Weekly Report for the Week Ending April 3, 2009
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GSFC Laboratory for Atmospheres, Code 613
Noteworthy science achievements/awards
Noteworthy personnel awards and staff changes
Projects/missions
- 613.2 Branch Members Lazaros Oraipoulos, Alexander Marshak, Ralph Kahn, Si-Chee Tsay and Warren Wiscombe are attending the ARM Science Team Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, March 30-April 2.
Significant planned events
Proposals
Highlights of inter-Directorate teaming
External interactions (HQ, universities, other Gov't organizations, etc.)
- Scott Braun (613.1) presented a seminar entitled "Improving our understanding of Atlantic hurricanes through knowledge of the Saharan Air Layer: Hope or hype?" at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on March 12, 2009.
- J. Vanderlei Martins (613.2/UMBC/JCET) organized an all day "First Cloud Cubesat" workshop to combine expertise from across many disciplines and organizations. The workshop took place Thursday, March 26, 2009 at UMBC and featured participation by 613.2 Branch members Alexander Marshak and Lorraine Remer, and others from UMBC, Wallops, the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences, Olin College in Massachusetts and I.A. Solutions. The goal of the workshop was to solidify collaboration in preparation for the next NSF Cubesat call for proposals.
Accepted papers
- Xiaowen Li (UMBC / 613.1), W.-K. Tao (613.1), A. Khain, J. Simpson (610.0 / Emeritus), and D. Johnson, 2009: Sensitivity of a cloud-resolving model to the bulk and explicit bin microphysical schemes. Part I. Comparisons. J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 3-21. This paper is one of the top 20 papers of all American Meteorological Society journals.
- Xiaowen Li (UMBC / 613.1), W.-K. Tao (613.1), A. P. Khain, J. Simpson (610.0 / Emeritus), and D. E. Johnson, 2009: Sensitivity of a cloud-resolving model to the bulk and explicit bin microphysical schemes. Part II: Cloud microphysics and storm dynamics interactions. J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 22-40.
- X. Zeng, W.-K. Tao (613.1), M. Zhang, A. Y. Hou (610.1), S. Xie, S. Lang, Xiaowen Li, D. Starr (613.1), X. Li, and J. Simpson (610.0 / Emeritus), 2009: An indirect effect of ice nuclei on atmospheric radiation. J. Atmos. Sci, 66, 41-61.
- An article by Oreopoulos (613.2) and Mlawer entitled “CIRC to Provide Key Intercomparisons of GCM Radiative Transfer Codes Prior to Next IPCC Assessment" was published in the GEWEX Feb 09 newsletter, p.8.
Click here to view the newsletter: http://www.gewex.org/images/Feb2009.pdf (non-NASA link) - Bian, H., M. Chin, J. Rodriguez (613.3), H. Yu (613.2/GEST), J. Penner, and S. Strahan (2009): Sensitivity of aerosol optical thickness and aerosol direct radiative effect to relative humidity. Atmos. Chem. Phys. [In press]
- Yu, H. (613.2/GEST), M. Chin, L.A. Remer (613.2), R.G. Kleidman (613.2), N. Bellouin, H. Bian, and T. Diehl (2009): Variability of Marine Aerosol Fine-mode Fraction and Estimates of Anthropogenic Aerosol Component Over Cloud-free Oceans from MODIS. J. Geophys. Res. (In press).
Noteworthy talks/presentations
- Jim Irons (613.0) presented the status of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) at the NASA Land Cover / Land Use Change Science Team meeting on April 01 in Bethesda, MD
- Jun Wang (613.2 Visiting Scientist and Prof., Dept. of Geosciences, University of Nebraska – Lincoln), will present the Climate & Radiation Branch seminar “Radiative Impacts of Atmospheric Sulfate Phase Transitions” on Wednesday April 1, 2009 at 3:30PM.
- Eric Wilcox (613.2) presented the AeroCenter Seminar “Some impacts of African smoke and dust on clouds and climate” on Tuesday, March 31 at 11:00AM.
- Clare Salustro (613.2/SSAI) presented an overview of the Deep Blue Aerosol Retrieval Algorithm at the bi-weekly SSAI senior staff meeting on Thursday, March 26, 2009. The talk documented recent advances in the MODIS retrieval and discussed on-going group activities.
Major events in the coming week
Education and Outreach
- Climate & Radiation Branch Image of the Week:
"A Simple Stochastic Model for Generating Broken Cloud Optical Depth and Cloud Top Height Fields" by Alexander Marshak
URL: http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/viewImage.php?id=257
Issues and Concerns
- NASA HQ is evaluating a proposal to remove the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) in development at GSFC for the LDCM from the LDCM satellite payload and move it to a proposed Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) replacement satellite. The LDCM Project Scientist, Jim Irons (613.0), is evaluating the science impacts for GSFC management.
Status of any major actions
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