Category: Archive

International Collaboration on Satellite Identification of Atmospheric Rivers

April 23, 2019

For the first two weeks of April, ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Scientist Cezar Kongoli hosted Dr. Sante Laviola from the National Research Council (NRC), part of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (IASC) in Bologna, Italy. The visit’s primary research topics were the satellite detection of atmospheric rivers that contribute to flash floods and major snowstorms as well as the evaluation and inter-comparison of satellite snowfall detection algorithms and products developed at …

Side-by-Side Comparison of Satellite Ice Thickness Products

April 23, 2019

Sinead Farrell, ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Scientist, has recently published an assessment of sea ice thickness products from satellites alongside co-authors from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and University of Maryland’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. The researchers looked at eight years of sea ice thickness observations derived from measurements of CryoSat-2 (CS2), Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) …

Kenney, UMD Faculty Lead Graduate Workshop on Scholarly Communication

April 16, 2019

This semester, several University of Maryland (UMD) faculty members, including ESSIC/CICS Associate Research Professor Dr. Melissa Kenney, lead a 6-week workshop to expose graduate students to communicating their research outside of an academic setting. Tilted “SCoPE it out: Graduate Workshop on Fundamentals of Scholarly Communication and Public Engagement”, Kenney’s co-instructors included Dr. Karen Lips, professor in the Department of Biology, Dr. Kathleen Vogel, associate professor …

SMOPS Blended Soil Moisture Product Improves Land Model Simulations

April 12, 2019

ESSIC/CICS Assistant Research Scientists Jifu Yin and Jicheng Liu as well as Post-doctoral Associate Mitchell Schull have a new paper out in Water Resources Research titled “An Intercomparison of Noah Model Skills With Benefits of Assimilating SMOPS blended and Individual Soil Moisture Retrievals”. The paper compares blended and individual microwave satellite soil moisture data from Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) and evaluates the benefits of assimilating blended and …

Warm Winds in Autumn Could Strain Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf

April 12, 2019

New UMD-led research shows unusual three-year spike in late-season surface melt due to bursts of warm, dry wind from Antarctic Peninsula’s mountains The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of Earth’s coldest continent, making it particularly vulnerable to a changing global climate. Surface melting of snow and ice initiated the breakup of the peninsula’s northernmost Larsen A ice shelf in 1995, followed in 2002 by the Larsen B ice shelf to the south, which lost a section roughly …

Mishonov Co-Authors Poster at Austria Conference

April 10, 2019

This week, a poster co-authored by ESSIC Associate Research Scientist Dr. Alexey Mishonov will be presented at the 2019 EGU General Assembly, a gathering of international geoscientists in Vienna, Austria. The poster, titled “The Influence of the Deep Western Boundary Current on 231Pa & 230Th in the Northwest Atlantic”, reflects ongoing work to evaluate the influence of particle scavenging and the Deep Western Boundary Current on 231Pa and 230Th isotope distributions in the …

NCEI Features New Study by Mishonov and Reagan

April 10, 2019

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently featured a study conducted by ESSIC Associate Research Scientist Dr. Alexey Mishonov and ESSIC / CICS-MD Senior Faculty Specialist James Reagan. The study, “Eddy‐Resolving In Situ Ocean Climatologies of Temperature and Salinity in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean”, was published in the January 2019 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans and discussed the development of a new decadally averaged …

Local Eats: Banana Blossom

April 5, 2019

Finally. The corner of Queensbury Road and Rhode Island Avenue is now home to a Vietnamese “upscale, fast-casual” eatery. Have some pho, or make your own noodle or rice bowl … plenty of crunchy, spicy condiments and other fresh stuff to add on. I like it. I had a basic plate – rice, mushrooms, and tofu nuggets (with a spicy garlic sauce on the side). Nothing fried or heavy on the stomach, just right. Warm-coloured and -feeling decor, owners who cater to folk who have …

Wild Co-Authors Report on Ozone Trends and Uncertainties

April 4, 2019

Recently, ESSIC / CICS-MD Senior Faculty Specialist Jeannette Wild co-authored several chapters of the Long-term Ozone Trends and Uncertainties in the Stratosphere (LOTUS) Report, a two-year endeavor to characterize the status and possible recovery of global ozone using datasets from satellite and ground instruments. The study also sought to classify and determine the associated error estimates of the trends derived from the instruments. The proper understanding of the error is crucial to …

El Niño and La Niña Responsible for India’s Cold Winter, Writes Murtugudde

March 29, 2019

ESSIC/AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde recently wrote an article in Tech2 titled “El Niño and La Niña Tinker with Western Disturbances and India’s Winters Too”. In the article, he discusses the unusually cold winter that India has experienced this year. Though many point to the term “polar vortex” to explain these temperatures, Murtugudde points to El Niño, which affects India’s “Subtropical Westerly Jet” (SWJ), a jet stream that acts as a conduit to western disturbances; …