Category: Highlights

Figure: A rosette of Niskin (seawater sampling) bottles used to collect discrete water samples at specific, predetermined depths. Instruments for measuring depth, temperature, and conductivity (which helps determine salinity) are inside of the ring near the bottom (not visible). (Photo provided to Jiang et al. by Sabine Mecking of the University of Washington for the publication).

Jiang Leads International Effort to Create New Data Standard for Oceanographic Research

February 1, 2022

ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Li-Qing Jiang, who works on the Ocean Carbon Acidification Data System (OCADS) project at the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), coordinated a massive effort by the international community to develop a best practice data standard for discrete bottle-based chemical oceanographic data. The study, co-authored by ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Alex Kozyr and esteemed scientists at over 30 institutions in 10 countries, was published on January 21st in Frontiers in Marine Science.

CISESS Presents Two AMS Short Courses

January 26, 2022

Scott Rudlosky and Joseph Patton led an AMS short course titled “Accessing and Applying Geostationary Lightning Mapper Observations” on January 5 and 6. This two-part course introduced the GLM observations and imagery using GLM flash skeletons and gridded products used by the National Weather Service. Participants were shown how to access archived and real-time imagery before conducting a hands-on exercise illustrating their new-found skills. Additional information can be found at this link: Accessing and Applying Geostationary Lightning Mapper Observations.

A visual of the stable radiometric calibration of GOES-16 ABI

Accurate and Stable Radiometric Calibration of GOES-16 ABI IR Channels

January 26, 2022

ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Fangfang Yu (STAR/SMCD/SCDAB) has a new article in the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, co-written with Hyelim Yoo, Haifeng Qian, and Xi Shao. The paper describes the radiometric calibration of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) Infrared (IR) channels on GOES-16.

Using Machine Learning to Improve Snow Cover Fraction Observations

January 25, 2022

ESSIC/CISESS scientists Soni Yatheendradas and Sujay Kumar are co-authors on a paper in Journal of Hydrometeorology titled, “A novel Machine Learning-based gap-filling of fine-resolution remotely sensed snow cover fraction data by combining downscaling and regression”.

Snowfall Rate Product Captures First Nor’easter in 2022

January 11, 2022

The first nor’easter of 2022 swept through the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast on January 2-4, 2022, resulting in a heavy snow accumulation of up to 14 inches in Virginia and southern Maryland and stranding hundreds of drivers on Interstate 95 in Virginia. The NOAA NESDIS Snowfall Rate (SFR) product captured the evolution of the snowstorm with retrievals from the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) sensor aboard the S-NPP and NOAA-20 satellite missions, and the AMSU-A/MHS sensors aboard NOAA-19, Metop-B, and Metop-C.

NASA/NOAA Tech Will Aid Marine Oil Spill Response

December 20, 2021

As part of the NASA grant, UMD, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NOAA, United States Coast Guard, Watermapping Ltd., Maryland Department of Agriculture, Environment Canada, and Marine Spill Response Corporation participated in an experiment to compare oil thickness measurements (both in situ and remotely) in the hopes of validating an oil thickness product. By finding the thickest oil layers, researchers can identify key zones to bring in remediation equipment and clean up the most harmful oil in the environment. ESSIC Senior Faculty Specialist Frank Monaldo is involved in this field work and is featured in a video that highlights this work.

Figure: An MHW in Barrow AP in 2007, indicated by sea surface temperature (SST, solid black), climatological SST (SSTc, dotted green), MHW SST criterion (95th percentile SST, solid green), long-term mean summer temperature (LMST, solid blue), and surface air temperature (SAT, dotted black).

Marine Heat Waves in the Arctic Ocean

December 13, 2021

ESSIC/CISESS/SCSB visiting research scientist Tom Smith has a new article in press at Geophysical Research Letters that analyzes events of extremely warm waters in the oceans known as marine heatwaves (MHWs).

#AGU21 Guess the Science Contest – ESSIC Finalist!

December 13, 2021

As a part of American Geophysical Union’s 2021 Annual Meeting, AGU is hosting a contest in which scientists submitted photos and videos depicting their science without actually saying what science they study.

VIIRS Capable of Detecting Shipping Container Backlog in Light of Supply-Chain Challenges

December 8, 2021

ESSIC/CISESS Senior Faculty Specialist Yan Bai is a part of a NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) project alongside Changyong Cao, STAR/SMCD/SCDA. The scientists found that VIIRS imaging bands can detect shipping containers at ports under clear sky conditions, despite its moderate resolution and the weak signal. This may enable them to monitor the port activities such as shipping container backlog in light of supply-chain challenges as widely discussed in the media. Figure 1 shows that more than 50 ships were found in the port of Los Angeles on October 1, 2021, compared to about a dozen two years ago, which indicates a potential backlog on that day.

Figure: S-NPP SFR during the first accumulating snow of the 2021-2022 winter season in the central Appalachian counties.

Snowfall Rate Page for Local NWS Office

December 7, 2021

The ESSIC/CISESS snowfall rate (SFR) team, Huan Meng, Jun Dong, and Yongzhen Fan, set up a webpage for the NWS Sterling, VA Weather Forecast Office (Office Call Sign: LWX) at the request of Luis Rosa, a senior forecaster from the office. The page is set for the LWX county warning area (CWA). Currently, the page has the operational SFR images from five satellites but will be expanded to include the experimental SFR from four other satellites. The SFR product is produced at CISESS from direct broadcast data retrieved from the University of Wisconsin. The product latency ranges from 12-25 min depending on the satellite.