{"id":4001,"date":"2002-09-15T08:37:30","date_gmt":"2002-09-15T13:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=4001"},"modified":"2013-07-24T17:09:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T22:09:04","slug":"monthly-news-summary-september-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/4001","title":{"rendered":"Monthly News Summary – September 2002"},"content":{"rendered":"

Satellite Data for Aviation Weather<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

by Terri Gregory, SSEC Public Information Coordinator<\/em><\/h5>\n

John Murray, atmosphere scientist at NASA\u2019s\u00a0Langley Research Center<\/a>, features the work of CIMSS and other SSEC projects in\u00a0Earth Observation Magazine<\/a><\/em>\u00a0for August. In \u201cAviation Weather Applications for Earth Science Enterprise Data,\u201d Murray reviews the current state of what he calls the U.S. \u201cnational airspace system,\u201d focusing on weather-related issues. He notes that, \u201cOver the short term, the impact of weather on aviation can be lessened substantially if satellite weather information is employed more effectively.\u201d He goes on to stress that it will be important in the long-term to \u201cintegrate new high-spatial- and temporal-resolution satellite weather observations \u2026 .\u201d Some of these, he says, will be taken by NASA\u2019s planned Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS<\/a>). Murray says that satellite observations are underutilized in forecasting aviation weather, primarily, he says, \u201cbecause of the low vertical resolution of satellite soundings.\u201d He notes that GIFTS will \u201cimprove the vertical resolution of GOES by a factor of six, or from 18,000 feet to 3000 feet,\u201d meaning it can sense something every 3000 feet, a phenomenal increase in remote sensing ability. GIFTS will also \u201cincrease the number of soundings [vertical observations] by several orders of magnitude,\u201d and \u201cis expected to retrieve more than 100,000 high-vertical-resolution soundings per minute.\u201d SSEC is a partner with NASA Langley Research Center and other institutions in GIFTS development and is chiefly responsible for making GIFTS data useful.<\/p>\n

Besides NASA\u2019s\u00a0Aviation Safety Program<\/a>\u00a0at Langley, which is helping the FAA to develop useful satellite products, SSEC\u2019s\u00a0CIMSS<\/a>\u00a0is studying the impact of using GOES satellite data for aviation forecasting. Thus far, it appears that satellite data will improve FAA forecasts of convection (local severe storms), turbulence, icing, visibility and ceiling conditions. Murray notes that CIMSS will also study the impact of data from high-resolution instruments such as the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder launched this spring on NASA\u2019s Aqua satellite and later, the GIFTS. Of particular use to pilots will be \u201cvery-high-resolution wind fields.\u201d Instead of using\u00a0winds tracked from clouds<\/a>, a product that SSEC and its CIMSS has a long history of producing, Murray notes that wind measurements will be derived from \u201cwater vapor flux tools\u201d that will \u201cgreatly improve many FAA products.\u201d Murray views the future of aviation weather forecasting optimistically, noting the current U.S. administration\u2019s seeming commitment to \u201crequirements for precise, widespread environmental knowledge.\u201d Murray believes that \u201cthese systems and applications will generate accurate aviation weather information that ultimately will be integrated into an automated, worldwide air transportation information network.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same issue of EOM is \u201cA Change in the Weather: How NASA Is Leading a Revolution in Weather Measurements.\u201d Written by Stephen Sandford and William Smith, the article explains GIFTS, its capabilities and history, in lucid detail. The authors note that the architecture employed in GIFTS enables a great \u201cincrease in the number of places … where weather measurements are made and also provides the measurements much more often.\u201d More measurements mean that forecasting models will be able to better \u201csimulate the real atmosphere and its dynamic variations, thereby increasing dramatically the reliability of weather forecasts.\u201d Currently, GIFTS is expected to launch late in 2005. Sandford directs LaRC\u2019s Earth and Space Science program. Smith is LaRC\u2019s chief scientist of Atmospheric Sciences Competency and is principal investigator for the GIFTS-Indian Ocean Meteorological and oceanographic Imager project. Smith also led SSEC\u2019s CIMSS and taught in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) at UW\u2013Madison from 1981\u20131997.<\/a><\/p>\n

Antarctica<\/em><\/h2>\n

Antarctic programs featured<\/strong><\/a>\u2014Matthew Lazzara appeared on WORT-FM radio\u2019s Thursday evening science show on August 29. He and host Dennis Shaffer discussed\u00a0Antarctic research<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Automatic Weather Station<\/a>\u00a0program, which supplies weather data to researchers and anyone else interested in the continent.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Names<\/strong>\u2014A specialized map of Antarctica appears in\u00a0Wisconsin Research\u2014Profiles in Discovery, 2002-2003,<\/em>\u00a0published by UW\u2013Madison\u2019s\u00a0Communications<\/a>\u00a0office. The booklet samples research performed in the Graduate School\u2019s research groups. The map lists only features with a connection to Wisconsin. Because so many Antarctic pioneers came from UW\u2013Madison, there are many of them. The map lists only a few, led by the Wisconsin Islands, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Names with a connection to SSEC and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) include the Bentley Subglacial Trench and Mount Stearns. Charles Bentley, emeritus professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, is principal investigator for SSEC\u2019s\u00a0Ice Coring and Drilling Services<\/a>. Charles Stearns, emeritus professor in AOS, leads the SSEC\/AOS\u00a0Automatic Weather Station<\/a>\u00a0program and SSEC\u2019s\u00a0Antarctic Meteorological Research Center<\/a>.\u00a0AMANDA<\/a>, at the South Pole, is also shown on the map. See\u00a0Neutrino News<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Data and Imagery<\/em><\/h2>\n

GOES Gallery<\/strong><\/a>\u2014Markus Pahlow, a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, plans to use MODIS and GOES images from the Gallery in his thesis based on a haze event resulting from this summer\u2019s forest fires in Quebec. When seeking to learn more about the cause of the fires, he searched the Web and found the GOES Gallery, noting, \u201cThe images are very impressive.\u201d He believes they will \u201cmake it easier to explain how it started.\u201d CIMSS and SSEC are pleased when GOES Gallery images are used to illustrate a paper or report. As Pahlow is doing, please give us credit and let us know when and where you\u2019re using them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Sept.020707_G08_VIS_13_1\"<\/a><\/td>\n\n
This GOES image shows the extent of smoke from fires in Quebec in July 2002.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Black Water<\/strong><\/a>\u2014In this image, received at SSEC\u2019s direct broadcast facility, MODIS manager Liam Gumley uses three channels to produce a close-to-true-color image. The image of dark water off Florida\u2019s Gulf coast was received on August 14, 2002 and was used on NASA\u2019s Earth Observatory. Ocean researchers are analyzing the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"IDL<\/a><\/td>\n\n
This MODIS image of Florida shows unusually dark water off the Gulf coast.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Delta<\/strong>\u2014Minnesota\u2019s\u00a0Itasca State Park<\/a>\u00a0used a MODIS\u00a0image<\/a>\u00a0from SSEC\u2019s direct broadcast facility in the new Jacob V. Brower Visitor Center. The Minnesota DNR used the 3-color composite MODIS image of the Mississippi River Delta in a display about the Mississippi River, crediting Liam Gumley of SSEC\u2019s MODIS team as well as SSEC and UW-Madison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"sep.2002mississippi-modis\"<\/a><\/td>\n\n
MODIS image of the Missippi River delta. This picture was snapped by a visitor to the display who photographed it on the wall, so it is somewhat distorted.<\/h5>\n
This image shows the delta on April 24, 2001, a different time from the image at the left, and of very high resolution.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Neutrino News<\/em><\/h2>\n

Francis Halzen<\/strong>\u2019s captivating and informative article, \u201cLooking for Tiny Messengers,\u201d appears in\u00a0Wisconsin Research,<\/em>\u00a0the new publication on research conducted in Graduate School centers. Halzen, a Distinguished Professor of Physics, tells the story of his search for neutrinos, tiny subatomic particles that exist but are extremely hard to find, although, as Halzen says, \u201ca million billion\u201d zip through the Earth and our bodies every second. His project\u00a0AMANDA<\/a>\u00a0is devoted to that task. Halzen explains how he got the idea to put detectors in South Polar ice to capture the illusive particles and how it is necessary to carve out even a greater chunk of ice for a kilometer-cube-sized polar observatory, or IceCube. Francis Halzen is IceCube principal investigator.<\/p>\n

Looking Back?<\/strong><\/a>\u2014\u201cLooking Back at the First Decade of 21st-Century High-Energy Physics\u201d by CERN theoretical physicist John Ellis features IceCube. Ellis writes from the perspective of a presenter at the Tenth Conference on String Phenomenology in 2011. Probably physicists will understand the \u201cdevelopments\u201d Ellis recounts, but anyone with a smattering of science in their background will know it\u2019s funny. They just might not know why. Ellis starts with the premise that the Large Hadron Collider is built and responsible for scores of discoveries, including a black hole event.\u00a0[Readers of this column may remember that\u00a0data<\/a>\u00a0from the SSEC instrument, the High Speed Photometer, showed evidence of a black hole in 2001.]\u00a0<\/em>In Ellis\u2019 version of 21st century physics, physicists are \u201call on tenterhooks to see whether some supersymmetric interpretation of the IceCube dark-matter signal will be confirmed.\u201d He references Web sites for many projects that exist now, in 2002, including the\u00a0IceCube Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>NOAA Uses GOES Fire Products<\/em><\/h2>\n

WF-ABBA Used at NOAA<\/strong>\u2014Elaine Prins (NOAA, at SSEC) and Chris Schmidt (SSEC\u2019s CIMSS) have installed and tested an updated version of the GOES Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WF-ABBA<\/a>, version 6.0) system in NOAA\u2019s Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution\u2019s\u00a0Satellite Services Division<\/a>. They also delivered required documentation in the final step to being considered fully operational by NOAA\u2019s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. The technique has been used routinely this summer in helping track wildfires throughout the western U.S.<\/p>\n

Modeling Pollution<\/strong><\/a>\u2014GOES wildfire products are being used in South America to study how air pollution disperses in the atmosphere. The\u00a0WF-ABBA<\/a>\u00a0gives information every half-hour on fire location, size and temperature. Saulo Freitas and Karla Longo (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) are assimilating these products into the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS<\/a>\u00a0at Colorado State University) in real time to diagnose the transport of biomass-burning emissions of carbon monoxide and aerosol particles smaller than 2.5 microns. This collaborative effort extends work that began with a simulation study utilizing the South American ABBA fire product for the 1999 fire season. Thus far, the model output agrees well with data from the\u00a0Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer<\/a>\u00a0and with ground truth data. At CIMSS, the biomass-burning algorithm is developed by Elaine Prins (NOAA) and Chris Schmidt and Joleen Feltz (CIMSS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"sep.2002abbaltl\"<\/a><\/td>\n\n
An example of the University of Sao Paulo’s biomass burning emissions model output for August 13, 2002. The GOES WF-ABBA fire product is used to determine the fire point sources and relative fire size and temperature. Emissions are based on the WF_ABBA fire product and then used to diagnose the transport of carbon monoxide and small particles at various levels in the atmosphere.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

NOAA Magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0featured the WildFire ABBA as used in NOAA\u2019s\u00a0Fire Weather Services<\/a>. It notes that \u201cweather is one of the most significant factors\u201d influencing the behavior of fires and calls the WF-ABBA \u201cthe latest and most advanced development in NOAA\u2019s fire detection from space.\u201d The article notes that the technique takes advantage of geostationary orbit\u2019s \u201cconstant watch over specific fires.\u201d The automated technique supplies fire products every half-hour over the entire Western Hemisphere.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tropical Cyclones<\/em><\/h2>\n

Pacific Hurricanes<\/a><\/strong>\u2014Outdoors enthusiast David Voth of San Diego, California, told us he uses the Tropical Cyclone site every day during the\u00a0Northeastern Pacific<\/a>\u00a0hurricane season. He said, \u201cI haven\u2019t found a better source for information on tropical weather that sometimes affects my area, and I have learned a great deal by exploring the links you provide. \u2026 I find that keeping up with the tropical cyclones extends my understanding of the southern swells and monsoons.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Weather Experts<\/em><\/h2>\n

Is It Back?<\/a><\/strong>\u2014On August 7,\u00a0University Communications<\/a>\u00a0announced to the media that \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is back,\u201d and enlisted scientists from SSEC and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) to talk about it with the media. Ed Hopkins (a lecturer in\u00a0AOS<\/a>) and Dave Martin (SSEC scientist) were interviewed on a warm Saturday afternoon.\u00a0WISC-TV<\/a>, Madison\u2019s channel 3, ran a short piece on the evening news. In a longer piece at 10 p.m., Dave Martin and Ed Hopkins explained that, while it might be unusual to have two El Ni\u00f1os in five years, it remained to be seen what effect this El Ni\u00f1o would have on worldwide weather. Martin was also interviewed for news programs on\u00a0WKOW<\/a>\u00a0TV channel 27 and\u00a0Wisconsin Radio Network<\/a>. SSEC scientist Don Wylie was interviewed for\u00a0Wisconsin Public Radio<\/a>\u00a0by Larry Meiller and appeared on\u00a0WIBA<\/a>\u00a0Radio, noting that a relatively warm winter was likely. All Wisconsin interviewers asked about the impact of the current El Ni\u00f1o on Wisconsin\u2019s upcoming winter.<\/p>\n

Martin and CIMSS scientist Bill Raymond provided information to Ana Fernandes of the Portuguese daily newspaper,\u00a0Publico<\/em><\/a>. She and other European writers want to know if El Ni\u00f1o could be responsible for this summer\u2019s floods. The scientists think not.<\/p>\n