Tag: Climate

I’ve been a fan of snowstorms since I can remember, probably because I grew up in the Willamette Valley of Oregon where significant snow is a once-per-decade event (at least there was one storm of consequence in the 10 years that I remember).  I moved to Silver Spring in June 1961 and rewarded with consistently snowy winters – the 60s averaged almost 2’ per year at National airport (DCA).  Occasionally we would have a winter without much snow, but it was rare to get two in a row.  Last

In an interview on October 28, ESSIC Research Associate Michael Folmer, spoke with WeatherNation on some of the new technology at NOAA that allowed scientists to better prepare the public for Hurricane Sandy. Working as the satellite liaison at NOAA, Folmer discussed how NOAA’s satellite imagery is not only allowing them to better analyze the storm, but to better serve the public as well. “We have a plethora of products that were able to show the forecasters that help to improve their …

The Indian news station, India Today Group, interviewed ESSIC’s very own Professor Raghu Murtugudde in a feature package regarding Hurricane Sandy. The broadcast (in Hindi) pictured Murtugudde perched at a high point during the storm, with a skyline background behind him that showed the effects of the storm in DC/Maryland. Professor Murtugudde mentioned the high pressure of the storm, as well as the recent closings of the New York subway system and the D.C metro system. This isn’t Professor …

Dr. Raghu Murtugudde, ESSIC and AOSC Professor, and an undergraduate student, have uncovered a major new finding about El Niño – the cyclical climate event that can appear every two to seven years, sometimes with major global weather impacts such as massive flooding and severe droughts. The study, published online last month in Nature Climate Change, reveals a previously unrecognized sign of a looming El Niño that can be detected up to 18 months in advance, nine months earlier than …

With heat waves, a strong derecho, wildfires and widespread drought defining this year’s weather in the U.S., many are questioning if climate change is affecting us already. “It’s clear that when we look at the consequences of climate change, that it’s in severe weather where we are going to see effects,” climate scientist Don Wuebbles of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign told USA Today. More than 40,000 daily heat records have been broken around the country so far this year, …

Dr. Massimo Bollasina, a former PhD candidate advised by AOSC and ESSIC Professor Dr. Sumant Nigam, has received the Norbert Gerbier-MUMM International Award for 2013. Bollasina of Princeton University, along with Drs. Yi Ming and Venkatachalam Ramaswamy of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), received the prestigious award from their paper that examined the prominent role of human-made aerosols in shaping regional climate change over South Asia, according the a World …

During the school year, more than 10 ESSIC faculty members spend time teaching in the classrooms at the University of Maryland. But when school is out for the summer, several of them travel the world researching, delivering lectures and collaborating with colleagues. Director Antonio Busalacchi, Professor Raghu Murtugudde and Associate Professor Michael Evans, all devote summer time to travel internationally. Busalacchi said that international cooperation has direct implications for ESSIC, …

Publication – NewsWise
Date: June 17, 2012 “Arctic Methane Seeps Could Spell Trouble for Florida” A four-member team of researchers found as the ancient reserves of methane gas seep from the melting Arctic ice cap, the permafrost thaws and there is a release of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that causes climate warming. Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, documented a large number of gas seep sites in the Arctic where permafrost is thawing and glaciers receding (they found …