Editor: Jim Elliott
Contributor: Stephanie Kenitzer
Copy Editor: Marcie Bernstein
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The AMS is seeking, through the proposal process, a subcontractor to provide support for its mandate to perform an objective audit of the scoring for the Aquila Energy Corporation long-range forecast competition. The subcontractor will be expected to play a major role in helping AMS to provide critical analysis of Aquila’s chosen scoring methods, to certify that scoring has been done correctly and rigorously, to act as arbiter and final authority in any forecast scoring disputes, and to participate in summarizing results for publication in the Bulletin of the AMS and other professional journals.
The contest is scheduled to last 4 years, beginning with the winter season of 2000/01. The subcontract will be awarded on a cost–plus–fixed fee basis, with a yearly cap not to exceed $20,000. The subcontractor will be chosen based on a combination of cost, responsiveness to the technical requirements of the RFP, and technical expertise/experience considerations. Work is expected to start by May 2001.
No employees or immediate family members of Utilicorp United, Inc., or its subsidiaries or affiliates are eligible to bid. No contestants in the forecast contest are allowed to bid. To eliminate any real or perceived conflicts of interest, no persons whose colleagues or close associates are contestants should bid. AMS, after consulting with Aquila to identify anonymous contestants, will be the final arbiter in any questions of potential conflict of interest. No AMS staff member or his or her immediate family is allowed to bid.
A complete Request for Proposals and links to details of the contest are available on the AMS Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams.
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At the recent AMS Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, the AMS kicked off a new development effort designed to ensure a strong future for the advancement of the atmospheric and related sciences and their services to society.
The AMS 21st Century Campaign 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—that is, to employ the remarkable advances in the atmospheric and related sciences and services for the benefit of society as a whole.
The overall theme of the campaign is education and is centered around four program areas:
Members interested in learning more about the AMS 21st Century Campaign should contact the AMS Development Office at 617-227-2426, ext. 235.
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The AMS Executive Council recently approved plans to renovate the main AMS building at 45 Beacon Street. Renovation of the attached Carriage House is already nearing completion. Final funding details for the Headquarters renovation will be discussed at a joint meeting of the Investments Committee, Development Committee, and Executive Committee was planned for March.
The Council also approved two new policy statements: Expectations Concerning Media Performance during Severe Weather Emergencies, and Seasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction. Both statements are available on the AMS Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/ams.
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Members of the Natural Hazards Caucus Work Group, including AMS, continued their series of ongoing meetings with staff from the cochairs of the Congressional Natural Hazards Caucus, Senators Stevens (D-Alaska) and Edwards (D-North Carolina) last month.
During an open briefing on Capitol Hill, the group mapped out next steps in examining potential opportunities for the federal government to help alleviate the effects of natural disasters. The discussions are still preliminary; any legislative proposals are still very much in the future, so the purpose of the meeting was to exchange ideas and focus on issues that are deemed critical.
Among other issues, the Senators' staffs asked members of the Work Group to consider improved government coordination of long-term recovery efforts. The Senate staff also expressed concern about the issue of “repetitive losses,” for example, the kind of periodic losses that result from constant rebuilding in a flood plain. Finally, the concept of establishing an NTSB-like agency (National Transportation Safety Board) to examine the effectiveness of responses to natural disasters was enthusiastically discussed.
AMS Policy Program Fellow William Hooke presented the recent AMS and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research transition document at the meeting.
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The AMS and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) have prepared a second transition document that urges the new administration and Congress to take a proactive leadership role in weather and climate services. Both documents will be published in the May Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
The document, entitled “Improved Weather and Climate Services for the Nation: A Blueprint for Leadership” will be distributed to members of Congress, the Bush administration, government agencies, and academic groups in the coming weeks. The document will also be available on the UCAR and AMS Web sites.
In the paper, the AMS and UCAR emphasize that “weather and climate impact our economy, safety, environment, and national security, through both everyday fluctuations and extreme events (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, etc.). The U.S. is also deeply affected by longer-term weather patterns like El Niño and La Niña, which exist for an entire season or more. The impacts of weather and climate on everyday life are increasing, and they are being felt in may ways: unprecedented mass evacuations in the face of hurricanes, increased flight delays, wildly fluctuating energy costs and services, and prolonged air pollution episodes and water shortages. Each year, the aggregate toll amounts to thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in property loss and business disruption.
“Conversely, good weather and climate information and the associated services can be used to ensure a safer public, an expanding economy, a healthier environment, and a greater measure of national security. Better weather and climate services should be of interest to all our citizens. For example, at $1 million per mile of coast evacuated, a 20% improvement in predictions of hurricane landfall, track, and intensity could save $80 million per storm, or roughly $500 million annually. A single local utility company can save millions of dollars by optimizing energy production during a balmy winter day (or lose millions if it doesn’t). Weather and climate services require a unique national and international partnership among public and private enterprise, academia, and the media to produce observations and forecasts, distribute this information in specialized ways, develop new capabilities and technologies, and train the next generation of researchers and forecasters.
“Despite great improvements in weather and climate services, public and commercial providers are failing to keep pace with growing national needs. To ensure that essential weather and climate services meet future requirements, the incoming administration should work with the Congress in several areas:
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The pilot study for the new AMS education program Water in the Earth System (WES) Project distance-learning course started in early February. The semester-long course is delivered partially online via the WES Web site. We invite you to visit the WES Web site at http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/WES/home.html.
Thirty-five Local Implementation Teams (LITs) composed of about 100 precollege teachers, college faculty members, and science professionals are pilot testing the course. These same LITs will nationally implement the WES course in fall 2001 and offer it twice each school year for the next 2 or 3 years. For more information on WES, contact Joe Moran in the AMS DC office at (202) 682-9006.
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Nearly two-thirds of 1999 Ph.D. graduates in earth and space sciences took permanent jobs upon graduation, a sharp increase as compared with 1998, according to an annual survey of recent graduates conducted by the American Geophysical Union and the American Geological Institute. The number of new graduates who took interim postdoctoral positions showed a corresponding drop in 1999.
“This is a significant shift, because so-called postdoctoral positions generally pay little and offer few if any benefits,” says Jennifer Giesler, AGU's Manager of Career Services. “Most graduates are looking for a permanent job,” she says, “and take a postdoc only if they have to.”
Giesler and colleagues prepared a report, “Earth & Space Science PhDs, Class of 1999,” based on the AGU–AGI survey data. The 38% of new Ph.D.'s who became postdocs following graduation in 1999 compares with 50% or more in the period 1996–98.
Another striking result of the survey is that 80% of the geoscience Ph.D. class of 1999 found jobs in the geosciences. Their unemployment rate is negligible and significantly below that of 1998. Salaries are steadily increasing.
This is the fourth annual survey, in which AGU and AGI sent surveys to new recipients of Ph.D. degrees in earth and space sciences. The 62% of 1999 graduates who took permanent jobs found them in universities (27%), government (17%), industry (16%), and in nonprofit organizations (2%). The 38% of the same class that took postdoctoral positions found them in universities (25%), government (12%), and nonprofits (1%).
The perception of the job market is improving among recent graduates. In 1996, nearly two-thirds of respondents to that year's survey described the job market as hopeless or bad, and only 4% said it was good or excellent. In the 1999 survey, only 32% checked hopeless or bad, and 22% said it was good or excellent.
One-third of the 1999 graduates in the AGU–AGI survey were women, a figure that had been matched in 1997. But in 1996 and 1998, the figures were closer to one-quarter. The Giesler report incorporates data compiled by the National Science Foundation, showing that over the period 1973–98, only 86 Ph.D.'s in earth and space sciences were earned by African-Americans, less than one-half of 1% of the nearly 18 000 doctorates awarded during those 26 years. Hispanic-Americans earned 224 degrees in these fields during the same years, a little over 1%.
The full report is available on the AGU Web site at http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/cpst/employment_survey.html.
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The Kansas State Board of Education has voted to accept Science Education Standards requiring twelfth grade students to “understand the major concepts of the theory of biological evolution” and “develop an understanding of the origin and evolution of the dynamic Earth system.”
The 7–3 vote on 12 February was in response to a controversial vote by the board in August 1999 revising the standards to de-emphasize evolution and remove the big bang theory and the earth’s age. The 1999 revisions were criticized by numerous organizations, including the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Governing Board, which issued a statement that “The AIP Governing Board view with alarm the recent action taken by the Kansas State Board of Education to remove biological and cosmological evolution from the State Science Standards....”
According to a story in the AIP’s Bulletin of Science Policy News for 13 February, the standards adopted by the recent action of the board cover all 12 grades and are based on work of the National Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Teachers Association.
The new standards, the article noted, recognize the controversy, stating “Science studies natural phenomena by formulating explanations that can be tested against the natural world. Some scientific concepts and theories (e.g., blood transfusion, human sexuality, nervous systems role in consciousness, cosmological, and biological evolution, etc.) may differ from the teachings of a student’s religious community or their cultural beliefs. Compelling student belief in science or in any other field shall not be taught dogmatically.”
Under an introductory section, “Unifying Concepts and Processes in the Kansas Science Education Standards,” there is a paragraph entitled, “Patterns of Cumulative Change.” As examples of such change are the “biological theory of evolution,” “fossilization,” and that “patterns of cumulative change also help to describe the current structure of the universe.”
The eighth grade standard includes material on biological evolution and earth processes, the article noted. “About the latter, ‘students should know that Earth’s history is written in layers of the rock, and some fossil beds enable the matching rocks from different continents and other fossil beds show how organisms developed over a long period of time.’ ”
“One of the twelfth grade life science standards is that ‘all student will develop an understanding of...biological evolution,’ ” according to the article. “Students will understand the major concepts of the theory of biological evolution, with one of the ‘indicators’ being ‘that the theory of evolution is both the history of descent, with modification of different lineages of organisms to environmental challenges and changes....’ ”
“The introduction to the revised set of standards states: ‘these standards should not be viewed as a state curriculum nor as requiring a specific local curriculum. A curriculum is the way content is organized and presented in the classroom. The content embodied in these standards can be organized and presented in many different emphases and perspectives in many different curriculum.’ The standards are to be used in ‘assessing students’ progress and ‘they will serve as the foundation for the development of state assessments in science.’”
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NASCAR racing champion Jeff Gordon has teamed with NASA in an effort to encourage young minds to pursue math and science education.
Gordon, 3-time Winston Cup Champion who finished in 30th place in the recent Daytona 500 after being knocked out of the race 22 laps short of the finish in an 18-car accident, agreed to work with the agency and appear in a special education video, “Patterns, Functions and Algebra: Wired for Space,” an installment of the NASA CONNECT series of instructional TV programs available to educators and classrooms across the country.
“That’s why Gordon wanted to do this video,” said Frank Owens, Education Division Director, Office of Human Resources and Education, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. “He appreciates the importance of reaching young minds. He can use the excitement of automobile racing to help demonstrate these important subjects and hopefully inspire students to see that the principles of basic math and science extend far beyond the classroom.”
“NASA CONNECT is an award-winning educational video series which enhances the teaching of math, science and technology concepts in grades 5 through 8,” said Jim Pruitt, manager of Marshall Space Flight Center’s Education Programs Department. “We also help teachers by giving them corresponding standards-based lesson plans to create a more interesting learning environment.”
The program is managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It provides 5 instructional videos to classrooms each year. More than 141 000 teachers are registered to receive the lesson plans, serving more than 7 million students in approximately 7600 schools across the country.
Additional information about the NASA CONNECT series is available on the Internet at http://connect.larc.nasa.gov.
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House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York) outlined his philosophy and priorities recently during a speech before the Universities Research Association (URA).
The new committee chairman said, “I want to build the Science Committee into a significant force within the Congress and, with that momentum, I want to ensure that we have a healthy, sustainable, and productive R&D establishment—one that educates students, increases human knowledge, strengthens U.S. competitiveness, and contributes to the well-being of the nation and the world.
“With those goals in mind, I intend to concentrate initially on three priorities–science and math education, energy policy, and the environment–three areas in which the resources and expertise of the scientific enterprise must be brought to bear on issues of national significance.”
Of the three, he said, education is “perhaps the most pressing dilemma.” Some of his questions, he continued, are “how can we attract more top students into science and math teaching? Second, how can we assure that technology actually improves education? Third, how can we use exams in a way that promotes critical thinking, retention of knowledge, and a love of learning?
“One of my goals,” he explained, “will be to find new ways to draw on the resources of our great research universities to help answer the kinds of questions that I just posed. The partnership between universities and industry has grown markedly closer in recent years; the relationship between universities and our nation’s school system must do the same.”
On energy policy, Boehlert said his focus will be “on ensuring that we concentrate sufficiently on alternative sources of energy—wind, solar, fuel cells, etc.—and on conservation and efficiency. These are areas that have been under funded in terms of both research and deployment.”
He said he did not mean to indicate the committee would “turn away from the equally critical concerns about the health of the research enterprise itself. So let me say unambiguously that I will fight to increase research funding in general and funding for the physical sciences in particular. Unique and vital DOE facilities, like Fermilab, must continue to prosper, even as we participate in international projects like the Large Hadron Collider.”
He said he wants the committee to look “early on” at the balance within the federal research portfolio. If we are to take action, he explained, “we’re going to have to dig a little deeper and ask some tougher questions. How would we know if NIH was overfunded in either relative or absolute terms?”
“Similarly, we need to ask tough questions if we’re really thinking of doubling the entire federal civilian science budget,” he continued. “Questions like, Why double? What are we going to get for that money? How will we know if we are under- or overspending in any field?
“I don’t say this out of opposition to the proposed bill that would set a goal of doubling the science budget. In fact, I’m kindly disposed toward that bill. I would like to find a way to pass it. This bill might do some real good because it would put Congress on the record as saying that science spending is a real priority...
“It’s a case that is going to have to be made agency by agency, as well as in general terms.”
The committee chairman also discussed the role of research universities, saying that the committee must take a look at the changing nature of those institutions.
In closing, he said, “I want to run the committee in a way that would make Einstein smile. I want to make sure that as long as I’m chairman, no one plays dice with your universe.”
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The State Department is now taking action to boost its scientific capacity and strengthen mechanisms for receiving expert advice from outside the department in the development of the nation’s foreign policy.
That’s the message from Norman Neureiter, science and technology advisor to the Secretary of State, recently when he addressed a seminar at the State Department on 6 February sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Neureiter, formerly vice president of Texas Instruments Asia, assumed his position, created at the department last year, last September.
In a story carried in the 9 February American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News, Neureiter is quoted as having “outlined the circumstances leading to the current situation, saying that diminished resources, new burdens and more embassies in the early 1990s led to a ‘triage’ within the department and ‘science was the loser.’”
The department, he explained, is trying to rebuild its S&T capability and, as science advisor, his goals are “to raise the science consciousness within the department and introduce greater S&T literacy, to ensure that S&T considerations are fully taken into account in the making of foreign policy and to ensure that the best scientific advice in the world is fed into the policy-making machine.”
Neureiter said he was reaching out to universities, scientific societies and organizations and was pleased with the response he had received. AAAS and the National Academy of Science have already sponsored their first science roundtable to brief State Department officials on genetically modified agricultural products, which he said enabled them to go into international negotiations “far better prepared” than ever.
Discussions with other agencies were equally productive, he said.
To be really successful in his mission, he explained, he has to reach out to the regional bureaus. He has established a Science Policy Network to provide assistance and to which every bureau has a designated representative. It is a key thing, he said, that in such a complex department, with bureaus reaching into every corner of the world, there is now someone with the responsibility to be “our person” in each bureau.
He also talked about the need to get more technically trained people into the Foreign Service, to provide science expertise at embassies abroad and eventually to compete for ambassadorial positions.
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Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's choice to head Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 15 February. As FEMA Director, Allbaugh will coordinate federal disaster relief on behalf of President Bush, including the response and recovery activities of 28 federal agencies and departments, the American Red Cross and other voluntary agencies. He also will oversee the National Flood Insurance Program, the U.S. Fire Administration and other proactive mitigation activities, such as Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities, that reduce loss of life and property from all types of hazards.
Prior to joining FEMA, Allbaugh served as the national campaign manager for Bush–Cheney 2000, Inc., with responsibility for overseeing all activities related to the Bush election campaign. Before the campaign, Allbaugh had served as Chief of Staff to then-Governor Bush and worked with FEMA on nine presidential disaster declarations in Texas.
Allbaugh first began his association with Bush in 1994, when he was selected to serve as Campaign Manager for Bush's first run for Governor. After that successful race, Allbaugh became the Governor's Chief of Staff, overseeing a staff of 200 and all day-to-day activities in the office—a position he held for five and a half years.
As Chief of Staff, Allbaugh was the Governor's point person for all emergency and disaster occurrences—overseeing a total of nine presidential disaster declarations for the country's second most populous state.
Prior to that, Allbaugh served as the Oklahoma Deputy Secretary of Transportation where he was responsible for the Department's legislative and public affairs initiatives, as well as implementation of the state's transportation plan.
A native Oklahoman, Allbaugh graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1975, with a B.A. in Politcal Science. In addition to his government service, he has participated in political campaigns in 39 states. He has managed U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, as well as serving on three successful presidential campaign staffs.
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Local forecasts for each of Canada’s 200 000-plus postal codes are now available at AccuWeather.com, according to Joel N. Myers, the company’s founder and president.
“This is major increase in service from the 1000 or so local forecasts we were able to offer previously,” he said.
Now included are 10-day forecasts which include temperature and precipitation forecasts as well as predictions of the Exclusive RealFeelTM Temperature, an index which takes into account temperature, wind speed, precipitation, barometric pressure and other relevant atmospheric data to give the most accurate indication available of the “feel of the weather,” Myers explained.
They also include current radar and satellite data and a host of special interest or seasonal information, such as ski area and gardening forecasts, he added.
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Integral Systems will develop a new weather satellite data collection and processing system for NOAA, according to a story in the 19 February issue of Space News.
The Data Collection System Automated Processing System will replace the existing system for receiving and processing data from NOAA’s GOES satellites, according to the article.
The replacement system will offer public access to the data via the Internet, officials said. The 18-month contract is valued at $4.4 million, and Integral expects to complete work on the system in March 2002.
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The French and Japanese space agencies are stepping up efforts in earth observation in a move officials said should lead to a multinational global system to track floods, earthquake, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes.
France and the European Space Agency (ESA) hope to attract many more nations to their International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, to which the Canadian Space Agency has subscribed, and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) is about to become a member, according to an article in the 5 Feb issue of Space News.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity, even a necessity for nations like ours” to use their space-based assets to understand natural disasters and reduce the damage they cause,” said Serge Plattard, director of international relations at the French space agency, (CNES), according the article. “We have already started on collaboration with Japan in this area, and we will be looking for future missions as well.”
Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite, to be launched in late 2003 carrying high-resolution radar and optical instruments, will be used by French authorities for observations in Europe and Africa via dedicated data-reception stations in Europe.
Officials of both nations have recent natural disasters in their minds–flooding and cyclones in France, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Japan. While both nations have long invested in earth observation, neither has been able to take full advantage of that fact to help stricken populations, the article read.
“I admit to a certain frustration,” said Jose Achache, deputy director-general for science at CNES. “The results so far of our use of satellites for this purpose have been fairly disappointing. Remember that the 1990s was declared by the United Nations to be International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. The level of result has been low.”
Addressing the “Workshop on Natural Disaster Monitoring by Satellite” organized by the French and Japanese space agencies in Paris on 30 January, Achache said too much attention has been paid to mitigating a disaster’s effects after the fact and not enough to trying to predict when one is coming.
“I am not in favor of relying on mitigation and hope. Even a few seconds warning of an earthquake could save lives by getting local utilities to shut off gas and electricity, which causes a large part of the destruction.”
CNES officials stop short of saying satellites can predict earthquakes as some Chinese scientists claim, the article read. But CNES has agreed to launch in late 2002 a satellite called Demeter that will study disturbances in the ionosphere of the sort that occur just before volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
“Demeter is an example of how we can use space to take a much wider view of an area instead of concentrating, for example, directly on a volcano. These are phenomena that occur over tens, even hundreds, of kilometers, and satellites are best suited to observe them,” Achache said.
Takashi Moriyama, NASDA’s deputy program manager for Japan’s Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) said that the satellite will be capable of viewing any given spot on the globe once a day in the event of a natural disaster. In that case, he explained, the satellite’s viewing instruments would be trained on the stricken area, with the data rushed to local disaster-relief authorities.
CNES, along with other space agencies, has performed similar service with other satellites, more recently with the earthquake in El Salvador. These satellites also are being used to provide damage assessments.
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An international panel of scientists predicts brutal droughts, floods, and violent storms across the planet over the next century because air pollution is causing surface temperatures to rise faster than anticipated.
In a report issued unanimously by the U.N. conference in Shanghai in January, the scientists note that the earth’s average temperatures could rise by as much as 10.4°F over the next 100 years—the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than 60% higher than the same group predicted less than 6 years ago.
If new scientific models are accurate, the report noted, rising temperatures will melt polar ice caps and raise sea levels by as much as 34 inches, causing floods that could displace tens of millions of people in low-lying areas such as China’s Pearl River Delta, much of Bangladesh, and the most densely populated area of Egypt. Droughts will parch farmlands and aggravate world hunger, according to the report, and storms triggered by climatic extremes such as El Niño will become more frequent. Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever will spread.
The report was drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of hundreds of scientists established by the United Nations in 1988 to assess global warming. The Shanghai report relies on complex new computer simulations based on weather records from the last 150 years, as well as data collected from ice cores, coral, and tree rings—all of which provide information on climate going back millions of years.
Results of the new models persuaded the scientists to declare unequivocally for the first time that humankind—rather than changes brought about by the sun or other natural factors—is responsible for global warming.
“We see changes in climate, we believe we humans are involved, and we’re predicting future climate changes much more significant over the next 100 years than the last 100 years,” said Robert T. Watson, chairman of the panel.
The report cited “new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is attributable to human activities,” primarily the burning of oil, gasoline and coal, which produces carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide levels have increased by 31% over the past 250 years, reaching a concentration unseen on the planet in 420 000 years and perhaps as far back as 20 million years, according to the report. In 1995, by contrast, the panel reported only a “discernible human influence” on global warming.
At that time, the group predicted a temperature rise of no more than 6.3°F by 2100. The panel raised that prediction by more than 4°F in part because efforts to reduce the air pollutant sulfur dioxide, a common element of smog, have had the unintended effect of reducing particles in the air that help deflect the sun’s rays, according to the report.
The collapse in talks at The Hague last November stemmed largely from participants’ disagreements over how to cut emissions under a commitment made by industrial nations in 1997. The talks were further complicated by United States–led efforts to soften the impact of required cuts by adjusting for the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed by each nation’s forests and farmlands.
For more information see http://www.ipcc.ch/.
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Data gathered last spring by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have revealed long swaths of the lower atmosphere nearly empty of ozone over northern latitude seas.
An instrument-laden C-130 research aircraft observed the ozone loss while flying at extremely low altitudes over Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, and parts of the Arctic Ocean. NCAR led the experiment with participation by NASA and university researchers and funding by National Science Foundation.
The aircraft observations were the first to document ozone loss over large areas of the sub-Arctic, including Hudson Bay. The springtime absence of surface ozone has been observed since the mid-1980s at Alert, Canada, a research station on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island.
“If there were no ozone anywhere at the surface, it would be terrible,” said NCAR scientist Brian Ridley, who flew on most of the C-130 missions. “Globally,” he said, “these short, shallow episodes at the Arctic are not threatening, except that they show us how much we still don’t know about atmospheric chemistry.”
On one research flight last April, the aircraft flew 465 miles—an hour in the air—through a region of almost nonexistent ozone (less than one part per billion) over Hudson Bay, researchers reported. Ozone levels in the Northern Hemisphere troposphere normally are 30–45 parts per billion.
Scientists suspect these shallow ozone voids disappear quickly with the arrival of ozone-rich air from farther south or from higher altitudes.
The flights were the core of an experiment called Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE). The aircraft made seven missions last spring from Broomfield, Colorado, to Churchill, Manitoba, stopping in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for refueling and continuing on to Thule, Greenland, and on to Alert, Northwest Territories.
During each 6000-mile round-trip, the plane rose and dipped to gather data at various altitudes. Scientists found ozone voids on eight of the aircraft’s 32 low-altitude flights above Hudson Bay, Lincoln Sea, Baffin Bay, and the Arctic Ocean. (See, below, a related story on ozone loss in the Arctic.)
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Newly discovered large particles containing nitric acid are helping scientists explain the process of ozone loss in the Arctic’s stratosphere six to 30 miles above earth.
“The size of these particles was surprisingly big, and they are part of a process that is removing nitric acid from the stratosphere, eventually leading to ozone loss,” according to Hansjorg Jost, coauthor of an article in Science and a scientist the NASA’s Ames Research Center, California. He and lead author, David W. Fahey, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reported the findings of an international team of 27 scientists.
The newly discovered class of particles has given scientists a better understanding of the processes that “set the stage” for chlorine-caused ozone depletion, according to the authors.
Icy, nitric acid-containing “polar stratospheric cloud” (PSC) particles are formed in the polar regions during winter, where they enhance the destruction of ozone caused by human emissions of chlorine and bromine.
Fahey, a scientist with NOAA’s Aeronomy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and colleagues reported the discovery of a new population of very large PSCs—with diameters of 10–20 microns (millionths of a meter), approximately 10–20 times larger in diameter than typically observed PSCs.
These particles have eluded detection to date because of their large size and very small abundance in the atmosphere, scientists explained. The PSCs are laden with nitric acid and serve as reservoirs for nitrogen in the polar stratosphere. As the particles “sediment,” or fall out of the atmosphere, the stratosphere becomes “denitrified,” the scientists reported.
The loss of nitrogen has consequences for ozone because ozone-destroying forms of chlorine and bromine are longer-lived in a denitrified stratosphere. The discovery of this new class of large PSC particles helps to explain a long-standing mystery that the extent of denitrification observed in the polar stratosphere could not be accounted for by the smaller (and slower to sediment) PSCs.
Scientists made their observations from January to March 2000. Instruments aboard a NASA ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft measured reactive nitrogen species as the aircraft traveled toward the North Pole and deep into the region of highest ozone loss.
The large-sized PSCs observed in some of the air samples contained 15%–20% of the available reactive nitrogen in the Arctic atmosphere and were falling at a rate of 1–2 kilometers a day, demonstrating the potential for significant denitrification by the large particles.
The 2000 Arctic winter stratosphere was denitrified extensively, the scientists reported, which set the stage for significant chlorine- and bromine-caused ozone loss in the winter and spring.
Cool temperatures promote the growth of large PSCs, enhancing the loss of ozone, the scientists noted. Unusually cold winters or climate shifts that reduce stratospheric temperatures or alter the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere could prolong chemical ozone loss in the Arctic even as chlorine levels fall in response to international curtailments in the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, according to the scientists.
Cooling of the stratosphere likely will increase ozone loss during Arctic winters in coming decades, even as chlorine and bromine levels decrease as a result of the Montreal Protocol, according to the scientists. The buildup of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, tends to trap more heat near the earth’s surface, while at the same time colder than normal temperatures are experienced above in the stratosphere where ozone breakdown occurs, they reported.
In another experiment, conducted by NCAR, NASA, NSF and university researchers, a C-130 aircraft observed ozone loss in the lower altitudes over Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay and parts of the Arctic Ocean. (See related story above.)
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Winter Storm Surveillance Program, which started out as an experiment in 1997–98, has developed into a fully operational project with NOAA surveillance jet aircraft collecting critical meteorological data designed to improve forecasts for storms approaching the nation’s West Coast.
Like the surveillance flights that fly around hurricanes in the Atlantic, the NOAA G-IV aircraft began collecting wind, temperature and moisture data from storms in the Pacific Ocean in mid-January and continued the effort into late February. The data, derived from dropsondes, are sent in real time to the National Weather Service (NWS) supercomputer in Bowie, Maryland. From there, the data are fed into current numerical weather, climate, hydrologic, and ocean forecast models. The flights operated out of Honolulu, Hawaii.
The program began as an experiment during the 1997/98 El Niño, when a parade of storms battered the West Coast. In some instances, researchers discovered a 60% increase in the accuracy of computer model guidance, the basis for the NWS weather forecasts for some of the storms and improvements of 10% to 20% in long- and short-range weather models, respectively.
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Just as a spark can grow into a fire, so small departures of winds from the normal seasonal cycle in the far western equatorial Pacific can trigger a full-blown El Niño. Writing in the 15 February issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Prof. Allan J. Clarke and Research Associate Stephen Van Gorder of Florida State University describe the model they have developed to predict El Niño using this trigger.
The departure of the wind from its normal seasonal cycle is called a wind “anomaly.” The ocean is hypersensitive to zonal (east–west) equatorial wind anomalies. Analysis of eight El Niño events in equatorial wind data since 1960 shows that these events typically begin in the far western equatorial Pacific as small westerly wind anomalies. They grow and move eastward to the central equatorial Pacific as the ocean and atmosphere interact to reinforce the anomaly. La Niñas are similarly associated with easterly wind anomalies.
Based on their observation that the wind anomaly in the far western equatorial Pacific typically precedes El Niño or La Niña by about 6 months, Clarke and Van Gorder developed a simple model that factors in the east–west movement of the edge of the huge pool of warm water in the western equatorial Pacific. The model also predicts the demise of El Niño and La Niña.
The authors urge further study of the western equatorial Pacific wind anomalies that spark El Niño and La Niña, because these anomalies are at present poorly understood. The National Science Foundation funded the study.
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Easy access to 106 years of climate data is now available at a new Internet site just launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The site provides quick access to temperature and precipitation data for the entire United States, including all regions, the 48 contiguous states and 40 cities. With one click, graphs and tables provide data for any month or season from 1895 to the present.
The new Web site can determine whether a bitterly cold winter is really the coldest ever recorded in U.S. history, or whether it’s ever been drier in the southern Plains, or what the data show about U.S. temperature patterns. The interactive site allows users to tailor the questions and create their own maps, graphs, and tables.
The site was created by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The Web site’s address is http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/usclimate.html.
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In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, scientists are flying into bumpy air pockets near the jet stream looking for the meteorological features that cause air turbulence. The “Severe Clear-Air Turbulence Colliding with Air Traffic” (SCATCAT) project, a series of reconnaissance flights, may bring researchers closer to understanding air turbulence, a potentially dangerous phenomena that impacts aviation worldwide.
Before making a decision to fly a reconnaissance mission, conditions must be favorable for turbulence. Satellite images, aviation weather models, and air turbulence forecasts are analyzed to determine the most likely area where turbulence may develop. Upon reaching the designated research area, scientific instruments called dropsondes are ejected from the plane at high altitude. As these packages drop they send back data to the plane. This data points out areas of turbulence below the aircraft allowing the pilots to descend and purposefully fly there for the experiment.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists are looking for two kinds of turbulence. One consists of layers of large wind changes in small vertical distances near jet streams and developing winter storm systems. The other develops when the jet stream flows over a large thunderstorm, which acts as an obstacle to the flow. In both cases, a pilot cannot tell how far the turbulence extends because it is invisible.
This year’s SCATCAT mission is the third one led by NOAA and its partners: NASA, U.S. Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. So far, research has uncovered the following:
Additional information is available on the following Web sites:
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has restructured its internal organization and moved several people into new positions to better reflect the organization’s current and pending research program.
The reorganization includes expansion from two to three science and technology divisions. In addition, it includes a plan to improve information technology services for all employees, provides managerial assistance to Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) employees working at the laboratory, increases the visibility of the field observing facilities and presents a clearer picture of exactly what NSSL is and does to it customers and the community, officials explained.
In the restructuring, Kevin Kelleher was promoted to deputy director. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the laboratory as well as the administrative and information technology services groups.
The Mesoscale Research and Applications Division was split into two divisions. The first is the Warning Research and Development Division, managed by Don Burgess. The division performs research to gain understanding of severe and hazardous weather, such as wind, hail, tornado and rain; identifies severe weather signatures in observational data, and develops and transfers new scientific understanding, applications and techniques to the National Weather Service (NWS) and other customers to enhance their capability to provide accurate warnings and nowcasts of hazardous weather.
The second is a new group, the Radar Research and Development Division, managed by former deputy director Doug Forsyth. The division will develop advanced radar systems such as dual polarized radar and phased array radar as well as lead NWS development and migration of the NEXRAD radar to open systems technology. In addition, Forsyth was named NSSL’s executive director for facilities and strategic planning and will continue in his role as program manager for the Norman Building Consolidation Project, representing all five NOAA Weather Partners in the planning of the proposed National Weather Center facility.
The Mesoscale Research and Applications Division has been renamed the Forecast Research and Development Division and will continue to be managed by Dave Rust. The division conducts basic and applied research that leads to the improvement of forecast services within the NWS for hazardous and severe weather events. The division uses a combination of observations and modeling to conduct its research and test new forecast techniques. In addition, Rust will be the leader of the Field Observing Facilities and Services Group.
The Central Support Services Group and the general computer support functions within all other divisions were merged to form a new group called Information Technology Services (ITS). Gary Skaggs was named group leader. ITS will provide assistance and support to all of NSSL in the areas of computing, data management, networking, outreach, technical support, Internet/Intranet Web pages, graphic resources, field project support and other support services.
In conjunction with the reorganization, research meteorologist John Cortinas was promoted to assistant director of the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies. His responsibilities include helping with CIMMS proposal, grant and contract administration and overseeing the annual performance appraisal process for CIMMS employees.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Oceanographic Data Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The center is the place to go for information on everything from global sea level to beach temperatures around the United States.
Established in 1961, NODC was originally an interagency facility administered by the U.S. Naval Hydrographic (later Oceanographic) Office.
NODC was transferred to NOAA in 1970 when NOAA was created by executive order. With headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, NODC also has field offices collocated with major oceanographic facilities in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi; Woods Hole, Massachusetts; La Jolla, California; Miami; Seattle; and Honolulu.
NODC holds data collected by U.S. federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (primarily the U.S. Navy); state and local government agencies; universities and research institutions; and private industry. NODC also receives foreign data from organizations and institutions in countries around the world through direct bilateral exchanges with other countries. The center also serves as the U.S. World Data Center for Oceanography, under the auspices of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
NODC also hosts the NOAA Library and Information Network—which includes the NOAA Central Library in Silver Spring, Maryland, and regional libraries in Miami and Seattle—and supports NOAA field libraries or information centers at about 30 sites throughout the United States.
NODC data and information are being used to answer questions about climate changes, management of coastal and deep-water resources, marine transportation and natural disasters.
Visit NODC at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov.
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A new space weather mapping technique may help provide early warning of solar storms. The capability would allow satellite operators to take evasive measures to avoid damage.
The technique is being developed at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory using data gathered by magnetometers on spacecraft in the Iridium mobile telephone satellite constellation, according to an article in the 5 February issue of Space News.
The Iridium system consists of 66 spacecraft orbiting earth at 760 kilometers. Magnetometers frequently are used on low earth-orbiting satellites for attitude determination and control.
Supported by a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers have made preliminary maps on solar storm radiation flowing into the stratosphere at high altitudes, according to the article. Brian Anderson, who is leading the lab’s project, is quoted as saying that data on these maps can be used to predict areas where the impact of future solar storms is likely to be severe.
The Iridium magnetometers can be used to gauge the magnetic characteristics of the energy fields caused by solar storms, according to Anderson. These data are then stored and compared with solar wind measurements taken by NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite, he explained.
By mapping the solar storms, scientists can understand the storms and predict them, much like past research on terrestrial weather conditions is used to predict storms on earth, Anderson reported.
With advance warning of magnetic disturbances, satellite operators can adjust their satellites, or defer previously planned adjustments, to avoid damage, Anderson said.
The project began in 1999 when Motorola, Inc., the manufacturer and former operator of the Iridium satellites, agreed to provide information collected by the system’s magnetometers at no cost. The work is continuing with the constellation’s new owner, Iridium Satellite, LLC, of Leesburg, Virginia, Anderson said. The Leesburg firm acquired the satellite system last year following the bankruptcy of the system’s former owner.
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NASA has announced it is exercising a contract option for a Delta II vehicle to launch NOAA-N for NOAA. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in January 2003 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The firm-fixed price option is covered under the NASA Medium Light (MED-LITE) launch service contract awarded by the agency to McDonnell Douglas Corp. of Huntington Beach, California, a subsidiary of The Boeing Company, in 1996. NASA’s total launch services budget for NOAA-N is approximately $56 million.
NOAA-N is designed to take images and measurements of the earth’s atmosphere, cloud cover and surface, as well as monitor the proton and electron fluxes near the earth. It also will be capable of receiving, processing, and retransmitting data from free-floating balloons, buoys and remote automatic-observation stations around the globe and of detecting and retransmitting search-and-rescue distress signals.
The NOAA-N contract is managed by the Polar Operational Satellite Program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland and is a cooperative effort among NASA, NOAA, the United Kingdom and France.
NASA holds responsibility for the launch of the spacecraft, and NOAA assumes operational responsibility once the satellite is in orbit.
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NASA’s IMAGE spacecraft has provided pictures of the hidden machinations of the earth’s magnetic field, including confirmation of a suspected but previously invisible “tail” of electrified gas.
The tail, which streams from Earth toward the Sun, was spotted using a new imaging technology with the Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft and featured on the cover of the 26 January issue of the journal Science.
The new technology offers unprecedented views of the transparent, electrified gas trapped within the earth’s magnetic field, providing the first visual, global perspective on magnetic storms.
The region laced by the earth’s magnetic field, called the magnetosphere, dominates the behavior of electrically charged particles in space near earth and shields the planet from the solar wind. Explosive events on the sun can charge the magnetosphere with energy, generating magnetic storms that occasionally affect satellites, communications and power systems.
Scientists explain that obtaining a large-scale, coherent activity of this area, which extends beyond the Moon on the nightside of Earth, is difficult for any one spacecraft or even a small fleet.
“Imagine trying to track and understand the formation of hurricanes without the view from weather satellites,” said Dr. Thomas Moore, IMAGE project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “Like the first meteorologists with a small number of measuring stations, we had an incomplete and at times misleading view of the magnetosphere and magnetic storms before IMAGE, because we couldn’t see the big picture. “
The tail structure is believed to be a return flow of plasma that occurs when the solar wind buffets the magnetosphere and distorts its shape. The solar wind distorts the earth’s magnetosphere, compressing it on the earth’s dayside. The region is stretched on the nightside, forming a teardrop shape.
Plasma near the boundaries of the magnetosphere is dragged with the solar wind, but then is turned around and forced back toward the Sun, moving around the earth in tail-like flows. Although the plasma tails were expected, IMAGE discovered areas in earth’s plasma cloud that are nearly empty of plasma. The IMAGE team calls these unexpected structures “troughs” and is trying to discover how they form.
IMAGE was launched in March 2000 and has revealed some surprising activity during magnetic storms. It helped scientists discover that hot storm-plasma occasionally is most dense on the earth’s dayside, which was unexpected.
More information is available at http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/GSFC/SpaceSci/sunearth/imagescience.htm.
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Carl P. Staton has been named chief information officer for the National Weather Service (NWS).
Before assuming his new position, Staton was director of Central Operations at the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in Camp Springs, Maryland. While at NCEP, Staton managed the NWS transition from the Cray C-90 computer to the IBM System Parallel supercomputer. Staton also managed NCEP’s interactive product development software and network infrastructure.
A Washington, D.C., native, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from North Carolina State University in 1974. After graduation, he began his computer career as a lead programmer and analyst in the private sector, handling projects that included developing simulators for nuclear power plants. In 1979, Staton joined NOAA’s NESDIS and provided technical support for the GOES program.
In 1987, he was promoted to branch chief of the NESDIS Collection and Direct Broadcast Branch, and in 1991, he became the deputy division chief for the NESDIS Information Processing Division.
In 1990, he received the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for writing computer programs that enhanced the quality of satellite products used by NWS forecast offices around the country.
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Bruce A. Boe has been appointed as Director of Meteorology at Weather Modification, Inc. Boe will manage meteorological operations and conduct research for the Fargo, North Dakota–based company’s cloud seeding operation.
Boe holds a bachelor’s of science degree in earth science/meteorology from Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, as well as a master’s of science degree in atmospheric science from the University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming. Prior to joining Weather Modification, Inc., he was director of the North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board, a division of the State Water Commission, for 12 years. He has also worked under the employ of the University of Wyoming, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the State of Montana.
Boe is an active member and past president of the Weather Modification Association, presently serving as Editor of the Association Newsletter. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society and past chair of the Society’s Committee on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification. He presently chairs the Subcommittee on Hail Suppression for the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Task Committee on Atmospheric Water Management Standards. He also serves on the Hail Committee of the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction. Boe serves as a reviewer for the American Meteorological Society, the Weather Modification Association, the American Geophysical Union, and the National Science Foundation. Boe’s technical papers have been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the Journal of Applied Meteorology, the Journal of Weather Modification, and Atmospheric Research.
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