Author: Travis Swaim

When the Landsat 5 was launched into orbit in 1984, the Guinness World Records wasn’t exactly in its trajectory.

However, after outliving its three-year design life and delivering high-quality, global data of Earth’s land surface for over 28 years, the satellite wound up breaking a lengthy record to say the least.

NASA was notified by Guinness World Records via email that the Landsat 5 was now the ‘Longest-operating Earth observation satellite’ in history.

The satellite was launched on March

Assistant Research Scientist Sinead Farrell, who recently served as coordinator for an ESSIC-hosted meeting on emerging cryospheric research opportunities, is a co-author of a soon to be published paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), detailing new results from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 mission. This new study presents the first two full winters of CryoSat-2 measurements over Arctic sea ice, after the launch of the satellite in April 2010. CryoSat-2 has the ability to …

ESSIC/AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde was featured in a story by the University of Maryland campus publication “The Diamondback,” regarding the changing climate and how it affects overall student health. New research is suggesting that climate change and erratic weather conditions could have a part in this season’s earlier flu outbreaks, as well as influencing other health related concerns. Murtugudde noted that the changing climate can effect the traditional start of the allergy season, …

ESSIC/AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde was featured in the online publication “The Hindu” for his presentation at the Jawaharlal Nehru National College of Engineering in the city of Shimoga, Karnataka, India. Murtugudde delivered a talk on ‘Big history: from bigbang to the cooperative species’ which focused on a variety of climate-related topics including the consumption of natural resources, as well as humanity’s effect on global warming. “The earth and human life have co-evolved, with human …

NOAA announced today that Louis W. Uccellini will be the 16th director of the agency's National Weather Service (NWS).

“It’s an honor to lead such a prestigious agency with the unbeatable mission of protecting lives and livelihoods.” said Uccellini.

The veteran NOAA scientist and administrator has led the NWS’ National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) since 1999. (NCEP relocated to the University of Maryland Research Park (M-Square) in late 2012.)

Although a prominent

The day after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made national headlines for his controversial comments regarding the role climate change played in fueling superstorm Sandy, ESSIC Director and ConE Chair Antonio Busalacchi was quoted by the Jersey Publication “The Record,” in an article regarding climate change and the rebuilding of the Jersey Shore. The article addresses concerns regarding rising sea levels and known climate data points leading up to Sandy, such as the state’s 21 consecutive …

Researchers: Anthony Busalacchi and Mathew Sapiano Grant Sponsor: NASA-Goddard Space Amount: $131,310 in additional funding bringing the total to $659,680 Grant Study: “Spatio-temporal Variability and Error Structure of Sea Surface Salinity in the Tropics.”   Researcher: Anthony Busalacchi Grant Sponsor: NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center Amount: $273,127 increase in funding bringing the total award to $1,154,633 Grant Study: “Collaborative Earth System Science Research between …

Raghu Murtugudde gave invited talks on “Optimal Physics for Actionable Climate Information,” at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, India (NIO), January 2 and ‘Do we really understand ENSO?’ on January 3.  On January 6 he talked about “From the Big Bang to the Cooperative Species” at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune….