Year: 2019

Gassó Participates in International Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Meeting

May 7, 2019

Associate Research Scientist Santiago Gassó recently attended a board meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) in Jozankei, a city on the Hokkaido island of Japan, from April 25 to 29. SOLAS is an international, bottom-up scientific organization dedicated to understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere. This meeting was to review SOLAS-related research released last year, connect and …

James Farquhar Elected Into National Academy of Sciences

May 2, 2019

Thursday, 2 May 2019

Professor James Farquhar of the University of Maryland (UMD) Department of Geology and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The appointment is often considered as one of the more significant honors bestowed upon researchers in recognition of their scientific achievement.

“I am highly honored to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences,” said Farquhar in a recent CMNS press release. “I am very

Local Eats: Riviera Tapas Bar

April 25, 2019

The Town Center with its outdoor patio, Enomatic wine machine, and funky beers; the Farmers Market (picked up some Kalamata-olive-infused bread); the newly opened Riviera Tapas Bar … downtown Riverdale Park on Thursdays after work is kinda more happening now. Yes, good old grubby S&J’s is now a tapas bar. Not quite the José Andrés Jaleo experience, but it’s close to work and handy for a pleasant happy hour at the end of a work week (their hours are …

Researchers to Present Supply Chain Climate Vulnerability Index

April 24, 2019

Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Resilinc-Hosted Webinar on May 8 Targets Supply Chain, Sourcing and Procurement

University of Maryland researchers will present findings supporting their recently completed “Climate Change Variability/Vulnerability Index” in a complimentary webinar, hosted by software firm and project partner Resilinc, at 2 p.m. Wednesday, May 8. Register via https://go.umd.edu/UFk.

The 90-minute program will serve to explain the index and its supporting data as a means “to provide actionable information

International Collaboration on Satellite Identification of Atmospheric Rivers

April 23, 2019

For the first two weeks of April, ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Scientist Cezar Kongoli hosted Dr. Sante Laviola from the National Research Council (NRC), part of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (IASC) in Bologna, Italy. The visit’s primary research topics were the satellite detection of atmospheric rivers that contribute to flash floods and major snowstorms as well as the evaluation and inter-comparison of satellite snowfall detection algorithms and products developed at …

Side-by-Side Comparison of Satellite Ice Thickness Products

April 23, 2019

Sinead Farrell, ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Scientist, has recently published an assessment of sea ice thickness products from satellites alongside co-authors from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and University of Maryland’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. The researchers looked at eight years of sea ice thickness observations derived from measurements of CryoSat-2 (CS2), Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) …

Kenney, UMD Faculty Lead Graduate Workshop on Scholarly Communication

April 16, 2019

This semester, several University of Maryland (UMD) faculty members, including ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Professor Dr. Melissa Kenney, lead a 6-week workshop to expose graduate students to communicating their research outside of an academic setting. Tilted “SCoPE it out: Graduate Workshop on Fundamentals of Scholarly Communication and Public Engagement”, Kenney’s co-instructors included Dr. Karen Lips, professor in the Department of Biology, Dr. Kathleen Vogel, associate professor …

SMOPS Blended Soil Moisture Product Improves Land Model Simulations

April 12, 2019

ESSIC/CICS Assistant Research Scientists Jifu Yin and Jicheng Liu as well as Post-doctoral Associate Mitchell Schull have a new paper out in Water Resources Research titled “An Intercomparison of Noah Model Skills With Benefits of Assimilating SMOPS blended and Individual Soil Moisture Retrievals”. The paper compares blended and individual microwave satellite soil moisture data from Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) and evaluates the benefits of assimilating blended and …

Warm Winds in Autumn Could Strain Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf

April 12, 2019

New UMD-led research shows unusual three-year spike in late-season surface melt due to bursts of warm, dry wind from Antarctic Peninsula’s mountains The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of Earth’s coldest continent, making it particularly vulnerable to a changing global climate. Surface melting of snow and ice initiated the breakup of the peninsula’s northernmost Larsen A ice shelf in 1995, followed in 2002 by the Larsen B ice shelf to the south, which lost a section roughly …

Mishonov Co-Authors Poster at Austria Conference

April 10, 2019

This week, a poster co-authored by ESSIC Associate Research Scientist Dr. Alexey Mishonov will be presented at the 2019 EGU General Assembly, a gathering of international geoscientists in Vienna, Austria. The poster, titled “The Influence of the Deep Western Boundary Current on 231Pa & 230Th in the Northwest Atlantic”, reflects ongoing work to evaluate the influence of particle scavenging and the Deep Western Boundary Current on 231Pa and 230Th isotope distributions in the …