Year: 2017

ESSIC/AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde published a piece in The Huffington Post in early August titled “Should Young Researchers Worry About Citations And Journal Impact Factors?” Murtugudde suggests that researchers should focus more on personal creativity and work ethic than the reach of their published work. The article follows a Huffington Post piece he published earlier this year about whether young researchers should fear having their ideas plagiarized.  To read …

AOSC professor and former ESSIC Director, Antonio Busalacchi was featured in a Washington Post Capital Weather Gang Op-ed on the need to further U.S. hurricane prediction and preparedness. Busalacchi, who’s currently serving as President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) notes that while our forecasting capabilities remain remarkably good, further efforts are needed to sharpen forecasts, particularly when considering the evacuation of highly populated areas …

ESSIC Hydrologist and Interim Director, Professor Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, visited Bolivia in late August to participate in an International symposium on Water Resources Management.  The event was organized by the Catholic University of Tarija.  Miralles-Wilhelm traveled with fellow water expert, Dr. William Asquith from the U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.), as part of the U.S. Specialists and Embassy Speakers’ Program.   The program allows American experts to …

The Hotel at the University of Maryland is open for business. Checked out the Old Maryland Grill, one of the hotel's street-level eateries – très swish (love the mural along one wall). Upscale, on the pricey side … nice food option for College Park, though. Snacked on some “coddies”, i.e., little cod cakes – a bit bland seasoning-wise but they hit the spot. They’re working out the kinks right now (no free wi-fi yet, screw-up with exterior signage, …

An ESSIC collaborative study led by Stephanie Schollaert Uz was published this month on the American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) on-line Journal of Climate.  Titled “Interannual and Decadal Variability in Tropical Pacific Chlorophyll from a Statistical Reconstruction: 1958–2008,” the study reconstructs a retrospective 51-year time series of surface chlorophyll to quantify how multidecadal climate-scale patterns impact biological productivity.  The study …

ESSIC Post-doctoral Associate Michael Peterson created an animation loop of Hurricane Harvey showing cloud cover and optical lightning emissions on August 25-26, 2017.  Peterson combined infrared imagery from GOES-16’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) as well as imagery from the satellite's Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), which observes total lightning (both in-cloud and cloud-to-ground) day and night across the Western Hemisphere.  The loop received considerable …

AOSC professor and former ESSIC Director Antonio Busalacchi was the featured speaker at the most recent NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Maniac lecture series. The talks provide insight into what motivates successful people and the obstacles they've overcome to realize their career goals. Busalacchi's tongue-and-cheek talk title of "From Here to Boulder: With Apologies to Burt Lancaster," discusses his early science interests and education, as well as a career path which …

A new article in a five-part op-ed series authored by ESSIC / AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde was recently published by online media outlet thethirdpole.net.  Titled “Protecting mangroves and fish stocks from dams and deforestation," the latest installment discusses better management of fish stocks and coastal vulnerabilities to ensure that nature's checks and balances are maintained….

ESSIC Deputy Director Phillip Arkin is mentioned in a recent Scientific American story titled, “Stronger Storms Could Flood Fish with Pollution.” The study suggests that if global greenhouse gas emissions remain steady, more frequent and heavier rains will wash about one-fifth more nitrogen into waterways by the end of the century.  Arkin noted that although precipitation remains one of the most difficult aspects of climate change to predict, the researchers seem to have …