Weekly Report for the Week Ending February 13, 2009
Print 
GSFC Laboratory for Atmospheres, Code 613
Noteworthy science achievements/awards
Noteworthy personnel awards and staff changes
- Dr. Karen Mohr joined the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch (613.1) as a civil servant beginning on February 02. She was an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at SUNY-Albany and earned her Ph.D. in Hydrology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. Dr. Mohr's research is focused on hydrometeorology with special interests in weather and short-term climate prediction.. Much of her work has focused on West Africa, a largely semi-arid tropical region where local land/atmosphere interaction is critical to the development of mesoseale convective systems.
Projects/missions
Significant planned events
Proposals
- A collaborative proposal entitled “"Use of ARM observations and numerical models to achieve physically consistent representation of radiative and latent heating profiles" is selected by DOE ARM. This collaborative proposal is led by Professor R. Houze at University of Washington and by W. -K. Tao (613.1) at Goddard. The proposal is important to NASA PMM program because it will use DOE ARM observation to validate and then advance the NASA modeling ability to simulate latent heating and radiative profiles. It is also importance because it will provide 4-dimensional cloud data to PMM latent heating algorithm developers.
Highlights of inter-Directorate teaming
External interactions (HQ, universities, other Gov't organizations, etc.)
- Dr. William Lau attended the 21st GEWEX Science Steering Group (SSG) in Irvine California, January 20-24. The GEWEX SSG meets annually to review international research on water and energy cycles. The GEWEX organization consists of three main projects: the Global Modeling Prediction Panel (GMPP), the Coordinated Energy and water Observation Project (CEOP), and the GEWEX Radiation Panel (GRP), and an international GEWEX Project Office, supported by NASA Hq. GEWEX organizes and facilitates international collaboration in long-term climate data processing, and modeling and prediction of global and continental scale water and energy budgets, aerosols impacts on climate, atmospheric radiation and hydroclimates. This year, the review emphasized on the need to link water and energy issues to climate change cross-cut issues such extremes events, and monsoon. NASA satellites data are used extensively in GEWEX for explorative studies, and for validating climate models. GEWEX activities cut across all branches in 613 and other laboratories and offices in 610.
Under GEWEX/CEOP, an international field campaign, the Joint Aerosol-Monsoon Experiment (JAMEX) co-sponsored by NASA and ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organization) and other international groups, is being planned for 2009 in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Nepal and the Tibetan Plateau to test the "Elevated Heat Pump" (EHP) hypothesis, proposed by Dr. Lau and collaborators. The EHP hypothesis postulates that elevated dust and black carbon aerosols accumulated over the foothills of the Himalayas in the pre-monsoon months (April-May) may enhance the seasonal heating over the Tibetan Plateau, through heating of the middle to upper troposphere due to solar absorption of aerosols, and to accelerated melting of mountain glacier, due to reduction in surface albedo from snow impurity, subsequently leading to a redistribution of monsoon rainfall over India.
- On Thursday, January 29, 2009, 613.2 branch members Shaun Bell and Clare Salustro as well as other SSAI employees volunteered at the Gaywood Elementary School Science Fair. As judges of the students' projects, they helped to further students' interest and involvement in scientific endeavors through direct discussion with individual students.
- Graduate student Susanna Ebmeier of the Department of Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford will be visiting Dr. Santiago Gassó (GEST/UMBC) February 9-13. She and her advisor, Dr. Tamsin Mather, are interested in the interactions that occur between the Earth's interior and its atmosphere, in particular at active volcanoes.. For additional information, view January 20, 2008 Image of the Week: http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/viewImage.php?id=226.
Accepted papers
- An invited paper entitled “Cloud-System Resolving Models (CRMs): Status and Prospects” by W.-K. Tao (Code 613.1) and M. Moncrieff (NCAR) is accepted by AGU Review of Geophysics
- A manuscript entitled “Demonstration of Aerosol Property Profiling by Multiwavelength Lidar under Varying Relative Humidity Conditions” by I. Veselovskii (UMBC/613.1), D. N. Whiteman (613.1), A. Kolgotin (PIC), E. Andrews (NOAA), M.Korenskii (PIC) was accepted by the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
Noteworthy talks/presentations
- Eyal Amitai (613.1, Chapman University) and Xavier Llort (UPC, Barcelona) gave a talk on "Comparison of TRMM radar rainfall estimates with NOAA Next Generation QPE in high-impact hydrometeorological events" at the AMS 23rd Conf on Hydrology, 11-15 January 2009, Phoenix, AZ.
- Alexander Marshak (613.2) gave a colloquium at Michigan Tech entitled "How simple radiative transfer helps to interpret satellite measurements; examples from active and passive remote sensing", February 2, 2009.
- Ralph Kahn (613.2) was asked to give a Practical Uses of Math and Science (PUMAS) workshop to 65 teachers in Chester County, Pennsylvania, February 3, 2009. http://pumas.gsfc.nsa.gov
- Steven Platnick (613.2) gave a keynote talk at the 2nd EUMETSAT Cloud Workshop in Locarno Switzerland 3-5 February. The focus of the workshop was on comparison of SEVIRI cloud satellite products (detection, cloud-top properties, optical/microphysical) with MODIS and other A-Train sensors. Various teams submitted SEVIRI retrievals for the comparison, including the Goddard MODIS cloud team.
- Robin Hogan, University of Reading, UK, presented a Climate & Radiation Branch (613.2) seminar, “Representing cloud structure in the radiation schemes of climate models", February 4, 2009.
- Allen Chu, UMBC/GEST presented an Aerocenter Seminar, “Interannual Variability of Boreal Biomass Burning and Relationship with Climate Cycles”, February 10, 2009.
- Charles Ichoku attended a GLOBE Climate Change Research & Education Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, January 25-28, 2009, where he presented a paper entitled “Atmospheric Aerosols and Climate”, and participated in deliberations on planning the Global Student Research Campaign on Climate Change, being organized by GLOBE, and scheduled to take place from 2011 to 2013.
Major events in the coming week
Issues and Concerns
Status of any major actions
Print-friendly
page
(new window)
