ESSIC Director and Distinguished University Professor Ellen Williams has been named Chair of the NASA Science Committee and member of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).
GEO Blue Planet, a network of ocean and coastal-observers, social scientists and end-user representatives, will hold its 5th Symposium from October 24-28, 2022. It will take place in-person in Accra, Ghana with a virtual component. This year’s theme will focus on GEO Blue Planet’s core actions areas, “capacity development, stakeholder engagement & cooperation & co-design driving sustained ocean and coastal observations for society”.
The 2022 Annual Global Space-based Inter-Calibration System (GSICS) meeting was successfully held online on 10 March 2022 and 14 – 18 March 2022. Dr. Fangfang Yu, ESSIC/CISESS Associate Research Scientist and new presiding chair of the GSICS Research Working Group (GRWG), led the effort to organize the meeting with the help of the GSICS Coordination Center (GCC) and GRWG members.
Two NASA Glaciologists, Kelly Brunt and Alex Gardner, recently sat down to discuss the history, challenges, and evolution of mapping the Antarctic continent and what it means for science and society.
ESSIC/CISESS Post-doctoral Associate Daile Zhang has written an article on the legacy of lightning and thunder gods in Chinese history that is featured in this month’s issue of Weatherwise.
A giant lenticular cloud was seen in Maryland at about 5:50 pm on March 1st, 2022. ESSIC/CISESS Post-doctoral Associate Daile Zhang captured the cloud in Figure 1 below and a video posted to her Twitter account. GOES-East also detected the cloud as seen in Figure 2 and 3.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting was held virtually this year from January 23 to 27. Simultaneously, AMS held a number of specialized conferences and symposiums, focusing on topics including hydrology, climate variability and change, and atmospheric chemistry. ESSIC/CISESS scientists contributed a large number of talks and posters at the event. Talks included:
ESSIC/CISESS Research Scientist Isaac Moradi has been elected to the University State Senate as one of the Professional-Track Faculty members. The University Senate, composed of faculty, staff, students, and administrators, is one of the largest and most influential governing bodies at the University of Maryland. As a member of the senate, Moradi will help advise the University President on campus policy matters and concerns, including education, budget, personnel, campus-community, long range plans, facilities, and faculty, staff and student affairs.
ESSIC/CISESS had several talks, e-lightning sessions, posters, virtual town halls, and tutorials at this year’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, held in New Orleans and online from December 13 to 17.
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.
