{"id":4302,"date":"1999-01-24T11:52:30","date_gmt":"1999-01-24T17:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=4302"},"modified":"2013-07-25T15:18:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T20:18:21","slug":"monthly-news-summary-january-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/4302","title":{"rendered":"Monthly News Summary &#8211; January 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><em>Applying Earth Science Data Regionally<\/em><\/h1>\n<h5><em>by Terri Gregory, SSEC Public Information Specialist<\/em><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><em>January 1999<\/em><\/h5>\n<p>As noted in\u00a0<em>The Earth Observer,<\/em>September\/October 1998, NASA\u2019s Office of Earth Science has formed seven Regional Earth Science Applications Centers. The program uses data from the Earth Observing System to \u201chelp resolve issues with regional economic and policy significance and to support regional assessments supporting the U.S. Global Change Research Program.\u201d NASA is investing about $14 million (total) in 1999 for the seven new centers. The Midwest Center for Natural Resource Management, led by SSEC scientist George Diak, is one of the seven. It will be combined with the Upper Great Lakes RESAC, based at the University of Minnesota\u2013Twin Cities, but both consortia will operate independently.<\/p>\n<p>UW\u2013Madison\u2019s news release notes that \u201cthe UW-Madison component of the new consortium is a combined effort of the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) and the Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Soil Science and Forest Ecology and Management. \u2026 [It] will focus on the development of new tools\u2014computer models and new remote sensing and meteorological technologies\u2014to aid management decisions made by agricultural and natural resource managers. UM\u2013Twin Cities scientists will concentrate on monitoring natural resource bases themselves.\u201d The Wisconsin consortium includes Champion International Corp., Case Corp. of Racine, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n<p>Wisconsin Public Radio reporter Steven Shadley interviewed George Diak for the Wisconsin portion of NPR\u2019s \u201cMorning Edition.\u201d WORT-FM\u2019s Lisa Nunez also reported on the center for \u201cIn Our Backyard,\u201d a program of local news running between 6:30 and 7 p.m. evenings. The pieces ran over the holidays.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more information, follow the links below.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news.wisc.edu\/thisweek\/Research\/PS\/Y98\/nasaeos.html\">News@UW-Madison<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov\/eos_observ\/9_10_98\/sep_oct98.html\"><em>The Earth Observer<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.soils.wisc.edu\/nasacan.html\">Model Products<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wpr.org\/\">Wisconsin Public Radio<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wort-fm.org\/\">WORT-FM<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><em>From the Web<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uku.fi\/~dworakow\/\">Elizabeth\u2019s Home Page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/~billh\/vis.html\">The SSEC Visualization Project<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bill Hibbard of SSEC\u2019s Scientific Visualization Project reported an unusual use of one of his articles. Elzbieta Dworakowska, who teaches English at Finland\u2019s University of Kuopio, used it as a reading exercise. The article was gone in late December; it had been found under Reading Exercises under English for Computer Science. If you choose to visit the site anyway, you\u2019ll find a set of comprehension tests, including a collection of trivia quizzes. Click on \u201cReading Comprehension (Not for beginners)\u201d in the left frame and scroll down a couple times.<\/p>\n<p>You can still read Bill\u2019s article, which originally appeared in the August 1998 issue of\u00a0<em>Computer Graphics.<\/em>\u00a0It is available as a postscript file on The SSEC Visualization Project web page under Publications as \u201cVisAD: connecting people to computations and people to people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uwsa.edu\/olit\/ttt\/tttv3n7.htm\">Teaching with Technology Today<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/wxwise\/class\/aos100.html\">AOS 100<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Teaching with Technology Today,<\/em>\u00a0a UW\u2013System online newsletter, features an article by Steve Ackerman (CIMSS scientist and professor in AOS) in its December 10 issue. The article describes Steve\u2019s introductory atmospheric science course, Interactive Learning on the Web: AOS 101. By using exercises and demonstrations, the course provides a true alternative to the lecture format, which, Steve said, \u201ccan discourage students from pursuing a science career.\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.news.wisc.edu\/wire\/i120998\/gifts.html\">Holiday Shopping<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/aeriwww\/aeri\/index.html\">AERI Home Page<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Terry Devitt, science editor at UW\u2013Madison\u2019s Office of News and Public Affairs, chose SSEC\u2019s Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer for a list of holiday gifts available on campus. Terry noted that the AERI is in the Nieman Marcus category, available for research purposes at about $250,000. A scientist to interpret the data costs extra. The article appeared on line in the\u00a0<em>Wisconsin Week Wire<\/em>\u00a0and in print in\u00a0<em>Wisconsin Week<\/em>\u00a0for December 9.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/weather\/tg\/wjstream\/wjstream.htm\">Jet Stream<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cardinal.wisc.edu\/\"><em>The Digital Cardinal<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.badgerherald.com\/\"><em>Badger Herald<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The campus newspapers covered Madison\u2019s unseasonably warm weather in early December, interviewing people from SSEC and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. In the\u00a0<em>Badger Herald\u00a0<\/em>on December 4, Francis Bretherton, SSEC\u2019s director, noted that the weather is \u201cnot all that unusual.\u201d Francis said, \u201cThe weather we\u2019re seeing is towards one extreme, but it\u2019s not abnormal.\u201d He blamed it on the jet stream. In the\u00a0<em>Daily Cardinal<\/em>\u00a0for the December 4\u20136 weekend, SSEC scientist Sanjay Limaye reminded readers that the \u201clast time this type of weather occurred was about 20 years ago. \u2026 Historically speaking, it is not so odd.\u201d Sanjay also blamed the unseasonably if not abnormally warm weather on the jet stream, and decried the lack of forecasting techniques to track its vagaries. Jon Martin, AOS professor, attempted to explain the jet stream, saying, \u201cBecause the jet streams are in a much higher latitude, there is this natural variability of climate. The jet streams have been bordering the United States and Canada when, usually, they would be in the central United States.\u201d Reading this in early January, you know that the jet stream has made its \u201csystematic progression southward,\u201d just like clockwork, if a little slow.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/java.sun.com\/\">Java<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The SSEC Visualization Project is listed with more than 100 other \u201cindustry leaders\u201d in a full-page ad supporting Java technology. The Sun Microsystems ad ran in the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0for December 9.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oposite.stsci.edu\/pubinfo\/pr\/1998\/34\/pr-photos.html\">Neptune Images<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Larry Sromovsky\u2019s Neptune images were reproduced in a Japanese newspaper. Images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in both 1996 and 1998 were compared. A translator found no publication date or name on the article.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/~davej\/adr.html\">SSEC ADR Home Page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov\/docs\/xray\/astroe\/xrs\/adr.html\">Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.psl.wisc.edu\/\">PSL Engineering and Instrumentation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Physical Sciences Laboratory\u2019s\u00a0<em>Observer\u00a0<\/em>for Fall 1998 covered the Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator, a project developed and coordinated at SSEC. The article primarily takes information from the site maintained by NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center. Also, it noted that the project is \u201cshared\u201d between PSL and SSEC.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"up\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><em>Coming up<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong>For More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spaceplace.nasa.gov\/en\/kids\/\">NASA&#8217;s Space Place<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Listen to WORT Radio\u2019s Science News on Thursday nights at 7:30 p.m. for a segment on EarthKam. Sanjay Limaye and Rose Pertzborn are coordinating EarthKam activities in Madison\u2019s Spring Harbor Middle School during a forthcoming Space Shuttle mission, probably in January. Peter Jung produces Science News on WORT at 89.9 FM.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ametsoc.org\/\">American Meteorological Society<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ametsoc.org\/\">\u00a0<\/a>Look for \u201cMcIDAS: 25 years of Interactive Processing\u201d in the January or February 1999 issue of the\u00a0<em>Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.<\/em>\u00a0The article covers McIDAS history from its beginnings in the 1970s. It was written by Matthew Lazzara, John Benson, Bob Fox, Denise Laitsch, Joe Rueden, Dave Santek, Dee Wade, Tom Whittaker and J.T. Young, with contributions by many others.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/discovery.com\/\">Discovery Channel Online<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watch Discovery Online News for SSEC\u2019s GOES images. Producer David Moran has expressed strong interest in using them and other material from our Web pages on an occasional basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the News &#8211; January 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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-articles"],"acf":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4302","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=4302"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4393,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4302\/revisions\/4393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}