2021’s world ocean was the hottest ever recorded, beating out even last year’s record high temperatures, finds Alexey Mishonov, Jim Reagan, and a team of international scholars.
Xin-Zhong Liang was recently published in Nature’s “News and Views” section giving his insight on new research that reported a comprehensive assessment of changes in gross regional product (GRP) relating to excessive precipitation. The study concluded that increases in the numbers of wet days and in extreme daily rainfall dramatically reduces worldwide macroeconomic growth rates.
The first nor’easter of 2022 swept through the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast on January 2-4, 2022, resulting in a heavy snow accumulation of up to 14 inches in Virginia and southern Maryland and stranding hundreds of drivers on Interstate 95 in Virginia. The NOAA NESDIS Snowfall Rate (SFR) product captured the evolution of the snowstorm with retrievals from the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) sensor aboard the S-NPP and NOAA-20 satellite missions, and the AMSU-A/MHS sensors aboard NOAA-19, Metop-B, and Metop-C.
ESSIC/CISESS had several talks, e-lightning sessions, posters, virtual town halls, and tutorials at this year’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, held in New Orleans and online from December 13 to 17.
CISESS has announced four Seed Grant Program awards to help develop transformative research that requires a proof of concept to assist NOAA in recognizing and supporting new topics that eventually will be carried out in CISESS.
As part of the NASA grant, UMD, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NOAA, United States Coast Guard, Watermapping Ltd., Maryland Department of Agriculture, Environment Canada, and Marine Spill Response Corporation participated in an experiment to compare oil thickness measurements (both in situ and remotely) in the hopes of validating an oil thickness product. By finding the thickest oil layers, researchers can identify key zones to bring in remediation equipment and clean up the most harmful oil in the environment. ESSIC Senior Faculty Specialist Frank Monaldo is involved in this field work and is featured in a video that highlights this work.
ESSIC/CISESS/SCSB visiting research scientist Tom Smith has a new article in press at Geophysical Research Letters that analyzes events of extremely warm waters in the oceans known as marine heatwaves (MHWs).
As a part of American Geophysical Union’s 2021 Annual Meeting, AGU is hosting a contest in which scientists submitted photos and videos depicting their science without actually saying what science they study.
ESSIC/CISESS Senior Faculty Specialist Yan Bai is a part of a NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) project alongside Changyong Cao, STAR/SMCD/SCDA. The scientists found that VIIRS imaging bands can detect shipping containers at ports under clear sky conditions, despite its moderate resolution and the weak signal. This may enable them to monitor the port activities such as shipping container backlog in light of supply-chain challenges as widely discussed in the media. Figure 1 shows that more than 50 ships were found in the port of Los Angeles on October 1, 2021, compared to about a dozen two years ago, which indicates a potential backlog on that day.
The ESSIC/CISESS snowfall rate (SFR) team, Huan Meng, Jun Dong, and Yongzhen Fan, set up a webpage for the NWS Sterling, VA Weather Forecast Office (Office Call Sign: LWX) at the request of Luis Rosa, a senior forecaster from the office. The page is set for the LWX county warning area (CWA). Currently, the page has the operational SFR images from five satellites but will be expanded to include the experimental SFR from four other satellites. The SFR product is produced at CISESS from direct broadcast data retrieved from the University of Wisconsin. The product latency ranges from 12-25 min depending on the satellite.
5825 University Research Ct., Ste. 4001, College Park, MD 20740-3823
Phone: (301) 405-0050
