Author: Travis Swaim

Two recent lightning fatalities in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) inform us of the tragic consequences that can accompany lightning.  These terrible events were separated by one day and less than two miles.  Sadly this marked the 10th and 11th lightning fatalities in RMNP since 1915 (first since 2000), and the 10th and 13th U.S. fatalities during 2014. News stories have covered these events from many different angles (examples provided below), but none have discussed the lightning …

After a successful launch of the pilot course during the 2014 spring semester, Professor Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm’s Sustainable Modeling course will be officially added to the University of Maryland curriculum in Spring 2015. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students, the UMD Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOSC) hosted course requires no prerequisites. Miralles-Wilhelm created the class group on Facebook, posting all of the YouTube videos and class materials to the page and keeping …

Reviving its five-year grant for an additional $93 million funding, the Cooperative Institute for Climate & Satellites at Maryland (CICS-MD) is focused on scientific expansion and integration. “Basically for the last 5 years we have been doing a lot of collaborations with NOAA, and many of these collaborations have been on an individual basis in the sense that particular NOAA researchers work directly with a CICS scientist,” said Dr. Hugo Berbery, the CICS-MD director. “It has been …

The University of Maryland (UMD) held its first Lightning Safety Awareness reporters’ workshop on June 24, 2014, raising awareness about lighting safety both for people and for building structures through multiple presentations, panel discussions, and a Lightning 101 class. Hosted by UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), presenters from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service (NWS), Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), Insurance …

Tuesday, 1 July 2014

The University of Maryland will continue to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) supported Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) for the next five years, following a renewal of the existing cooperative agreement for the period July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2019.

Initiated in May 2009, this partnership between NOAA, University of Maryland, North Carolina State, and 17 other institutions is one of the largest research consortiums in the country, both in

In 1997, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a satellite capable of measuring equatorial precipitation levels in sub-monthly time intervals. Nearly 20 years later, two University of Maryland (UMD) researchers are utilizing data from the satellite’s associated project, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), to combat the financial and loss of life issues caused by flooding. Floods are one of the most common and costly types of severe weather, according to …

ESSIC Assistant Research Engineer Li-Chuan Chen was elected as the Chair of ASCE/EWRI Risk, Uncertainty & Probabilistic Approaches Committee (RUPAC) during the 2014 World Environmental & Water Resources Congress on June 2 in Portland, OR.  RUPAC is a standing technical committee under the ASCE Environmental & Water Resources Institute….

ESSIC Faculty Research Assistant Stephanie Uz delivered an air-quality presentation to the Smithsonian Science Education Academy for Teachers.  The talk was presented through the “Science on a Sphere” interactive global display system, which uses computers and video projectors to display planetary data onto an animated globe.  Uz has provided the unique presentation at various venues this year, including the  Maryland Science Center and at the Science On a Sphere Users Collaborative …

Under the new Mid-Atlantic Coastal Resiliency Institute (MACRI), nine agencies and universities have agreed to partner together to help local and regional leaders make coastal communities more resilient to climate change. Addressing the coastline extending from New York City to Virginia Beach, contributing agencies include NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geologic Survey, Chincoteague Bay Field Station of the Marine Science Consortium, College of …