UMD Scientist Helps Certify Two New Megaflash Lightning Records
January 31, 2022
Daile Zhang serves on the World Meteorological Organization’s Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes.
Category: Press Releases
Consortium Launches New Online Water Data Platform to Transform Water Management in the Western United States as Droughts Intensify
October 21, 2021
(SACRAMENTO, CA — October 21, 2021) OpenET, a new online platform that uses satellites to estimate water consumed by crops and other plants, launched today, making critical data for water management widely available in 17 western states for the first time amid record drought.
UMD Scientists Help Put a New Face on National Weather Service Forecast Maps
September 28, 2021
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) launched a new look and feel to some of their long-range U.S. temperature and precipitation forecast maps on September 15, 2021. As part of the National Weather Service’s suite of official forecast products, these maps are widely used by weather forecasters, media outlets and decision-makers whose industries rely on accurate weather information.
Ralph Ferraro Named ESSIC Associate Director
August 4, 2021
Ralph Ferraro, previously the Chief of the NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research, Satellite Climate Studies Branch (SCSB) and ESSIC Visiting Associate Research Scientist, has been named the Associate Director of Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) starting August 1, 2021.
Announcing ESSIC’s 1st AI/ML Workshop: On the Pathway to a Digital Earth
July 12, 2021
To embrace the rapidly evolving field of AI/ML, ESSIC launches the ESSIC AI Forum and a one-day workshop: “On the Pathway to a Digital Earth”.
Rising Greenhouse Gases Pose Continued Threat to Arctic Ozone Layer
June 23, 2021
There is a race going on high in the atmosphere above the Arctic, and the ozone layer that protects Earth from damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation will lose the race if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced quickly enough.
USDA Funds UMD Project to Sustain Agricultural Production in the Corn Belt with $10 Million
June 10, 2020
University of Maryland researchers will lead a five-year, $10 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to help farmers in the Corn Belt navigate efficient water and nutrient use in order to increase crop production.
Distinguished University Professor Ellen Williams Named Director of ESSIC
May 18, 2020
Ellen D. Williams, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland, has been named director of the university’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2020.
NASA Space Laser Missions Map 16 Years of Ice Sheet Loss
April 30, 2020
Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have made precise, detailed measurements of how the elevation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.
Are We Losing a Key Climate Change Buffer?
January 14, 2020
An international team led by researchers at the University of Maryland and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created the most high-resolution maps to date showing changes in the pH of seawater since the Industrial Revolution began. Their study, published in the December 9, 2019 issue of the journal Nature Scientific Reports, suggests that the ocean’s capacity to continue absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is diminishing.