Weekly Report for the Week Ending October 9, 2009
Print 
GSFC Laboratory for Atmospheres, Code 613
Noteworthy science achievements/awards
- Robert F. Cahalan (613.2), Head of the Climate and Radiation Branch of NASA/Goddard’s Laboratory for Atmospheres in the Earth Sciences Division, was recently elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). He is being recognized for his pioneering theoretical and experimental advances in understanding the role of cloud structure in climate; his lead role as Project Scientist of the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE); and his leadership in three-dimensional atmospheric radiative transfer. New Fellows are elected each year by the AMS Executive Council from a slate submitted by the Fellows Committee of not more than one-tenth of 1 percent of all AMS Members. The formal announcement of Dr. Cahalan’s election will take place at the 90th AMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia during January 17-21, 2010.
Noteworthy personnel awards and staff changes
Projects/missions
- Wildfires present in the vicinity of the Wrightwood, CA, the location of the JPL/Table Mountain Facility, have delayed the arrival of the the Code 613.1 (David Whiteman, PI) ALVICE and Code 613.3 AT and STROZ (PI, Tom McGee) Raman lidar systems. A manditory evacuation is in place for Wrightwood due to the proximity of the fires. ALVICE, and AT/STROZ lidar crews are waiting for the lifting of the evacuation order to resume the setup and preparations for the Measurements of Humidity and Validation Experiments (MOHAVE) that was originally scheduled to occur from Oct 12 – 26 at the Table Mountain Facility. The objective of this experiment isto validate the Raman water lidar technique for use within the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), which is tasked with monitoring long term trends in upper troposphere and lower stratosphere water vapor concentrations using the Raman lidar technique.
- Anne Douglass, Joanna Joiner, P. K. Bhartia, James Gleason, Nick Krotkov, Richard Stolarski, Bryan Duncan, Ken Pickering, Alexander Vassilkov, Xiong Liu, Kai Yang, Glen Jaross, Matthew Deland, all from Code 613.3, and several members of the OMI data processing team attended the Aura and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) science team meetings Sept. 14-18 in Leiden, the Netherlands. Anne Douglass announced the results of the senior review; Aura received an outstanding rating for science value and a high rating for operational and applied utility, based primarily on the near-real-time OMI sulfur dioxide and aerosol index products developed by Nick Krotkov and others in code 613.3 that are used to monitor volcanic activity for aircraft hazard warnings. Douglass also announced that she is now the acting project scientist for Aura.
Significant planned events
Proposals
- A proposal to the GOSAT 2nd Research Announcement by Jianping Mao, Clark Weaver and Joanna Joiner, all Code 613.3, was adopted by the GOSAT project office. The title of the proposal is "Assessment of GOSAT Radiance Responses to the Lower Atmospheric CO2 Concentration Change and Impact of Aerosols and Clouds on CO2 Concentration Retrievals.”
Highlights of inter-Directorate teaming
External interactions (HQ, universities, other Gov't organizations, etc.)
Accepted papers
- Joel Susskind (613.0), John M. Blaisdell (SAIC/613.0), Lena Iredell (SAIC/613.0), and Fricky Keita (prev. SAIC/613.0), 2009, Improved Temperature Sounding and Quality Control Methodology Using AIRS/AMSU Data: The AIRS Science Team Version 5 Retrieval Algorithm, IEEE Transactions in Geophysics and Remote Sensing, accepted for publication.
Noteworthy talks/presentations
- Judd Welton (613.1) attended the 8th International AeroCom Workshop from October 5 - 7 at GFDL in Princeton. He gave two presentations, entitled "Comparisons of Aerosol Type Derived from the CALIPSO Level 2 Feature Mask and GEOS-5" with co-authors Peter Colarco (613.3) and Arlindo da Silva (610.1) and "Micro Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) Data Products for AeroCom Validation" with co-authors Larry Belcher (SSAI/613.1), Timothy Berkoff (UMBC/613.1), Sebastian Stewart (SSAI/613.1), and Peter Colarco (613.3).
- Several 613.2 branch members, including Ralph Kahn, Charles Ichoku, Rob Levy (SSAI), Hongbin Yu (GEST), Tianle Yuan (JCET), and Claire Salustro (SSAI) are attending the 8th International Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models (AEROCOM) Workshop at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ, along with other branches within the Earth Sciences Division, and about 100 other participants from different parts of the world. AEROCOM is an open international initiative of scientists interested in the advancement of the understanding of the global aerosol and its impacts on climate, October 5-7.
- Warren Wiscombe (613.2) and Alexander Marshak (613.2) attended the ICESat-2 Science Definition Team meeting at GSFC. Alexander Marshak gave a presentation entitled "Effect of clouds on the ice sheet altimetry accuracy for the ICESat-II photon counting system" October 6-7. Robert Cahalan (613.2) is presenting a session entitled Climate101: What’s been happening in recent decades? What might we do about it? to the National Park Service in Mclean, VA October 8.
- The Goddard CO2 laser sounder team gave two presentations in the 8th International Carbon Dioxide Conference, Jena, Germany, Sept. 13-19, 2009. One entitled "Analysis of Airborne Lidar Measurements of Atmospheric CO2 Line Shape and Column Absorption Compared with in-situ Measurements," by Clark Weaver, Code 613.3, Jianping Mao, Code 613.3,, Graham Allan, James Abshire, Haris Riris and Sebastien Biraud, and the other, "Carbon Cycle Modeling Applied to Evaluation of Future Satellite CO2 Mission Concepts," by Randy Kawa, Code 613.3, Jim Collatz, Jianping Mao, Code 613.3, Jim Abshire, Xiaoli Sun, Clark Weaver, Code 613.3, and Scott Denning.
- Charles Jackman, Code 613.3, is attending the Second International "High Energy Particle Precipitation in the Atmosphere" Workshop from Oct. 6-8 and is presenting a talk entitled "Long-term Middle Atmospheric Influence of Very Large Solar Proton Events in the 1963-2004 Period."
Major events in the coming week
Education and Outreach
Issues and Concerns
Status of any major actions
Print-friendly
page
(new window)
