Author: Cazzy Medley

Figure 1. LPSs installation at the St. Victor Mulabana Primary School. PHOTO: Daile Zhang

Zhang Visits Uganda to Help with Installation of Lightning Protection Systems

July 3, 2024

ESSIC/CISESS scientist, Daile Zhang, who also serves as a Board of Directors of an NGO – African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network (ACLENet) visited Uganda last week. She and the team helped install lightning protection systems (LPSs) at the St. Victor Mulabana Primary School in Kalangala district, an Island on the Lake Victoria. Uganda experiences more than two million lightning strikes per year. The installation will protect 400+ students, teachers, and the nearby community from these lightning strikes.

View of Curtis Bay and surrounding areas facing south. Note multiple sources of pollution near the residential core. Photo credit: Summer Youth Environmental Justice Scholars; R. Gattis, Panorama drone photograph, 2023.

Dickerson On Improving Air Quality in Maryland’s Overburdened Communities

July 3, 2024

Russ Dickerson, ESSIC affiliate & key investigator for Climate Resilience Network, is working on an ongoing project to characterize and improve air quality in overburdened communities in Maryland.

Mishonov Presents World Ocean Database 2023

June 14, 2024

Last month, Alexey Mishonov participated in the International Conference on Marine Data and Information Systems (IMDIS24), held in Bergen, Norway.

An Air Quality Model That Is Evolving with the Times

June 7, 2024

ESSIC Scientist Min Huang is first author on a new article published in Eos, the American Geophysical Union’s science magazine. The article, titled “An Air Quality Model That Is Evolving with the Times”, discusses how the Sulfur Transport and Deposition Model (STEM) continues to find new applications and value in environmental science and policy making.

Figure 1. Biases of accumulated precipitation (mm) relative to the MRMS ground-based analysis of the five machine learning models studied during the period of 1 May to 30 September, 2022. Biases of the operational MiRS algorithm are also shown in the bottom right panel.

Using Machine Learning to Improve Microwave-Based Precipitation Estimates

May 31, 2024

ESSIC/CISESS scientist Chris Grassotti along with CIRA and NOAA researchers Shuyan Liu and Quanhua (Mark) Liu, recently published a paper in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing titled “Warm-Season Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MiRS) Precipitation Improvement Using Machine Learning Methods”.

Lisa Milani Talks Global Precipitation in Italy

May 24, 2024

On Earth Day 2024, Lisa Milani visited several schools in Italy participating in The Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) Mentorship Program – Educator Track. The

A schematic diagram describing the impacts of cloud-surface-coupling on the aerosol-cloud-interaction. When a cloud is coupled with the surface, a cloud is formed near the top of the planetary boundary-layer (PBL) that interacts strongly with the well-mixed aerosol, whereas they have little interaction under decoupled conditions. As aerosol alters cloud microphysics (more aerosol leads to more cloud droplets of smaller particle size that makes cloud brighter), solar radiation reflected by cloud is more under coupled conditions than under decoupled conditions, or a stronger cooling effect as indicated by the orange arrows. As a result, lack of accounting for the cloud-surface coupling tends to result in an underestimation of aerosol indirect radiative forcing, which is likely a major contributing factor to the systematic discrepancies between observation-based and model-based estimate of the aerosol cooling effect. Adapted from Su et al. (2024, Sci. Adv.).

Aerosols Affect Climate More Than We Think

May 23, 2024

A key to improve climate prediction is to improve understanding of the impact of aerosol on clouds, or commonly known as the aerosol-cloud-interaction according to a new study led by Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) researchers published today in Science Advances.

First International Workshop to Advance Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data Management and Interoperability

May 17, 2024

ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Liqing Jiang recently hosted the first International Workshop to Advance Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data Management and Interoperability in Venice, Italy on May 7-8 2024.

Airborne Lidar Measurements Of Atmospheric CO2 Column Concentrations To Cloud Tops

May 9, 2024

Jianping Mao is first author on a new paper in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques titled, “Airborne lidar measurements of atmospheric CO2 column concentrations to cloud tops made during the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE campaign”.

ESSIC at Maryland Day 2024

May 5, 2024

On Saturday, April 27, ESSIC faculty and staff gathered to celebrate Maryland Day, the University of Maryland’s largest community outreach event! This was the 26th year that the university held the event, and the 24th time that ESSIC has participated.