ASPB and CIMSS Weekly Report
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ASPB AND CIMSS WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE WEEK ENDING MARCH 7, 2009

IN THE PRESS:

ITEMS FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR:

ITEMS FOR THE ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR:

ITEMS FOR THE OFFICE DIRECTOR, STAR:

CEOS Strategic Implementation Team Meeting: The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Strategic Implementation Team (SIT) held its 23rd meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida, March 4-5. Mary Kicza, the NOAA Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services, is the current SIT Chair. The SIT requested the development of four gap analysis “threads”, which are end-to-end analyses of products, services, users, models, and satellite measurements needed to answer high-level questions. The threads are climate, water cycle, carbon, and cryosphere. Jeff Key developed a cryosphere thread to address the question “How do changes in the cryosphere impact sea level?” Mitch Goldberg developed and presented the carbon thread. While the next step is unclear, one or more of these threads might find their way into a future Group on Earth Observations (GEO) work plan. (J. Key, E/RA2, 608-263-2605, jkey@ssec.wisc.edu)

Manuscript on the GOES-10 Published by JARS: A manuscript on Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-10 was published by the on-line Journal of Applied Remote Sensing (JARS). The title is "Many uses of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-10 sounder and imager during a high inclination state." The authors are Timothy J. Schmit, Robert Rabin, A. Scott Bachmeier, Jun Li, Mathew M. Gunshor, Henry Steigerwaldt, Anthony J. Schreiner, Robert Aune, and Gary S. Wade. Two advantages of this journal are the page charges fee (none required) and the ability to include links to animations. The paper can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3099709. (T. Schmit, E/RA2, 608-263-0291, tim.j.schmit@noaa.gov)

ITEMS FOR THE DIVISION CHIEF, CoRP:

Teacher Climate Education Summit: Steve Ackerman and Margaret Mooney led a Climate Education Summit on Saturday, February 28, to identify ways to explain the fundamentals of climate system science and climate change to K-12 educators who don’t teach middle or high school science. A passionate group of teachers from Madison and Milwaukee convened for the day to discuss this important topic and develop recommendations for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the project funder. Assisted by graduate student Erin Wagner, the meeting narrowed the focus even further by dividing into two breakout groups. One of the groups which consisted of Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) elementary math and science teachers has already started a Yahoo group to continue discussions on-line. Ackerman and Mooney plan to leverage the results of this meeting with NOAA Climate Literacy efforts and co-convene a similar summit in another state later this year while simultaneously continuing to support MMSD climate education efforts. (S. Ackerman, CIMSS, 608-263-3647)

Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference: Chris Velden (Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) hurricane group lead) attended and co-chaired a session at this week's Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference (IHC) held in St. Petersburg, Florida. Among the presentations and research topics discussed were the advanced satellite-based methods for estimating hurricane intensity and environmental parameters. Matt Sitkowski (University of Wisconsin-CIMSS graduate student) also attended, and presented his work on hurricane eyewall signatures. (C. Velden, CIMSS, 608-262-9168)

Presentation on Remote Sensing of Oceans: Colleen Mouw, a new post-doc hire at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), gave a presentation on her PhD work titled "Phytoplankton community size structure in the global ocean: Optical determination and ecological implications." The presentation described how phytoplankton cell size is important to biogeochemical and food web processes. Satellite remote sensing reflectance spectra contains considerable information about in water constituents. The feasibility of retrieving phytoplankton community structure was investigated by isolating the effect that phytoplankton cell size has in the presence of other optically active constituents through the use of optical and radiative transfer models that are linked in a forward, linear fashion to monthly output of a global biogeochemical/ecosystem/circulation model. (M. Vasys, CIMSS, 608-263-7435)

VOAT Meeting: Andrew Heidinger attended the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Operational Algorithm Team (VOAT) meeting in Los Angeles, California. He presented a preliminary analysis of the cloud products from the VIIRS generated at the University of Wisconsin. The VIIRS cloud products were compared to those from NOAA and NASA. He also attended a tour of the VIIRS test facility at Raytheon. (A. Heidinger, E/RA2, 608-263-6757, andrew.heidinger@noaa.gov)

CIMSS VISIT Activities: The Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT) distance learning lesson "The Enhanced-V: A Satellite Severe Storm Signature" (http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/visit/ev.html) was led by staff from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) on March 3, 2009. Forecasters from the National Weather Service (NWS) office at Birmingham, Alabama participated in the VISIT lesson. In addition, the CIMSS Satellite Blog (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/) was updated with four new entires, including an example of a NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) infrared image showing an unusual polynya that had formed along the entire length of the Nares Strait region of the Canadian Arctic between the west coast of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. (S. Bachmeier, CIMSS, 608-263-3958)

(Click image to enlarge)

Figure caption: NOAA-17 AVHRR infrared image showing an unusual polynya that had formed along the entire length of the Nares Strait region of the Canadian arctic on February 25, 2009.

GOES Sounder Retrieval Software Supplied to NOAA/NESDIS/STAR: An updated version of software to compute retrievals of temperature and moisture using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Sounder radiances has been supplied to scientists (including J. Daniels) at NOAA/NESDIS/STAR. This software uses an updated algorithm for detecting clouds that has both spectral and spatial components. The previous cloud-clearing algorithm was only a spectral algorithm. (J. Nelson, CIMSS, 608-263-6013, T. Schreiner, CIMSS, 608-263-6754, T. Schmit, E/RA2, 608-263-0291)

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