Month: August 2018

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has named ESSIC Director and AOSC Chair Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm as its Lead Scientist for Global Water. In this role, Miralles-Wilhelm will consult TNC management, advising and assisting the agency in its efforts to develop and implement freshwater conservation practices.  Additionally, he will actively collaborate with TNC’s Science Cabinet in the Office of the Chief Scientist and serve as a conduit between the agency and the greater science community. TNC …

ESSIC assistant research scientist Xiaohua Pan co-authored an article recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres titled “Connecting Indonesian Fires and Drought With the Type of El Niño and Phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole During 1979–2016”. In the article, Pan considers Indonesian fire activity in conjunction with the types of El Niño events and the interactions between El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) phenomena.  One finding is that more intense and …

ESSIC associate research professor Ariana Sutton-Grier is a co-author of two new journal articles on decision making with respect to wetlands management within an evolving world and climate. “Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: The Adaptive Gradients Framework” also includes Melissa Kenney* as a co-author and is published in the journal Sustainability.  The article calls for a new approach in developing and managing coastal infrastructure that considers factors including the participatory …

Scott Rudlosky* recently co-authored an article in press at at Meteoritics and Planetary Science titled “Detection of meteoroid impacts by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper on the GOES‐16 satellite”. The article discusses the Geostationary Lightning Mapper’s (GLM) detection of bollides, large meteors that explode in the atmosphere.  Due to the GLM’s optical sensitivity, it can detect fireballs and lightning with equal sensitivity, measuring the shape of meteor “light curves” …

Water Resources Research (WRR), one of the most impactful water research journals published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), recently accepted a study led by University of Maryland (UMD) Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOSC) PhD student, Neal Graham. The paper, titled “Water Sector Assumptions for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways in an Integrated Modeling framework”, delves into the importance of water management in five possible global futures. Graham’s work employed the …

ESSIC / AOSC professor Raghu Murtugudde was recently quoted in a Tech2 article titled, “What Caused the Kerala Floods? Could We Have Done Anything To Prevent It?”  The piece discusses the recent heavy rainfall across India, describing the protective measures that failed to prevent the flooding.  Murtugudde is quoted on the “certain uncertainty” of climate predicting, stating that tropical systems like India’s evolve differently than systems in the United States or Europe and are …

Yesterday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Leshner Public Engagement Fellows called upon AAAS to adopt a strong, enforceable policy to address harassment.  This message was disseminated through a public letter and social media campaign, encouraging AAAS members and the scientific community alike to sign their support.  Melissa Kenney, ESSIC / CICS-MD associate research professor and 2016-2017 Leshner Fellow was among the leads. The letter calls for a strict …