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Making Yourself Known…from Someone Who Knows

Al Blackadar, AMS Honorary Member and Past President and veteran of countless AMS meetings, shared this story to us this week. It proves the power of serendipity as well as the value of getting to know people in your field–precisely the point of Annual Meeting week and in particular events like the new Reception for Young Professionals this coming Sunday:

I happened to be in Boston one morning in 1948 or thereabout with a late-afternoon train reservation to return to New York. I was then an instructor at NYU working for a degree and hoping to find a start on my career. On an idle thought I wandered over to 45 Beacon Street to see the ruins that had just been acquired for the future AMS headquarters and unexpectedly met Ken Spengler and Tom Malone, then President of the AMS. I accepted an invitation for a tour and lunch, neither of which had been previously scheduled. Next morning, back at home in New Jersey I was awakened by a surprise phone call from Tom Malone asking me if I would accept an appointment as Editor of the AMS Monographs!
I have often mentioned this experience to my students. There are unlimited ways to make yourself known – more than you will ever expect or ever plan. Make it a habit and I can guarantee success.

Nowhere to Hide from Snow . . . Except Florida

It snowed throughout the Northeast on Wednesday, but very few are feeling sorry for everyone in that region who had to pull out their shovels. The odds are good that you or someone you know in your state has had to deal with snow lately, too–no matter where you live in the country. According to the NWS’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, which collects snow cover and depth data from ground reports and satellite observations, 49 of the 50 states currently have some snow cover…even Hawaii (this video was taken last month)! Only Florida has avoided a recent visit from Jack Frost.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Anytown, USA?

This isn’t an unprecedented event–in fact, all 50 states had snow on the ground last February 12th, and University of Oklahoma meteorology student and AMS student member Patrick Marsh obtained pictures from every state of that day’s snow.
But “it’s not typical,” says James Peronto, public affairs officer for the NWS, who noted that recent snowfall throughout the Southeast has created the unusually white map.
“The Southern states don’t typically get significant snow amounts through the year,” Peronto said. “It takes a special kind of weather scenario to allow that to happen.”
(This quick history lesson on Southern snow illustrates how rarely such a scenario occurs.)
NWS observations show that 70.9% of the country was covered by snow as of yesterday, compared to an average of 35% snow cover in December.
A NOAA map of U.S. snow depth and cover yesterday.

Snow cover and depth analyses like these are not just for interstate precipitation bragging rights or cabin-fever consolation. At the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, a number of science presentations will show the value of snow cover observations.
For example, Patricia de Rosnay et al. will present recent “major changes implemented” in the operational surface analysis of the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting’s Integrated Forecasting System,” including a method of combining satellite observations of snow cover for the land surface conditions for weather modeling. (Tuesday, 25 January, 1:45 p.m.; WSCC 611).
Sujay Kumar et al. (poster 42, 9:45 a.m.-11:15 a.m., Tuesday, 25 January), will discuss snow cover from active microwave remote sensing and look at the value of assimilating snow observations from multiple satellites for hydrological modeling. They point out that “Snow conditions on the land surface are … key components of the global hydrological cycle as they play a critical role in the determination of local and regional climate.”
One way in which this is true is in regions where melted snow dominates water supply. On Thursday 27 January (4:15 p.m., WSCC 611) Randal Koster et al. will “examine how knowledge of mid-winter snow accumulation and soil moisture contributes to our ability to predict streamflow months in advance.” In an experiment with multiple land surface models,  “snowpack information by itself contributes, as expected, to skill attained in streamflow prediction, particularly in the mountainous west.” (They go on to show the additional importance of soil moisture conditions to long-lead forecasts, particularly in winter.)
Meanwhile, as a basis for the observations used in such studies, Ding Liang et al. (Poster 595; 8:30 a.m-4 p.m., Wednesday, 26 January) will delve into improvements for modeling of microwave emissivity of snow—an important step toward constructed improved snow cover data retrieved from satellite remote sensing.

Uccellini Is AMS President-Elect

Louis Uccellini

With a huge snowstorm blowing through the northeast United States, it seems an appropriate time to announce that Louis Uccellini has been voted the new AMS president-elect. The director of the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Uccellini has coauthored two acclaimed AMS books on just the kind of snow the Northeast received today: Snowstorms Along the Northeastern Coast of the United States: 1955 to 1985 and Northeast Snowstorms. Uccellini will take over as AMS president in January 2012.
Four new councilors were also chosen in the elections: Peter J. Lamb, Patricia A. Phoebus, William L. Read, and H. Joe Witte. They began their three-year terms in January.
The AMS congratulates all the winners!

Local Storms, International Headaches

With most of us focusing so much on the weather in our hometown, it can be easy to forget that a local weather event can exert global influence. But given recent events in New York City and Panama, it appears that Mother Nature has been trying to reinforce that point.
The post-Christmas snowstorm that hammered much of the eastern United States produced chaos for travelers in a number of states, but it was the 20 inches that fell in New York City that had the farthest reaching impact. The closure of all three NYC metro airports caused a ripple effect that spread across the country and throughout other parts of the world. Not only were throngs of holiday travelers stranded at terminals in New York, but more than 5,000 domestic flights–as well as many in other countries–were canceled and countless more were backed up for days while waiting for LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports to get up and running. So, for example, more than 200 flights were canceled at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports solely because of the East Coast snow, disrupting the plans of thousands of travelers even though the blizzard was hundreds of miles to the east.
(Aside 1: What could be a better use of your time when stuck in a snowstorm than this cool time-lapse video shot during the blizzard in the New Jersey shore town of Belmar…)

(Aside 2: There’s that old meteorologists’ adage, “Nobody lives at the Airport”, which happens to be the title of Larry Heitkemper’s presentation at our Seattle meeting, Wednesday 26 January. Heitkemper discusses how to transform official airport observations into data relevant to energy demand where people actually live; apparently, however, when blizzards strike far too many people really do live at the airport.)
Meanwhile, heavy rains last month in Panama forced the Panama Canal to close for just the third time in its 96-year history. Torrential rainfall inundated parts of Central and South America throughout November and early December.  Two artificial lakes (Gatun and Alhajuela) in Panama that flow into the canal rose to record-high levels, forcing the canal to close for 17 hours so that one of the lakes could be drained. While the closing was short-lived, the global effects were still significant. About 5% of all international trade utilizes the canal, with approximately 40 ships winding through its 48 miles each day. While sections of the canal have been blocked at times, it was the first time the entire canal was closed since the United States invaded Panama in 1989. The only other closures were caused by landslides in 1915 and 1916, not long after it first opened.

Say It Ain't Snow, Santa

Is it possible that dreaming of a white Christmas can backfire? Parts of the United Kingdom may find out over the next week if bitter cold temperatures and heavy snowfall continues. The conditions–which also have included gale-force winds at times–are getting so severe that officials are warning that many packages may not be delivered in time for them to be opened on Christmas morning, creating the possibility that Santa may not be arriving (on time) this year. Heavy snow predicted for the weekend has already started in many locations, and severe weather warnings have been given for a number of areas. (The UK Met Office has been tracking the snowfall on an interactive map on their website.)

A recent capture of an interactive snow map on the Met Office website, which shows snowfall amounts and locations.

Temperatures consistently below 0°C have been chilling the region for weeks, with The Weather Outlook forecaster Brian Gaze calling the cold spell “a once-in-a-lifetime event.” Snow and ice on roads, runways, and rails have created travel headaches, with the next week likely to be even worse. But no one’s travel is as important as St. Nick’s, and at this point the forecasts are not favorable.
“This year in Scotland and the northeast [England] it is likely that Father Christmas won’t be coming,” said Simon Veale, director of the delivery company Global Freight Solutions, in a statement certain to shock children throughout the United Kingdom.
The current scene is evoking comparisons to perhaps the U.K.’s most famous holiday weather event, the 1927 Christmas Blizzard that left 20-foot snowdrifts in some locations.

It’s in the Bag

Grocery shoppers usually are prepared to answer just one question at the check out line: “paper or plastic?” In Iowa, though, if they choose paper, they can also answer questions like, “What do you do if you see a tornado?” because they’re likely looking right at the answer….on the sides of the bags filled with their purchases.
The severe weather tips printed on grocery bags are the work of the AMS Iowa State University chapter. It is one of the effective initiatives that recently earned them the AMS Student Chapter of the Year–they’ll be honored along with other 2011 AMS award winners at the upcoming AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle.
The students first provided tips advising what to do in the event of lightning, tornadoes, or flooding, in the Ames and Ankeny HyVee stores in April of last year. Chapter members came up with the idea two years ago as an easy way to increase community weather awareness.  They teamed up with the Central Iowa Chapter of the NWA to create the bags and expanded the distribution through much of central Iowa, including the Des Moines metropolitan area.
The chapter plans to expand further this year, aiming to distribute these safety tips to all 220 plus HyVee stores throughout the Midwest, including in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

A Good Climate for Looking at Clouds

How much do we know about clouds and the effects they have on climate change? It’s a lingering source of uncertainty, with as many questions as answers. No wonder the National Science Foundation calls them “The Wild Card of Climate Change” on its new website about the effect of clouds in climate.
The site is good place to start thinking about this complicated issue. The NSF page features videos of cloud experts like David Randall of Colorado State University and AMS President Peggy LeMone of NCAR, as well as a slide show, animations, articles, and other educational material that address some of most salient cloud/climate questions, such as: Will clouds help speed or slow climate change? Why is cloud behavior so difficult to predict? And how are scientists learning to project the behavior of clouds?
The impression one gets from the website about the progress of the science in this area may vary depending on your point of view, but Randall, for one, sounds about as optimistic as you can get. In his video, he admits that optimism is a job requirement for climate modelers, but in his assessment, “We’re not in the infant stages of understanding [clouds] any more; we’re in first or second grade, and on the way to adolescence.” His hope for solving their role in climate and representing cloud effects in climate modeling rests in part on better computers and in part on the numerous bright people entering the field now, ready to overshadow the work of their mentors.
The AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle will be a good occasion to dig deeper at the roots of Randall’s optimism and sample some of the emerging solutions to the cloud/climate relationship. For example, Andrei Sokolov and Erwan Monier of MIT will discuss the influence that adjusting cloud feedback has on climate sensitivity  (Wednesday, 26 January, 11:30 a.m. in Climate Variability and Change). Basically, they’re using small adjustments to the cloud cover used to calculate surface radiation in a model to create a suite of results–an ensemble. The range of results better reflects the sensitivity of climate observed in the 20th century better than some other methods of creating ensembles, such as adjusting the model physics.
Randall says in his video that early predictions about climate change are already coming to pass and this leads to optimism that more predictions will verify well in the coming years as we scrutinize climate more and more closely. This of course presupposes sustained efforts to observe and verify. Laying the groundwork for this task–and for thus better climate models–are Stuart Evans (University of Washington) and colleagues in a study they are presenting in Seattle. According to their abstract, “Improving cloud parameterizations in large scale models hinges on understanding the statistical connection between large scale dynamics and the cloud fields they produce.” Their study focuses on the relationship between synoptic-scale dynamic patterns and cloud properties (Monday, 24 January, 11 a.m. in Climate Variability and Change). Evans et al. dig through 13 years of cloud vertical radar profiles from the US Southern Plains site of the DOE ARM program and relate it to atmospheric “states”, thus providing a metric for evaluating how well climate models relate cloudiness to radiation and other surface properties.
While Evans and colleagues use upward looking remote sensing, Joao Teixeira (JPL/Cal Tech) and coauthors look down at boundary layer cloudiness from above–using satellites. They expect to show how new methodologies with satellite data can improve the way low level clouds are parameterized in climate models (Thursday, 27 January, 9:30 a.m., in Climate Variability and Change). A recent workshop at Cal Tech on space-based studies of this problem stated:

Clouds in the boundary layer, the lowermost region of the atmosphere adjacent to the Earth’s surface, are known to play the key role in climate feedbacks that lead to these large uncertainties. Yet current climate models remain far from realistically representing the cloudy boundary layer, as they are limited by the inability to adequately represent the small-scale physical processes associated with turbulence, convection and clouds.

The lack of realism of the models at this low level is compounded by the lack of global observing of what goes on underneath the critical low-level cloud cover–hence the effort of Teixeira et al. (and others) to “leverage” satellite observing, with its global reach, to improve understanding of low level thermodynamics in the name of improving climate simulations.

From the new NSF web page on clouds and climate, this picture shows a series of mature thunderstorms in southern Brazil. Photo credit: Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

Kermit Would Approve

It’s not easy being green, as Kermit the Frog famously lamented on the TV show, “Sesame Street,” but it might be getting easier thanks in part to the Tungara frog—a native of Central and South America. David Wendell of the University of Cincinnati recently led a study that developed a new type of foam that can absorb CO2 and convert it to sugar before it escapes into the atmosphere (a process that occurs naturally in plants during photosynthesis). A key ingredient in the foam, which could be placed into the exhaust systems of power plants, is a protein that is naturally created by the Tungara frog to form a foam nest that protects their eggs. (Here’s a brief video showing a frog weaving the nest.)  
“I read about a protein that the frog uses that allows bubbles to form in the nest, but doesn’t destroy the lipid membranes of the eggs that the females lay in the foam, and realized that it was perfect for our own foam,” says Wendell. The CO2-absorbing foam is an amalgam of numerous enzymes harvested from plants, fungi, bacteria, and frogs, and it converts all of the solar energy it captures into sugars, making it as much as five times more efficient than plants, and, according to Wendell, “the first technology that actually consumes more carbon than it generates.” The invention recently won the $50,000 grand prize at the 2010 Earth Awards, which were founded in 2007 to encourage innovative designs “to improve our quality of life and build a new economy.”

Successful Launch for Rocket City Weather Fest

In October, the University of Alabama in Huntsville student chapter of AMS (UAHuntsville AMS) hosted its first Rocket City Weather Fest (RCWF), a free weather festival for the North Alabama community.  For its debut year, the fest had close to 300 in attendance, as well as more than 50 exhibitors and presenters.
“Due to the variety of weather extremes experienced in the Tennessee Valley, one of the priorities of the UAHuntsville AMS is to educate the community about severe weather safety,” comments Sandy LaCorte, RCWF event coordinator and UAHuntsville AMS education outreach committee chair. “The event gave children and adults the opportunity to explore the atmospheric sciences through hands-on activities, demonstrations, and informative seminars, emphasizing safety and preparedness.”
At the Wacky World of Weather, kids learned about hurricanes, tornadoes, hail, and floods. Other activities included weather-themed movies in Sci-Quest’s Roaming Dome, a planetarium style inflatable theater, plus a weather miniature golf and beanbag toss. Attendees were also given the opportunity to see a weather balloon launched by the UAHuntsville atmospheric chemistry research group.
RCWF is the chapter’s newest endeavor in community outreach. Members, who are undergraduate and graduate students in pursuing careers in atmospheric and earth sciences, also speak at local schools, judge regional and state science fairs, administer tests for the Science Olympiad, and program weather radios at various events.