Author: Travis Swaim

Wellness and Sustainability Tips are selected from the UMD “FYI” Listserv system. The “FYI” Listserv provides general announcements and information on programs of particular interest to the faculty and staff of the University of Maryland. I. Wellness

• Wash your car and save the Bay

“Washing vehicles in a car wash is a simple way to be Chesapeake Bay-friendly. If a vehicle is hand washed, the dirt, oil, tar and particles in the waste water typically go into storm drains where they do not …

Sunday, 24 June 2012

Researcher Raghu Murtugudde, of the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, and Nandini Ramesh, co-authored a new study billed as a breakthrough in the predictability of the El Niño effect, a process involving uncharacteristically warm ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific.

The study, which Nature published today, finds that the Bjerknes feedback, a process that alters the volume of cold deepwater that rises in the East Pacific, is not an essential

A study conducted by ESSIC Associate Research Scientist Dr. Hongbin Yu and a team of scientist that assesses the contributions of cross-ocean aerosol transport to North America was published in Science Magazine (3 AUGUST 2012, VOL. 337, #6094). In the study, titled “Aerosols from Overseas Rival Domestic Emissions over North America”, the team estimates, from NASA satellite observations, that the mass of aerosols arriving at North American shores from overseas is comparable to the total mass …

Uncertainty can be a dangerous force of doubt when dealing with research data. Dr. Yudong Tian, an associate research scientist at ESSIC, is nearing the end of the first phase of a project to address this issue by developing a way to accurately predict uncertainties in satellite precipitation measurements. The first year of the three-year project has focused on collecting “huge amounts” of satellite data. The next two years will focus on analyzing this data and creating models that can be …

Conditions in both the atmosphere and the ocean favor a near-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin this season, according to NOAA. Beginning June 1, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says there is a 70 percent chance of nine to 15 named storms – with winds topping 39 mph or higher – for the entire six-month hurricane season. Of the storms, four to eight will strengthen to a hurricane – with winds topping 74 mph or higher – and of those, one to three will become major …

Interested in climate change? Interested in ice cream? Chances are, the answer to at least one of these questions is “yes.” The National Research Council is holding an event on Thursday, June 28, 2012, that caters to both of these interests. The NRC is inviting the public to the Koshland Science Museum to enjoy ice cream and watch the debut of a video “designed to help people understand the science of climate change and current state of knowledge,” according to the council’s “Climate Change …

Between watching his son play baseball, gardening at home, playing golf and vacationing in the Outer Banks, Visiting Associate Research Scientist Ralph Ferraro spends a lot of time outdoors. He even deals with the outdoors every day in his work on remote sensing environmental satellites.

As chief of NOAA’s Satellite Climate Studies Branch, he works with ESSIC and the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites to ensure that records of precipitation measurements are accurate