Terri Gregory<\/a>, SSEC’s Public Information Specialist.<\/p>\nThunderstorm in a Box<\/h2>\n
Bill Hibbard discusses using the power of computer graphics to “see what was possible” in the new\u00a0Earth<\/em>\u00a0magazine. The story, titled “Thunderstorm in a Box,” appears in the December 1997 issue. The article features the scientific visualization work of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, including the development of a virtual reality theater called the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). Bill\u2019s Vis5D visualizations have been prominently featured in the CAVE.<\/p>\nSSEC on the Airwaves<\/h2>\n
WORT-FM radio featured the Cassini Mission to Saturn on its Monday evening news magazine, October 13. Sanjay Limaye explained the science implications, and Bob Paulos addressed safety issues in light of concerns about Cassini\u2019s plutonium power source. He stressed that the chance was “next to zero” that any catastrophic accident could occur. Sanjay also appeared briefly on WISC2 (WISC-TV\u2019s cable station) on the October 15 newscast to answer questions about Cassini.The American Association for the Advancement of Science needed answers to some seemingly simple questions\u2014the kind that are hard to answer. For\u00a0Why Is It?<\/em>, a Q&A radio feature, Sanjay Limaye explained why the months closest to the summer solstice are not the warmest. It\u2019s because of the four-week time lag between the Sun\u2019s incident radiation and the warming of the oceans due to their immense heat capacity. The time lag is true for the earth as a whole, but “local and regional differences exist due to the geography in terms of proximity to large water bodies and the type of surface (desert or forested . . .).”<\/p>\nSSEC in Print<\/h2>\n
On Wisconsin<\/em>\u00a0magazine (September\/October 1997) covered the contrail research of Steve Ackerman and colleagues in the Research Dispatches column. As reported earlier, the researchers found that contrails “can increase cloud cover\u2014sometimes by as much as 20 percent.” Editor Niki Denison could not resist a pun to end the piece: Instruments that NASA will deploy “should allow the space scientist\u2019s research to really take off.”Margaret Mooney, SSEC\u2019s honorary fellow and a National Weather Service liaison, studied the effects of El Ni\u00f1o on local weather over the past century. According to the October 7Wisconsin State Journal<\/em>, “what she found was in some cases ‘amazing.'” For example, during the strongest El Ni\u00f1o on record, 1982-83, “Madison was 6.1 degrees warmer than average with 6.3 inches less snow in December, January and February.”Wisconsin Week<\/em>, September 24, lists Steve Barnet, SSEC\u2019s network manager, as recipient of an academic staff award for Cisco Systems training on routing configuration. Steve said, “The training will enable us to deal with some of the issues coming down the road–greater data flow and more numerous and direct connections with SSEC\u2019s funding agencies.”<\/p>\nSSEC on the ‘Net<\/h2>\n
CIMSS\u2019 Oakfield tornado information made the\u00a0Wisconsin State Journal<\/em>\u2019s Web Pick o\u2019 the Week on October 3. The site extensively documents the 1996 tornado that “flattened Oakfield [WI].” It also has an in-depth tutorial on severe weather, particularly tornado, analysis.SSEC\u2019s sea surface temperature image appears in the\u00a0On-line News Hour<\/em>\u00a0forum for October 3. This forum, the Web version of PBS\u2019\u00a0Jim Lehrer\u2019s News Hour<\/em>, features a lively and comprehensive discussion and explanation of El Ni\u00f1o. Some questions answered are, “Where does El Ni\u00f1o get its energy?” “Will this El Ni\u00f1o be the biggest in 150 years?” and “How does the NWS model El Ni\u00f1o?”Speaking of the National Weather Service, Richard Davis of the Baton Rouge NWS Office uses the CIMSS Tropical Cyclone page to keep the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness briefed during the hurricane season. He\u2019s glad we\u2019re out there.We spoke too soon: We reported last month that Noble & Associates would use a precipitable water vapor image in their publicity for Tamko, a maker of roof shingles. Unfortunately, our credit line made it unpalatable to Tamko.<\/p>\nTeaching and Outreach<\/h2>\n
The newsletter for the School of Education covered the Space Exploration workshop of the school\u2019s College Access Program held this summer at Lincoln School on Madison\u2019s south side. Sanjay Limaye organized the class and taught it with teacher David Wirth and others. David, Sanjay, and Rose Pertzborn are currently teaching the same program to fourth and fifth graders at Lincoln. Participants in the summer program were primarily seventh and eighth graders.Thank-yous poured in from Mr. Kotoski\u2019s class after their night lab at UW-Madison\u2019s Washburn Observatory: “I found it interesting that it [the telescope] is a half inch bigger than the telescope at Harvard.” “I think that we were really fortunate to see the red spot [on Jupiter].” “It was better than looking in a book.” Sanjay Limaye and Rose Pertzborn facilitated the children\u2019s telescope experience on October 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the News – October 1997<\/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-4441","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\/4441","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=4441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4528,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions\/4528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}