Category: Archive

Last month, the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) program organized and co-led an international workshop on satellite sea surface temperature (SST) On and Around Coral Reefs (SOAR) alongside the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). Held in Townsville, Australia, it was an official Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) workshop.  Its purpose was to identify gaps and potential improvements in current satellite SST products on and around coral reefs. SST users clarified …

ESSIC / CICS-MD associate research scientist Sinead Farrell was recently quoted in an article on Arctic Today titled, “Scientists are close to losing a critical tool for sea ice research”. The article describes the current vulnerability of the F-series satellites, a string of microwave radiometer satellites that began construction in the mid-1980s.  The lifecycle of each satellite is three to five years, with planned overlapping instruments launched at the first sign of operational wear …

ESSIC associate research scientist Augusto Getirana is the lead author of a study published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, titled “Deriving three dimensional reservoir bathymetry from multi-satellite datasets” Getirana and his co-authors propose and evaluate different techniques to analyze and access reservoir volume by combining multi-satellite imagery to generate 3-D reservoir bathymetry.  They found best estimates are obtained when radar altimetry, digital elevation …

ESSIC / AOSC professor Raghu Murtugudde recently penned an article posted on The Hindu Business Line titled, “Subsidies on irrigation efficiency may have negative impact on water use”. The article discusses the results of a recent study published in the journal Science, which suggests that although crop production yields are up, irrigation efficiency subsidies have not resulted in surplus water resources for urban, domestic and industrial uses. Murtugudde notes that combining subsidies …

ESSIC / AOSC professor Raghu Murtugudde was recently quoted in an article published in The Hindu Business Line titled, “It never rains but it pours”.  The article discusses the increasingly heavy rainfall events over some parts of India, detailing the coordination difficulties dealt with by Indian disaster management professionals.  Murtugudde weighs in on the “pressure gradient” created by warming in the Arabian Sea and Pakistan that fuel excess moisture into India, worsening …

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has named ESSIC Director and AOSC Chair Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm as its Lead Scientist for Global Water. In this role, Miralles-Wilhelm will consult TNC management, advising and assisting the agency in its efforts to develop and implement freshwater conservation practices.  Additionally, he will actively collaborate with TNC’s Science Cabinet in the Office of the Chief Scientist and serve as a conduit between the agency and the greater science community. TNC …

ESSIC assistant research scientist Xiaohua Pan co-authored an article recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres titled “Connecting Indonesian Fires and Drought With the Type of El Niño and Phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole During 1979–2016”. In the article, Pan considers Indonesian fire activity in conjunction with the types of El Niño events and the interactions between El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) phenomena.  One finding is that more intense and …

ESSIC associate research professor Ariana Sutton-Grier is a co-author of two new journal articles on decision making with respect to wetlands management within an evolving world and climate. “Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: The Adaptive Gradients Framework” also includes Melissa Kenney* as a co-author and is published in the journal Sustainability.  The article calls for a new approach in developing and managing coastal infrastructure that considers factors including the participatory …