Tag: Oceanography

Miralles-Wilhelm Lectures at College Park Nightlife Spot

January 8, 2019

ESSIC Director and AOSC Chair Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm was a featured speaker at the CMNS-sponsored “Science on Tap” event held in November 2018 at the Milkboy ArtHouse in downtown College Park. The new after-hours lecture series–a partnership between the UMD College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS), the UMD Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and MilkBoy ArtHouse—provides discussion of science and technology in a relaxed social atmosphere, accompanied by food …

Vogel Teaches Ice Detection through Satellites

January 7, 2019

ESSIC / CICS Senior Faculty Specialist Ron Vogel presented a wintertime boating safety webinar on the use of satellite radar measurements to detect ice in coastal waters. The class benefited state, federal, and academic field crews and monitoring personnel who conduct wintertime surveys of coastal conditions. Also benefiting were National Weather Service forecasters for improving marine forecasts. Satellite data from spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments can provide high …

UMD Researchers and Resilinc Corp. Create Index of Climate Change Risk to Company Supply Chains

November 28, 2018

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Last year a series of severe weather events including the late-winter storm that hit the U.S. Northeast, followed by weather-related damage that closed the U.S.-Mexico Laredo border, and subsequent U.S. landfall hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria contributed to a doubling of global supply chain disruption and, for the first time, made the United States the region most-impacted by such disruption. These impacts, highlighted in a recent report, form part of the impetus for a …

Vogel Co-Authors Algorithm Development Paper

November 26, 2018

ESSIC / CICS-MD Senior Faculty Specialist Ron Vogel recently co-authored a paper in Remote Sensing Letters titled “Approximation of diffuse attenuation, Kd, for MODIS high-resolution bands”. The paper discusses Kd-hires, a high resolution depth attenuation product used as a measure of water clarity. The authors compare the product with Wang’s operational Kd, another method of measurement, and found that the two algorithms had good agreement, ensuring improved retrievals. The …

ESSIC / CICS Contributions in the new AMS “State of the Climate in 2017”

October 10, 2018

The American Meteorological Society just released their annual State of the Climate report as a supplement to the August issue of the Bulletin of AMS. Five ESSIC / CICS-MD scientists wrote sections of the report: ● Jim Reagan (NCEI) provided an annual summary of the subsurface seawater salinity as well as the introductory section on Salinity in the Global Oceans chapter. ● Robert Adler (NCEI) co-authored the precipitation subsection for the Hydrological Cycle section in the Global …

Vogel Presents Satellite Data to EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program

October 10, 2018

Ron Vogel, ESSIC / CICS Senior Faculty Specialist, recently presented results of an innovative application of satellite data to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program, the agency responsible for coordinating the pollution cleanup of Chesapeake Bay. Working alongside partners from NOAA’s Fisheries Service, the group applied satellite estimates of improving water clarity to changes in overall oyster biomass. Since oysters efficiently filter the water where they live, …

NOAA Coral Reef Watch Analysis Featured in UNESCO Report

October 5, 2018

ESSIC / CICS-MD faculty specialist at NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) Erick Geiger co-authored a UNESCO update report assessing the historical, recent, and projected heat stress and bleaching at natural World Heritage properties with coral reefs. CRW team member Dr. Scott Heron, an ESSIC / CICS-MD sub awardee, led the effort and the publication. The report considered the implications of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, reflecting the goals of the Paris …

ESSIC / CICS-MD Scientists Present at STAR JPSS Annual Science Conference

September 11, 2018

On Monday, August 27, CICS-MD hosted the Poster Session and Reception for this year’s Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Annual Science Conference. A total of 67 posters were on display. Congratulations to the six ESSIC / CICS-MD scientists who presented: – Cezar Kongoli, et al., “Calibration and Validation of the S-NPP Snowfall Detection Algorithm;” – Yuling Liu et al., “Preliminary Quality Assessment of NOAA 20 LST EDR …

ESSIC / CICS-MD Scientists Part of AMS Published Climate Report

September 11, 2018

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) recently published a sidebar authored by the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) staff in its “State of the Climate in 2017” report. The staff includes ESSIC / CICS-MD scientists Gang Liu, Jacqueline De La Cour, and Erick Geiger as well as William Skirving, Scott Heron, and Benjamin Marsh. The sidebar, titled “Unprecedented three years of global coral bleaching 2014-17”, addresses the progression of the third documented global coral bleaching event …

UMD Prepares for Europa with Exploration for Liquid Water in Greenland

July 27, 2018

On Monday, July 23, dozens braved the relentless summer storms to visit MilkBoy ArtHouse for food, drink, and a science lecture given by Nicholas Schmerr, assistant professor in the *Department of Geology at the University of Maryland (UMD). The lecture, titled “Sounding Ice: Exploring for Liquid Water in the Frozen Subsurfaces of Greenland and Europa”, was a presentation of Schmerr’s field research on the icy terrain of Greenland. He and his team went on two separate journeys to the …