Author: Cazzy Medley

Top row: Neil M. Donahue, Dalia Kirschbaum, Juan Lora Bottom row: Tracey Holloway, Claudia Tebaldi, Ines Azevedo

Welcome to the Spring 2024 ESSIC Seminar Series!

February 2, 2024

Welcome to the Spring 2024 semester! We are pleased to announce the return of ESSIC’s Seminar Series. We have a wonderful lineup of senior and junior scientists who are prepared to deliver some compelling presentations about their work and research both in-person and remotely.

Some of our speaker highlights include Dalia Kirschbaum, Director of the Earth Science Division of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Neil M. Donahue, Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Steinbrenner Institute as well as professor and AGU Fellow; Claudia Tebaldi, scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute and AGU Fellow; Ines Azevedo, associate professor at Stanford; Tracey Holloway, professor at UW–Madison and member of National Academy of Medicine; and Juan Lora, assistant professor at Yale.

Please click “Read more” for our full lineup and to add these events to your calendar now!

SatERR is a bottom-up approach, where the four types of errors including measurement, preprocessing, observation operator, and representativeness errors are generated from sources and forward propagate through radiances, science products, and data assimilation systems. This approach can quantify and partition errors and uncertainties in science products, and capture leading features of the most important errors in a statistical sense for data assimilation.

Leveraging Satellite Observations with a Comprehensive Simulator

January 29, 2024

Satellite observations are vital for weather forecasts, climate monitoring, and environmental studies. In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to develop methods for quantifying and representing errors associated with satellite observations. ESSIC scientist John Xun Yang has led a team of scientists in the creation of an error inventory simulator, the Satellite Error Representation and Realization (SatERR).

Hydroelectric dam on the river, water discharge from the reservoir, aerial photography

Hydropower: Worldwide Transition to Low-Carbon Energy Could Threaten Ecologically Sensitive Rivers

January 24, 2024

The global transition towards a low-carbon future could substantially accelerate hydropower deployment in ecologically sensitive rivers, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL)’s Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) and Tufts University. Published in Nature Sustainability, the paper analyzes the future hydropower expansion in the world’s 20 most ecologically sensitive rivers under different socio-economic and energy sector development scenarios.

Can meteorologists save the Chesapeake Bay?

January 22, 2024

When the nation’s leading experts in weather, water, and climate gather in Baltimore later this month for the annual conference of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), they will get a close-up view of the region’s fragile environment. The Chesapeake Bay area is under siege from a myriad of threats that are becoming more urgent with climate change, and its future economic and ecological vitality may depend in part on the ability of scientists to map out solutions to the bay’s complex and multiple stressors.

Figure: The within-year variation of SST, with 2023 values shown in black.

New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023

January 22, 2024

ESSIC/CISESS scientist Alexey Mishonov along with other scientists from the United States, China, New Zealand and Italy have a new article in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science documenting the record highs in the global ocean set in 2023.

Isaac Moradi smiles for the camera, wearing a red gridded button-up and a red tie

Moradi Appointed to AMS Radio Frequency Allocation Committee

January 10, 2024

Isaac Moradi, a research scientist and lead of the ESSIC numerical modeling and data assimilation affinity group, has been appointed as a member of the AMS Radio Frequency Allocation Committee, bringing invaluable expertise in microwave and radar observations and their role in weather predictions. The committee focuses on coordinating radio frequency spectrum management crucial to weather, water, and climate services. It serves a pivotal role in evaluating how spectrum policy changes might impact meteorological data collection and distribution. Moradi’s career, marked by advancements in data assimilation and numerical modeling through enhancing radiative transfer models, observations error analysis, improving the data assimilation systems for assimilating these observations, and developing advanced calibration techniques for satellite data, aligns seamlessly with the committee’s mission.

University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor Ellen Williams Retires

January 8, 2024

Ellen D. Williams, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland and director of the university’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), retired on December 30, 2023, after 42 years at the university. Following her official retirement, Williams is now a research professor of physics and executive director of ESSIC’s Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS).

A photo from the GEO Blue Planet Symposium

Digital Solutions for Sustainable Oceans: 6th GEO Blue Planet Symposium

January 8, 2024

The 6th GEO Blue Planet Symposium, organized by ESSIC/CISESS Scientist and GEO Blue Planet Executive Director Emily Smail was held from October 31 to November 2 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The event, which brought together a global community focused on “Digital Solutions for Sustainable Oceans”, was a resounding success.

ESSIC at the 2023 AGU Fall Meeting

January 3, 2024

Last month, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) held its annual Fall meeting from December 11 to 15. ESSIC scientists presented and attended both virtually and in-person in San Francisco, CA. The following is a sample (not all-encompassing) of the ESSIC/CISESS talks, presentations, and posters given at the event.

ESSIC Launches Seed Grant Program

January 2, 2024

This week, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) announced the selection of two recipients of the Seed Grant Program (ESGP), a new initiative to provide ESSIC scientists with internal funding mechanisms to carry out innovative research in pilot studies that have the strong potential to lead to future proposals for external funding.