{"id":4289,"date":"1999-04-24T11:41:14","date_gmt":"1999-04-24T16:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=4289"},"modified":"2013-07-25T15:15:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T20:15:14","slug":"monthly-news-summary-april-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/4289","title":{"rendered":"Monthly News Summary &#8211; April 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><em>Weather Experts Hone Their Craft<\/em><\/h1>\n<h5><em>by Terri Gregory, SSEC Public Information Specialist<\/em><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><em>April 1999<\/em><\/h5>\n<p>This year\u2019s Winter Experiment again used the ER-2, NASA\u2019s high-altitude research aircraft, to carry a suite of instruments to the top of the atmosphere. The airplane swept into Madison on March 15. Terry Devitt (UW\u2013Madison\u2019s News and Public Affairs) told the media and scientists and crew met them in a low-key visit Friday.\u00a0<em>Wisconsin State Journal<\/em>\u00a0photographer Joe Jackson took some wonderful pictures. Two appeared in Ron Seely\u2019s article on Saturday. March 20, where experiment manager Chris Moeller noted the experiment\u2019s purpose\u2014to test instruments that will fly on weather satellites in winter conditions and to contribute to climate studies. Bill Smith\u2019s overview in the WINTEX Web site explains experiment objectives. Bill, director of atmospheric research at NASA\u2019s Langley Research Center in Virginia, and Steve Ackerman are chief WINTEX scientists.<\/p>\n<p>Madison\u2019s WKOW-TV briefly covered the experiment on its evening news programs on March 19.\u00a0<em>Sheboygan Press<\/em>\u00a0reporter Molly deCleene found the AERIbago (SSEC\u2019s traveling Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer) on the shore of Lake Michigan, stationed for special WINTEX measurements. Her article appeared Tuesday, March 30. Look in the WINTEX photo gallery for ER-2 pictures taken by Joe Oliva, nationally known aeronautics photographer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more information, follow the links below.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/wintex\/\">WINTEX<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/media\/UNewsWINTEX.html\">WINTEX Release<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Bermuda Highs\u2019 and \u2018zonal jet streams\u2019 are great names for rock bands,\u201d said Larry Meiller on his March 10 WHA Radio call-in show, and proceeded to grill Weather Guys Steve Ackerman and Jon Martin on the terms used by colleague Tom Achtor.<\/p>\n<p>Brian Mattmiller of the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison\u2019s Office of News and Public Affairs wanted to know what effect La Ni\u00f1a would have on Wisconsin&#8217;s weather this spring. Many people, he surmised, would want to know, because last year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o seemed to have wreaked such havoc. In a tip that Brian wrote, Tom Achtor, science manager in SSEC\u2019s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, explained that La Ni\u00f1a years do typically bring colder-than-normal temperatures to central and eastern North America. He said that ferocious cold of minus-70 degrees or more struck Alaska and Canada, but bitter cold never plunged southward. Achtor said the cold air was bottled up because the jet stream held fast straight across North America, \u201cforging straight east through the Pacific Ocean and North America with almost no fluctuation.\u201d Tom also said that a stronger than normal \u201c\u2018Bermuda high,\u2019 or an anticyclone that funnels warm, moist air inland from the Atlantic, is also keeping things interesting.\u201d He added that spring may see a \u201cvery active severe storm season with more precipitation than normal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brian\u2019s tip appeared on the Environmental News Network on March 4, and sparked a long thread in ENN\u2019s forum starting with rebuttal by AccuWeather meteorologist Elliot Abrams. Tom Achtor answered Elliot\u2019s message, and others wrote, quickly falling into a heated discussion on global warming. Other concerned folks contacted Tom separately through the email address given on ENN\u2019s Web site.<\/p>\n<p>CNN picked up the ENN knockoff before correct attribution to Brian Mattmiller was added. ENN reporter John Roach wrote a separate article based on a conversation with Tom Achtor. Both CNN and ENN linked to SSEC. Wisconsin News Network, a radio syndicate covering the whole state, also picked up the tip.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.enn.com\/enn-news-archive\/1999\/03\/030499\/weird_1974.asp\">Expert makes sense<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.enn.com\/enn-news-archive\/1999\/03\/030999\/weird_2024.asp\">La Ni\u00f1a signature<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.enn.com\/community\/forum\/display-message.asp?F=1&amp;M=2407&amp;P=1\">Weird weather chat<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Reporter Jennifer Viegas read the original tip and delved further into spring weather concerns with CIMSS researcher John Mecikalski. Their story, giving a fuller explanation of forces at work and a possible global warming tie-in, appeared briefly on Discovery Channel Online.<\/p>\n<p>The Weather Guys, Professors Ackerman and Martin, faced their most challenging audience yet on Larry Meiller\u2019s March 10 show. They were peppered not only with questions about weather phenomena, but also were asked about the height of Lake Superior, how ionized radiation leads to cloud formation, and were asked to correlate solar and atmospheric cycles. Once again, Wisconsin Public Radio listeners proved that they are fascinated by the weather.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.discovery.com\/\">Discovery Channel Online<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pmel.noaa.gov\/toga-tao\/ensodefs.html\">Definitions<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"outreach\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><em>Outreach and Education<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><em>Pushing the Technology<\/em><\/h3>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/~billh\/visad.html\">VisAD<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/visitview\/\">VISITview<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tom Whittaker and Bill Hibbard demonstrated advanced software tools at an Internet2 (I2) presentation for interested UW\u2013Madison staff on Tuesday, March 30. They gave two of the three demos made by UW\u2013Madison researchers to show how well the Internet can be used remotely. All three demonstrations made advanced use of the Java programming language. Bill, leader of SSEC\u2019s scientific visualization project, demonstrated VisAD, a software tool that lets researchers work interactively on the same data set, though they are countries apart. Tom demonstrated VISITview, a new distance learning and collaboration software tool, which is used to train National Weather Service forecasters. Tom tried it out on students in Steve Ackerman\u2019s meteorology class, having them identify features on satellite images as they sat in another building. He also connected to a computer at Fort Collins, Colorado, which is not yet connected to I2, to show slow conductivity.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Barnet, SSEC\u2019s network administrator, who viewed the presentations, said that I2 will \u201cchange what we do and how we do it. \u2026It\u2019s not just [a matter of] how big the pipe is and how fast the connection.\u201d New I2 connections will move data along at 300 mb\/second. Local hard drives now operate at 80 mb\/sec. The new high speed connections mean that it\u2019s more efficient to move data over the Internet than to work with it locally. \u201cWhoever can put a terabyte on line fuels the next stage of growth,\u201d said Steve. \u201c[I2] will change the work model, if we\u2019re willing to pay for it.\u201d Internet2 is a collaboration of universities and corporations \u201cseeking faster links to shared computing,\u201d according to UW\u2013Madison\u2019s Division of Information Technology.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/wxwise\/wxwise.html\">WxWise<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/wxwise\/class\/aos100.html\">AOS 100\/101<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Steve Ackerman, SSEC scientist and professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, is being awarded a distinguished teaching award, as noted in the\u00a0<em>Wisconsin State Journal<\/em>\u00a0for April 1. Steve teaches several AOS classes including extremely popular introductory meteorology courses using innovative technology, including McIDAS and Vis5D.\u00a0<em>Wisconsin Week,<\/em>\u00a0the campus newspaper (March 31), notes that Steve \u201cgives students both practice in and immediate feedback on their studies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"print\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><em>In Print<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unidata.ucar.edu\/\">Unidata<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A meteorology professor\u2019s classroom journey from taping TV weathercasts to using real-time satellite imagery is featured in the<em>UNIDATA Newsletter,<\/em>\u00a0Winter\/Spring 1999. Anthony Rockwood teaches meteorology at Metropolitan State College of Denver and has tried to use satellite images in his classes since the early 1980s. This year, he\u2019s moving from OS\/2 to Unix. The article gives excruciating details in his battle with hardware and software over time. Anthony is now happily using McIDAS-X with GEMPAK, thanks to considerable help from Unidata.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony&#8217;s move to McIDAS-X was motivated by SSEC\u2019s decision to cease advancing (sunset) the OS\/2-based system and put advancement efforts into a Unix-based system (McIDAS-X). Unidata\u2019s Don Murray explains the process. He assures users that Unidata will assist sites that make the move to Unix. He especially urges those who bring in (ingest) data on OS\/2-based systems to start using UNIX LDM to continue receiving data.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/sdi\/noaaport.html\">NOAAport<\/a>The move to using data through NOAAport is also outlined in the<em>UNIDATA Newsletter.<\/em>\u00a0The Unidata program center is collaborating with SSEC to make the move from NOAA\u2019s Family of Services to NOAAport. These are two different ways of receiving so-called conventional data, both supported by Alden Electronics. SSEC is one of five operating sites to feed NOAAport data to other Unidata sites. SSEC is also responsible for the software that ingests NOAAport signals.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"internet\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><em>On the Web<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.clearskyinstitute.com\/xephem\/xephem.html\">Xephem<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Elwood Downey, a scientific software engineer, is using SSEC\u2019s global montage in his software package, XEphem, \u201ca free interactive astronomy program for UNIX systems with Motif.\u201d Click on \u201cpromotional.gif\u201d to show how the montage is used. Elwood runs Clear Sky Institute in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing \u201ccomplete software and support for local and remote operation of automated observatories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"wings\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><em>In the Wings<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kalmbach.com\/astro\/astronomy.html\">Astronomy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oposite.stsci.edu\/pubinfo\/pr\/1998\/34\/pr-photos.html\">Neptune Images<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watch\u00a0<em>Astronomy\u00a0<\/em>magazine for an article on storms on other planets. Reporter Andrew Bredges talked with Larry Sromovsky about his Neptune work. Likewise, Yorkshire Associated Producers in Leeds, England are developing a documentary video about weather systems on other planets. We provided them with Larry\u2019s Neptune movies, from both 1996 and 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the News &#8211; April 1999<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-summary"],"acf":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4390,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions\/4390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}