Weekly Report for the Week Ending October 23, 2009
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GSFC Laboratory for Atmospheres, Code 613
Noteworthy science achievements/awards
Noteworthy personnel awards and staff changes
Projects/missions
- Peter Colarco (613.3) attended the ACE Science Working Group Workshop in Columbia, MD, Oct. 14 – 16.
- MOHAVE III Campaign
The Measurements of Humidity and Validation Experiments (MOHAVE) is underway at the JPL, Table Mountain Facility (TMF) in Wrightwood, CA. The Code 613.1 (David Whiteman, PI) ALVICE and Code 613.3 AT and STROZ (PI, Tom McGee, and Grant Sumnicht) Raman lidar systems are participating. Wildfires, high winds, flocks of moths and laser power supplies have presented difficulties to the measurement schedule. Nonetheless, Raman lidars are being used successfully to probe upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric water vapor with accuracy consistent with the goals of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). More information regarding the campaign can be found at http://tmf-lidar.jpl.nasa.gov/index.htm. The campaign concludes on Oct 26. - Balloon Flight of the Solar Disk Sextant (SDS)
Bill Heaps (613.3) and Larry Twigg (SSAI), 613.3, participated in the balloon flight of the Solar Disk Sextant (SDS) from Fort Sumner, NM on Saturday, October 17. The SDS (PI-Sabatino Sofia from Yale University) makes extremely precise measurements of the size and shape of the sun.
Significant planned events
Proposals
Highlights of inter-Directorate teaming
External interactions (HQ, universities, other Gov't organizations, etc.)
- Last week, the US Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center announced the operational assimilation of the NASA MODIS aerosol optical thickness products used in Navy's numerical weather, and aerosol forecasting. The assimilation was done using the Navy Variational Analysis Data Assimilation System-Aerosol Optical Depth (NAVDAS-AOD) which combines corrected/filtered MODIS over-ocean AOD data with the 6-hour forecast from the Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS). This is an excellent example of NASA earth science satellite products being used by another federal agency, in a very successful research-to-operation transition. The NASA GSFC MODIS was acknowledged for "their extensive efforts developing the underlying level-2 products." The NASA Radiation Science, and the Applied Science Program are co-sponsors of this effort.
Accepted papers
- Nowottnick E., P. Colarco (613.3), R. Ferrare, G. Chen, S. Ismail, B. Anderson, and E. Browell (2009). Online simulations of mineral dust aerosol distributions: Comparisons to NAMMA observations and sensitivity to dust emission parameterization. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres—in press.
Noteworthy talks/presentations
- Bo-Wen Shen (UMCP/ESSIC, 613.1) is invited to give a talk entitled "Global Mesoscale Modeling with NASA Supercomputing Technology: Hierarchical Multi-scale Interactions during Tropical Cyclogenesis associated with an MJO or AEW", which is scheduled for November 9, 2009 in the M Square Office Building of UMCP/ESSIC.
- Bo-Wen Shen (UMCP/ESSIC, 613.1) is invited to join the NASA Booth to present a project demonstration entitled "Extending the Lead Time of Tropical Cyclogenesis Prediction with a Global Mesoscale Model" at Supercomputing Conference 2009 (SC09), which will be held in Portland, Oregon, November 14-20, 2009. In addition, the poster entitled "High-Impact Tropical Weather Prediction with the NASA Coupled Advanced Multi-Scale Modeling and Concurrent Visualization Systems (CAMVis)" by B.-W. Shen (UMCP/ESSIC, 613.1), W.-K. Tao (613.1), B. Green, C. Henze, P. Mehrotra (NASA/ARC), and J. F. Li (NASA/JPL) is selected as one of eight posters to be shown on a 42" LCD display.
- Presentation given on Oct 14 at the AIRS Science Team Meeting by Oreste Reale (UMBC-GEST, 613.0): "Impact of AIRS on tropical cyclone analysis and forecast" by: Oreste Reale, William K. Lau (613.0), Yaping Zhou, Joel Susskind (613.0), Lars. P. Riishojgaard, Bob Rosenberg, Lena Iredell
- Charles Ichoku (613.2) is attending the 8th annual Joint Earth Science Data System Working Group Meeting, Wilmington, Delaware October 19-22.
- Robert Cahalan (613.2) will be presenting two talks entitled "The Sun/Climate Connection: What have we learned during this solar minimum?" and "NASA / NOAA plans for sun-climate observations" at a Solar Media Workshop entitled "The Dynamics of the Sun: Solar Minimum and WhatÕs to Come" in Boulder, Colorado, October 23-25.
- Dr. P. K. Bhartia, Code 613.0, gave an invited lecture at the Philosophical Society of Washington (PSW) on October 16, 2009 at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. The title of his talk was "Air Quality in the Anthropocene Era- a Satellite Perspective".
- Robert Cahalan (613.0) gave a talk entitled Global Energy Balance and Imbalance to the Department "The Atmosphere in the Earth System" headed by Bjorn Stevens at the Max Planck Institut fur Meteorologie on October 12 in Hamburg, Germany.
Major events in the coming week
Education and Outreach
- Summer of 2009: Lightning still avoids weekends by Thomas L. Bell (613.3, emeritus)
URL: http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/viewImage.php?id=268 - Bo-Wen Shen (UMCP/ESSIC, 613.1) was invited by the Editor of Want Daily to provide comments on the diverse forecasts of the recent typhoon Parma in early October 2009 from different operational weather centers in the world. He suggested that further improvement of track forecasts for this case would rely on the accurate representation of the steering flows in the saddle region between Taiwan and Philippines, and therefore on the deployment of high-resolution observation system (e.g., NASA Satellites) and data assimilation system. This article in Chinese was published by Want Daily in http://news.chinatimes.com/2007Cti/2007Cti-News/2007Cti-News-Content/0%2C4521%2C11051404%2B112009100700490%2C00.htm
Issues and Concerns
Status of any major actions
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