global and regional variations in rainfall. They compared the GPCP data to rainfall data from NASA’s TRMM satellite over the Tropics.
They confirmed that during El Niños, such as the one that occurred during 1997/98, there is an increase in precipitation in the central equatorial Pacific and a decrease over the East Indies. More surprisingly, they noticed that changes in precipitation in the equatorial belt extend in a horseshoe shape toward the polar regions. These patterns depend on the season of the year.
Globally, results showed that during years with El Niño it is wetter over the ocean and drier over the land, compared to “neutral” years with neither El Niño nor La Niña. Research indicates that this decrease in rainfall can be up to 7% over tropical land areas. Curtis found that rainfall over the ocean doesn’t change much during a La Niña event compared to neutral periods, but the data does indicate wetter land areas.
Curtis said, “Over the entire 21-year span of the global rainfall database, results indicate an increase in rainfall in the Indian monsoon region and a decrease over central Africa. The change in precipitation over the Tropics looks like a combination of El Niño and La Niña, which is not too surprising since we just experienced a strong El Niño in 1997/98 followed by a strong La Niña in 1998/99.” Also during the period 1979–1999, there has been an increase in rain in the monsoon region around India and a decrease over central Africa.
Curtis cautions that because the data only cover 21 years, which in climatic terms is a very short time, more data are needed before a trend in frequency of El Niños and La Niñas can be seen.
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A decrease in rainfall over the Indian Ocean may give the world the earliest signal that a strong El Niño is about to start, according to researchers studying a 21-year global record of precipitation. Scott Curtis of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and Robert Adler of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, now have a better understanding of precipitation patterns and can, in some cases, identify when a strong El Niño is coming before ocean temperatures warm.
Because some El Niño–induced climate changes can be devastating, it is important to find its earliest signs to better prepare nations that will most likely be affected by the event. The research by Curtis and Adler may eventually provide a more advanced notice on forthcoming El Niños to those countries.
Curtis presented these findings in his paper entitled “The Evolution of Tropical and Extratropical Precipitation During ENSO Events” at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society at the Albuquerque Convention Center last month.
El Niño events occur when the trade winds that normally blow from east to west over the Pacific Ocean diminish and the waters of the eastern Pacific become warmer than normal. These events in the tropical waters of the Pacific have impacts on global weather patterns, including increased rainfall in the eastern Pacific, and drought conditions in Indonesia and Australia.
Scientists often use diminishing trade winds or warming water temperatures as clues to a coming El Niño. Changes in tropical precipitation have been viewed as secondary responses.
Curtis and Adler examined changes in precipitation patterns, amounts and intensities of precipitation of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events over the past 21 years. The global datasets they used viewed precipitation from a daily to monthly timescale, by combining the best satellite observations with rain gauge data. With this information they created the first ENSO indices based on precipitation over the open Pacific Ocean to identify and define interannual climate variations.
“Quantifying changes in the precipitation component of ENSO is important in understanding the distribution of heating in the atmosphere,” Curtis said. “The heating drives the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere and affects weather patterns around the world.”
During strong El Niños, like the 1982/83 and 1997/98 events, the 21-year record indicated dry conditions around Indonesia about 2 months before other atmospheric and oceanic characteristics of El Niño emerged. In both events, before the sea surface temperatures warmed, there was a decrease in precipitation over the East Indies, first occurring over and to the west of the large island of Indonesia. Curtis saw these precipitation decreases in January and February 1982 and 1997. The normal benchmarks, diminishing trade winds, and warming water temperatures over the eastern Pacific, came afterward.
Curtis cautions that this finding is not likely to apply to all El Niños, especially the weaker ones, such as the 1986/87 and the 1991/92 events, which had very different life cycles. Also, changes in precipitation in the East Indies do not seem to precede La Niñas. January–February 1982 and 1997 stand out as the 2 years in the 21-year dataset with the largest deficit in precipitation in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean.
In November 1999, the United Nations urged residents of nations that are adversely affected by El Niños to prepare in advance. The findings from Curtis and Adler may provide a way to recognize the earliest signs of a strong El Niño and help nations around the world make better preparations.
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Temperature data from scientific buoys scattered across the Pacific Ocean are raising doubts about the validity of one of the most important tools used by scientists to track global climate change.
The “lock step” link between sea water temperatures and air temperatures may be less rigid than presently thought, according to data analyzed by scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the Hadley Centre of the U.K. Met Office (UKMO). Results of their research are reported in the 1 January 2001 edition of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The supposed link between sea and air temperatures let climate scientists use sea surface temperatures as a “proxy” for air temperature data over large ocean areas for which air temperature data are not available, said Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of UAH’s Earth System Science Center.
“The global surface temperature datasets—the data that people commonly use to track earth’s climate—are a mixture of near-surface air temperatures over land and sea water temperatures over the oceans,” Christy said.
Taking the sea surface data out of the global climate record would have a significant impact on climate tracking and forecasts. When scientists take sea surface temperatures out of the global temperature record for the past 20-plus years and replace them with air temperature data gathered by ships and buoys, the global warming trend at the earth’s surface drops by about one-third—from 0.19 to about 0.13ºC per decade.
Using high-precision temperature data gathered by 19 buoys moored throughout the tropical Pacific Ocean and monitored by NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Christy, his British colleagues, and a Danish scientist compared long-term (8- to 20-year) trends for temperatures recorded 1 meter below the sea surface and 3 meters above it.
In the Western Pacific, it was a “murky picture,” Christy said, with little correlation between water and air temperature changes. Buoy by buoy, seasonal temperature variations in the sea water explained less than 40% of air temperature changes.
That means if seawater temperatures in the western Pacific go up from one season to the next, the air just above the sea surface doesn’t necessarily follow.
By comparison, water temperatures explained more than 90% of the air temperature fluctuations in the eastern Pacific. Over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, buoy data show a near-surface seawater warming trend of 0.37ºC per decade, while air temperatures three meters above the surface were warming by only 0.25ºC per decade during the 20-year test period—a change of 0.12ºC per decade in slightly more than 12 feet.
The supposed link between sea surface temperatures and air temperatures is an integral part of both the historic surface temperature record and the computerized models used to predict what the earth’s climate might do in the future.
Because reliable low-level air temperature data from over the oceans are more scarce and more difficult to assess than water temperatures, scientists monitoring the earth’s climate have used sea surface temperatures as a proxy for air temperatures, assuming that the two rise and fall proportionally.
More than 20 years of data gathered by microwave sounding units on NOAA’s TIROS-N satellites shows global warming in the atmosphere from the earth’s surface up to approximately 5 miles to be about 0.04ºC per decade, a trend confirmed by data from “radiosonde” thermometers lifted through the troposphere by helium balloons.
The apparent disagreement between climate trends at the surface and in the troposphere has been the subject of an often heated scientific debate over the validity of the two datasets. The buoy data offered the UAH–UKMO–Danish research team a rare opportunity to test the accuracy of the seawater–for–air temperatures proxy using scientifically calibrated, collocated instruments.
By comparison, much of the historic sea water temperature record was generated by military and commercial ships, which recorded the temperature of sea water as it was taken aboard as an engine coolant. While calculated into the temperature record as sea “surface” temperatures, most modern ships draw in cooling water from as much as 10 meters below the surface.
The authors looked at the Tropics-wide difference between the sea water temperatures and upper air temperatures not only from the satellite data but also from balloons and global weather maps. All three records indicated the tropical air between the surface and 5 miles actually cooled at a rate of about 0.05ºC per decade, while the sea water was warming by about 0.13ºC per decade.
The Tropics-wide near-surface air temperature (from ships and buoys) warmed at a rate in between the sea water and the upper air—about 0.06ºC per decade. These differences were all statistically significant.
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Warmer surface temperatures over just a few months in the Antarctic can splinter an ice shelf and prime it for a major collapse, NASA and university scientists report in the latest issue of the Journal of Glaciology.
Using satellite images of telltale meltwater on the ice surface and a sophisticated computer simulation of the motions and forces within an ice shelf, the scientists demonstrated that added pressure from surface water filling crevasses can crack the ice entirely through. The process can be expected to become more widespread if Antarctic summer temperatures increase.
“The importance of meltwater implies that ice shelf stability may not be limited by the mean annual temperature, as has long been thought, but by the mean summer temperature,” says coauthor Christina Hulbe of the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center. “As the mean summer temperature exceeds 0ºC, surface melting is likely to promote ice-shelf retreat.”
The team of scientists—Ted Scambos and Jennifer Bohlander of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Mark Fahnestock of the University of Maryland, and Hulbe—focused on the Larsen Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, which experienced major retreats in 1995 and 1998. Over 775 square miles (2000 square kilometers) of the northern section of this ice shelf disintegrated in January 1995 during a storm.
The floating ice shelves, which account for about 2% of all Antarctic ice, typically undergo cycles of advance and retreat over many decades. It has long been recognized that meltwater filling of crevasses could enlarge the cracks, but this study is the first to connect the basic physics of that process with significant effects of surface melt ponds on ice-shelf viability. The extra outward pressure of the water counteracts the internal pressure holding the ice together.
Crevasses routinely form at the landward side of the shelf as glacial ice pushes past coastal features and flows into the floating ice. The crevasses slowly travel seaward as the ice shelf grows.
Satellite observations of melted water on the ice surface provided an important clue to the water-pressure theory. Analyzing images of the Larsen Ice Shelf over the past 20 years, Fahnestock found that the years with the longest duration of surface meltwater were also the years of major shelf breakup events. The “melt season” during the major retreat year of 1995, for example, was over 80 days long, about 20 days longer than average.
To find out if the accumulated meltwater “wedge” could split a crevasse to the bottom of the ice, Hulbe used a computer model to simulate the thermodynamics of a northern section of the Larsen Ice Shelf before and after the major retreats of the 1990s. Depending on the internal strength of the ice, a water-filled crevasse just 15–50 feet (5–15 meters) deep could fracture through the 220-yard (200 meter) thick ice shelf. The splintered remains are probably held together by bridges between crevasses until a combination of winds, tides, and another season of melting lead to a breakup.
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Much of the earth has warmed over the last half century, but the eastern half of the United States has shown a cooling trend. NASA-funded research indicates cooler temperatures in the eastern United States are caused by an increase in sun-shielding clouds produced by warmer ocean temperatures in the Pacific.
Walter A. Robinson of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Reto Reudy of Science Systems and Applications, Inc., presented these findings at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in January.
Eastern U.S. temperatures have displayed a cooling trend of 0.1°C per decade, while global temperatures warmed by that same amount from 1950 to 1997. The researchers used a computer climate model to see if this regional cooling could be caused by changes in sea surface temperature. Robinson said that in the GISS model, “Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific cause greater cloud cover over the eastern United States. This increased cloud cover is directly responsible for the cooling.” The brightness of a cloud causes a large percentage of incoming solar radiation to be reflected back into space, thus keeping the atmosphere cooler than if the cloud weren’t there.
Using the climate simulations, Robinson found the amount of water vapor in the Gulf of Mexico follows closely the water vapor released by the warm sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Water vapor from the Pacific moves east to the Gulf of Mexico and is then carried over the eastern United States by the clockwise circulation around an Atlantic subtropical high pressure system. When the water vapor arrives over the United States it condenses and generates more cloud cover, allowing less solar radiation to reach and warm the earth’s surface.
Robinson’s research utilized the GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) “general circulation model,” which simulates the circulation of the atmosphere around the world and used sea surface temperatures from around the globe.
In order to create a focus on sea surface temperatures in the model runs, three components that can contribute to warming or climate forcing, were “fixed.” These are aerosols (particles in the atmosphere), solar irradiant or brightness, and greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide). Because these factors were fixed, they can be ruled out as the cause of cooling in the model, leaving only sea surface temperatures as a variable.
The GISS model used ocean temperature data over a 47-year span, from 1950 to 1997 and looked at global sea surface temperatures in different areas. The model used temperatures from 20°N to 20°S, and from each of those endpoints to each Pole. The only time the model showed significant cooling in the eastern United States was when the tropical Pacific waters warmed.
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Producing more rain by seeding clouds may no longer be wishful thinking. After many failed attempts by scientists to duplicate cloud-seeding experiments that appeared to have worked in the past, a team from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) believes it has finally succeeded in increasing rainfall in existing storm clouds and quantifying the results.
A recent 3-year randomized experiment in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila showed that rainfall from seeded clouds lasted longer, the rainfall area was larger, and total precipitation was higher (sometimes even doubled) than output from similar nonseeded clouds. In many cases the results of the seeding were statistically significant 20 minutes to an hour after seeding.
The Mexico project was designed to repeat the success of a groundbreaking, five-year effort conducted in South Africa in the early 1990s. The new study, which followed several years of drought in northern Mexico, was funded by the Mexican state of Coahuila with financial support from Altos Hornos de Mexico, a private steel company.
NCAR researchers flew into the Mexican rain clouds in a Piper Cheyenne twin-engine turboprop airplane, equipped with wing-mounted racks carrying 24 hygroscopic flares and an instrument package to measure basic cloud physics indicators. The flares spewed salted smoke into moisture-rich updrafts entering the clouds from below. The tiny particles (a mixture of sodium, magnesium, and calcium chlorides) attracted and absorbed the surrounding water vapor to more readily create large drops heavy enough to fall out as rain.
“We are very encouraged by the results,” says lead scientist Roelof Bruintjes of NCAR. However, the number of cases is marginal for any statistical analysis, he adds. Funding for a planned fourth year of data gathering was cut when the Mexican drought ended. This left the total number of cases at 94, compared to 127 in the South Africa study. The team is optimistic that more seasons in the field will extend the results and help establish statistical significance.
Even more problematic is that scientists cannot fully explain how the seeding process works inside the cloud. “We must be able to explain both microphysical and dynamical responses of the cloud to the seeding procedure,” cautions Bruintjes, “before we can claim full success.”
The main tool for “nowcasting” the weather and for evaluating the seeding experiment was a 5-cm wavelength weather radar. Special software developed at NCAR displayed the radar data and the aircraft position in real time for directing operations. It also objectively identified storms for evaluating the results.
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NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center is exploring ways of using data collected by students as part of its climate monitoring and archival activities, Thomas Ross, a meteorologist at the center, told scientists at the Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in January.
Participating students are in the GLOBE program—Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. GLOBE is a worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working together to benefit the environment. To date, over 15 000 teachers have been trained in 10 000 schools.
The data that the GLOBE program contributes are temperature and precipitation, Ross said. “The data can be valuable to NCDC’s data analysis and research when it is complete and meets quality control standards. NCDC also uses GLOBE daily temperature and precipitation data in analyses of extreme climate events. GLOBE data were incorporated in an analysis of a record heat wave in May of 1999, which affected Texas and Oklahoma and in studying extreme rainfall in Florida from Hurricane Irene during October 1999.”
For more information on NCDC, see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov. For GLOBE, see http://www.globe.gov/.
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The United States as a whole has experienced a slight decrease in the number of frost days, according to Dave Easterling, a climatologist with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
Frost days, or the days when the minimum daily temperature dips below freezing, declined over the period 1948–99, with the largest decreases in the winter and the spring. Easterling studied two questions for the 52-year period: Are there changes in the number of frost days per year or season? and are there changes in the dates of the first autumn frost, last spring frost, and length of the frost-free season? These questions are important to the understanding of our climate and to the agricultural community.
Changes in frost dates for autumn show little change, but the date of the last spring freeze shows a significant move to an earlier date. This results in an increase in the frost-free season. Easterling also found that there is a distinct spatial pattern to the results that is consistent with the spatial pattern of annual temperature trends for the twentieth century.
This patterns shows the western United States with the largest decreases in frost days, and increases in the length of the frost-free season. But the southeastern United States, which is one of the few areas of the world showing cooling over the twentieth century, has no significant changes in the numbers of frost days or the frost-free season. This should come as good news to farmers in Florida.
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In a move that opens access of weather radar data to anyone with an Internet connection, NOAA’s National Weather Service this month switched to a new system that distributes radar weather data more broadly. The change, which became effective 1 January, ends the NEXRAD Information Dissemination Service Agreement, or NIDS, and begins the Radar Product Central Collection/Distribution Service.
The new central repository provides radar data over the Internet using three different technologies: multicast; file transfer protocol, or FTP; and the World Wide Web. More than two dozen radar data products from every radar in the network can be received as a real-time data stream, or Internet “multicast”—which is a new “push” technology—by anyone who pays the connection costs. This multicast now feeds a group of wholesale data users, including the original NIDS vendors, who retransmit these data and their own value-added products to their customers. Users can select and download, for free, any particular product by Internet FTP—a traditional Internet “pull” technology. And a subset of these products are available free for anyone to view immediately using any Web browser.
In addition to using these Internet technologies to disseminate radar data products, NWS also includes them on the existing NOAAPORT satellite broadcasting link, which is available to anyone with the necessary equipment.
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The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center recently issued an updated Seasonal Outlook in late January confirming that during recent months La Niña has strengthened to moderate force. However, it is not currently affecting winter weather patterns and is expected to weaken once again over the next few months.
Of more significance for U.S. weather patterns is the variability and phase shifts in the regional climate pattern known as the Arctic oscillation (AO). NOAA scientists say the change in the Arctic oscillation to its positive phase means relatively warmer temperatures for much of the United States. However, the outlook also says there is no guarantee that it will stay in that phase for the rest of winter. “The AO is highly unpredictable and often reverses its phase on timescales on the order of a week or two,” said Jim Laver, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center. “The result is that we would likely see periods of below- and above-normal temperatures and precipitation during the remainder of the winter.”
The Winter Outlook, originally issued in October, stated that this winter would likely be characterized by colder temperatures than those experienced during the last 3 winters and that the weather pattern would be more variable. To date, this winter has featured extreme cold during December and warmer than normal conditions for many parts of the contiguous United States in January.
The latest outlook indicates above-normal precipitation is likely in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and in the Pacific Northwest during the month of February.
Updating the late winter to early spring (February through April) Seasonal Outlook, forecasters at the NWS Climate Prediction Center are predicting warmer than normal temperatures along the southern tier states, near-normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, and below-normal temperatures for Michigan and southern Alaska. The expected temperature pattern remains markedly cooler than that experienced during the previous 3 years, which were warmer than normal across much of the U.S. Precipitation predictions call for dry conditions in Florida and the southwest and above-normal precipitation for the Alaskan panhandle. Climatologists define normal temperature as the 1961–90 average temperature for a given area.
Regional Outlooks for February through April call for above-normal temperatures for all southern tier states from Georgia to Florida through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern portions of California, Nevada, and Utah. Elsewhere, including the mid-Atlantic and northeast states, can expect equal chances of above-, near-, or below-normal temperature. Expect enhanced chances of near-normal temperatures in Washington, Oregon, and western Indiana and cooler than normal in Michigan and northern Wisconsin.
Expect equal chances of above-, near-, and below-normal precipitation across most of the United States, including the mid-Atlantic and northeast states; however, below-normal precipitation is expected in Florida and extreme southern sections of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and southern California.
Alaska can expect subnormal temperatures in central and southern sections and above-normal in the north. Near-normal precipitation amounts are expected everywhere except the southern panhandle where above-normal precipitation totals are expected.
Hawaii can expect above-normal temperatures for February through April and near-normal levels of precipitation.
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High winds, heavy rain, and extreme surf conditions have already battered West Coast residents this winter, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers hope a new experiment will give them an edge over the storms. This week’s experiment is designed to advance NOAA’s understanding and prediction of severe Pacific Ocean winter storms.
The project is called PACJET, Pacific Landfalling Jets Experiment, and is a collaborative effort between NOAA, the U.S. Navy, and other government and university entities. Its goal is to gain further insight into how the “low-level jet,” a fast moving current of air centered at 3000 feet altitude, impacts weather patterns and, thereby, improve the accuracy of short (0–24 hour) range weather forecasts along the West Coast. The experiment will be based in Monterey, California, and will run from 20 January to 4 March 2001.
Given the impact of these storms on the West Coast, accurate and timely forecasts and storm watches and warnings have become vitally important. The Pacific Ocean, where many weather systems form, is data sparse by comparison to land areas.
Dr. F. Martin Ralph, the project leader from NOAA’s Environmental Technology Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, says forecasters are particularly interested in improving the prediction of coastal storms. “Hazardous weather due to these storms has caused major loss of life and property in the West Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington over the years,” said Ralph.
High winds, heavy rain and extreme flooding can occur in a very short period of time as these storms reach land. Ralph believes that by focusing the latest technology and tools on this problem, it may help researchers learn more about the causes of these storms and provide forecasters with better information.
The program builds on experience gained from an earlier West Coast project, CALJET, which was conducted during the strong El Niño winter of 1997/98. That experiment explored the relationship between El Niño and extreme coastal storms.
NOAA’s WP-3D “hurricane hunter” will be the flying laboratory in which much of the data are collected. Crewed by NOAA Corps officers and civilians from NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center in Tampa, Florida, the plane will fly out of Monterey, California, directly into the storms. An ozone sensor will be mounted on the plane to conduct air chemistry studies.
Using a new satellite communications link, the P-3 aircraft will be able to communicate with forecasters on the ground on a real-time basis, enabling researchers to send forecasters radar images, audio transmissions, and other information from the aircraft. In addition, there will be ground-based instruments measuring wind and water vapor, and a new GOES satellite scan for cloud-tracked winds.
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NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite is generating rain maps that paint a more accurate picture of how much rain falls in the Tropics.
The new maps provide more accurate tropical rainfall measurements and may enable better management of water resources, may provide clues to developing El Niños and La Niñas, and give scientists a better understanding of how latent heat generated from tropical rains influences weather around the world, according to scientists at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Robert Adler, of Goddard, presented new detailed maps gathered by TRMM during the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December.
TRMM rain maps incorporate both high-resolution microwave and precipitation radar data and depict monthly rainfall since 1998 over an area 38°N–38°S.
TRMM monthly rainfall maps are produced by a team of Goddard scientists led by Adler, the TRMM project scientist. The team manages the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), Precipitation Radar (PR), geosynchronous infrared data, and rain gauge data. Monthly rain maps are thought to provide more accurate rainfall totals by exploiting the strengths of multiple data sources.
“This technique uses TRMM to calibrate or adjust the rain estimates from the other satellites which are not as accurate and provides more ‘looks’ at the rainfall systems which can vary very rapidly,” Adler explained. He said scientists are using TRMM as a “flying rain gauge” and exploiting its more accurate measurements along with the additional satellite information to provide the most complete rainfall estimate.
Another important result of TRMM’s rain maps is the ability to see changes in rainfall amounts over a region, said Adler. “These rainfall anomalies help to clearly identify flooded and dry regions and how they may be tied into other processes,” he noted.
Because El Niños and La Niñas have a major impact on flooding and drought distribution around the world, Adler’s findings have implications for better water resource management in the future. The findings also will assist in planning disaster relief and preparations for vector-borne disease outbreaks when flooding and extreme heat is predicted.
“These rain maps have implications for understanding how latent heating in the Tropics affects weather and climate circulations,” Shepherd said. “Rainfall is a signature of latent heat energy, that ‘fuels’ global wind circulation.”
Armed with more accurate global rainfall information, scientists hope to improve accuracy of short-term forecasts and longer-term climate projections.
Information and images are available at http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/environ/TRMM/TRMM_im.html.
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H. Lee Dantzler, an oceanographer, has been named director of NOAA’s National Oceanographic Data Center, a Commerce Department agency.
The facility, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, is the nation’s source of global oceanographic data. It manages, distributes, and interprets physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data collected by organizations in the United States and dozens of other countries around the world.
Dantzler comes to NODC from The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where he specialized in environmental information systems technology. For the past three years he was on a detail assignment from Johns Hopkins to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, where he led NOAA’s Ocean Remote Sensing Program and later served as chief of the Oceanic Research and Applications Division. Dantzler previously served as an oceanographic and submarine officer in the U.S. Navy where he led the navy’s applied oceanographic and acoustics research programs, and helped direct the navy’s efforts in the use of oceanographic data.
Dantzler holds a doctorate and a master of arts degree in physical oceanography from The Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor of science degree (with distinction) from the U.S. Naval Academy.
At NODC, Dantzler replaced Henry Frey, who retired.
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The National Weather Service has named Jack May as acting director of the agency’s Aviation Weather Center (AWC), located in Kansas City, Missouri. May began his job on 21 January.
The AWC provides critical weather support to the aviation community. The center, one of nine national centers under the umbrella of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, issues analyses and forecasts of hazardous weather and warnings of thunderstorms, turbulence, icing, low clouds, and reduced visibility, which affect domestic and international aviation.
As the acting director, May is charged with continuing the progress made in improving services to the commercial aviation industry and the general aviation community.
A native of Rome, New York, May began his career in meteorology as a part-time employee of Weather Corporation of America in St. Louis, while a student at Parks College of Aeronautical Technology, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical meteorology in 1973. He received his master’s degree in public administration from Kansas University.
Prior to his assignment at AWC, May served as deputy regional director for the NWS Central Region, also located in Kansas City. His other NWS experience includes chief meteorologist for the state of Kansas, deputy chief meteorologist of Ohio, computer systems manager for the NWS Eastern Region, and various assignments as an aviation forecaster in Cleveland, Ohio; Raleigh, North Carolina; Portland, Maine; and Albany, New York.
May follows Dr. David Rodenhuis, who oversaw operations at the AWC since September 1996. Rodenhuis has accepted an assignment as a senior advisor to the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy, NWS Headquarters, in Silver Spring, Maryland. In that position, he will advise top management within NWS on the opportunities and priorities for NWS research and for formulation and recommendations of meteorological policy.
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Robert L. Mairs of NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service has been named chief information officer of NESDIS.
NESDIS operates the nation’s civil and military environmental satellites and operates three data centers. The agency has offices in Silver Spring, Maryland, and facilities in Suitland, Maryland; Wallops, Virginia; Fairbanks, Alaska; Asheville, North Carolina; and Boulder, Colorado.
Mairs has served with NESDIS for the past two decades. He has held several technical and managerial positions in NOAA and was formerly the deputy director of the Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution, where he managed one of NOAA’s largest data processing facilities, ensuring that data users around the world would have access to NOAA’s data and information. In addition, Mairs has led the development of several NOAA IT systems including the NOAA Satellite Active Archive; a system that allows users to search, browse, peruse, and order environmental satellite data in a timely manner from the Web.
Mairs holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master’s degree in engineering from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He has also completed a graduate development program in computer systems management from the University of Maryland.
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Dr. Franco Einaudi has been named the new Director of the Earth Sciences Directorate at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
In his new position, Einaudi will be responsible for planning, organizing, and evaluating a broad program of scientific research, both theoretical and experimental, in the study of earth sciences. The program ranges from basic research to flight experiment development to mission operations and data analysis.
Prior to accepting this new position, Einaudi had been the Chief of the Laboratory for Atmospheres since 1990. Before that, he served as the Head of the Severe Storms Branch, now called the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch.
Einaudi’s career has included 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Physics Department of the University of Toronto and 10 years with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Einaudi spent 7½ years at the Georgia Institute of Technology as Professor of Geophysical Sciences.
A native of Turin, Italy, Einaudi received his bachelor’s degree from the Politecnico of Turin and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering with specialization in plasma physics and atmospheric sciences from Cornell University.
An atmospheric dynamicist, Einaudi is recognized nationally and internationally by his peers for his work on gravity waves, gravity waves–turbulence interaction, propagation of gravity waves in a moist atmosphere, and the role of gravity waves in initiating and interacting with storms.
A member of the American Geophysical Union and a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Einaudi was elected fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1999. Einaudi has served on numerous committees and panels and is the Chair of the Technical Review Committee for the Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres (CSTEA) at Howard University, and a member of the Scientific Program Evaluation Committee (SPEC) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
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