Author: Travis Swaim

Candela Cerpa, a student research assistant at the Environmental Decision Support Science Laboratory led by ESSIC associate research professor Melissa Kenney, has received the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. The Hollings Scholarship Program competitively awards 120 students a scholarship every year. In addition to monetary support for academics, scholarship recipients earn paid internship opportunities with NOAA. Cerpa studies environmental science and policy at the …

Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm was named chair of the University of Maryland’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (AOSC) for a five-year term effective July 1, 2018.  He is currently a professor in the department and interim director of UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC). He will continue leading ESSIC through 2021. Miralles-Wilhelm also serves as executive director of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and …

ESSIC faculty specialist Michael Folmer has been following a volcanic eruption in Guatemala with the new data from GOES-R/GOES-16 in the Satellite Liaison Blog. On Feb. 1, the first ash plume from Volcán de Fuego was captured by the satellite. Folmer used this opportunity to have the Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) rate the various satellite channels and products….

ESSIC is getting a new neighbor — the University of Maryland's Division of Information Technology (DIT).  The division will arrive at its newly constructed home at 5801 University Research Court this summer, according to an article in The Diamondback. ESSIC and DIT were formerly neighbors in the old Computer and Space Sciences building on the UMCP campus prior to the Center’s relocation to the Discovery District in 2008….

ESSIC/AOSC professor Raghu Murtugudde wrote a piece in The Hindu Business Line about predicting monsoons. The article, titled “Monsoon modelling is not like the ‘blind men and elephant’ story,” addresses shortcomings in monsoon modelling. It cites various studies, including UMD-NOAA studies, which analyze such errors. Read the full piece here….