Weekly Report for the Week of November 17, 2008
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Projects/missions
- Most significant milestone with NEWS.
- Eyal Amitai (613.1, Chapman University) attended the 4th NASA Energy and Water Studies (NEWS) P.I. Meeting, 3-5 November 2008, Four Points Sheraton BWI, Baltimore, MD.
- Major accomplishment/milestone with ACE.
- The NASA Aerosols, Clouds and Climate (ACE) Science Working Group met in Salt Lake City on November 13-14. The key topic of the workshop was the continued development of the science case for ACE and the Science Traceability Matrix for the mission. The Laboratory for Atmospheres (613) had strong representation and leadership of the workshop. ACE is a Tier-2 Decadal Survey mission.
Proposals
- Most significant proposals submitted/funded.
- The proposal: "Detector Technology Development for Cloud-Aerosol Transport Lidar" was selected for support under the ROSES-08 Advanced Component Technology element. Matt McGill/613.1 is the PI of this Decadal Survey mission (ACE) relevant project to develop new airborne lidar capabilities.
External interactions (HQ, universities, other Gov't organizations, etc.)
- Most significant interaction.
- Dave Starr/613.1 participated in an NPP VIIRS Cal/Val Plan Cross-Team Review at IPO. Starr is Validation Lead for Aerosol and Cloud EDR’s. Development of the plans is progressing, though funding and dominance of operational drivers (versus science) remain key concerns.
Submitted papers
- Most noteworthy papers.
- “Accuracy Assessment and Correction of Vaisala RS92 Radiosonde Water Vapor Measurements”, Larry M. Miloshevich/NCAR, Holger Voemel/Deutsches Wetterdienst, David N. Whiteman/613.1, Thierry Leblanc/NASA-JPL. J. Geophys. Res.
- “Demonstration of Aerosol Property Profiling by Multi-Wavelength Lidar Under Varying Relative Humidity Conditions,” I. Veselovskii-Physics Instrumentation Center, Troitsk, Russia/UMBC/613.1, D.N. Whiteman-NASA/GSFC/613.1, A. Kolgotin-PIC, E. Andrews-NOAA/CIRES, M.Korenskii-PIC.
Noteworthy talks/presentations
- Most noteworthy talk/presentation.
- Dr. Charles Ichoku (613.2) undertook a two-week trip to West Africa from October 25 to November 8, 2008. During the first week of the trip, he attended the 7th International Conference of the African Association for Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE)-2008 held in Accra, Ghana, at which he delivered an oral presentation entitled “Satellite-based assessment of fire impacts on ecosystem changes in West Africa”. The Conference, whose theme was “Earth Observation and Geo-information for Governance in Africa”, was attended by over 550 delegates. During the second week of the trip, Dr. Ichoku visited the remote sensing centers of two prominent Nigerian Universities and delivered public lectures to various audiences. He was invited to the Department of Geoinformatics and Surveying at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus and was invited to present a lecture entitled “The Importance of Satellite Remote Sensing For Environmental Planning and Monitoring in West Africa”, which was attended, not only by the faculty and students of the department, but also those of the entire faculty of environmental studies of that University and other universities within 100 miles of the campus, as well as, environmental professionals from government and private agencies in the area. Dr. Ichoku was also invited to visit and lecture at the regional Center of Excellence on Environmental Information Management System (EIMS) located at the University of Lagos.
From November 3-7, Richard Kleidman (613.2/SSAI) and Steve Platnick (613.2) conducted a workshop on MODIS atmosphere and land products at the Ben Gurion University Sede Boker campus in the Negev desert. The workshop focused on data acquisition, visualization and analysis in addition to algorithms and their scientific uses. On November 9, Kleidman and Platnick gave a workshop with a similar focus on NASA A-Train instruments for use in aerosol and cloud studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Participants at both workshops included graduate students as well as researchers. The workshops were sponsored by Ilan Koren of the Weizmann Institute's Department of Environmental Sciences (and previous Climate and Radiation branch member) and Arnon Karnieli of Ben Gurion University's Remote Sensing Laboratory.
- Other noteworthy talks/presentations.
- November 3-7, Robert Levy (613.2/SSAI) visited Colorado State University (CSU) and presented a special seminar to the Department of Atmospheric Science entitled “The challenges of deriving "climate data quality" global aerosol properties from MODIS”. He also visited Michael King and other faculty at CU-Boulder.
November 11-13, Warren Wiscombe (613.2), Alexander Marshak (613.2), Christine Chiu (613.2), Lazaros Oraiopoulos (613.2), and Tamas Varnai (613.2/UMBC/JCET) are attending the ARM Cloud Properties and Aerosol Properties Working group meeting in Lansdowne, VA.
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