Category: Archive

A new ranking has placed the University of Maryland, College Park as #12 in a list of the 250 best global university for geosciences. The list, published by U.S. News, ranks the top 1,500 universities overall and by region and country.  This year, they also included a ranking of the leaders in 28 key academic subject areas. Positions are based on academic research performance in those subjects as well as publications, citations, and global reputation.  University of Maryland’s position is …

ESSIC/CISESS scientists Mason Quick and Scott Rudlosky (SCSB) contributed to an article that ran in the Washington Post describing thunderstorm behavior and lightning. In the piece, author Kevin Ambrose from the Capital Weather Gang investigates an unexpected lightning bolt that struck the ground near the Washington Monument last August.  Using Ambrose’s photo and timestamp, Quick and Rudlosky determined that this was a compact flash of negative lightning produced by a rapidly dissipating …

A recent article published in Nature’s “News and Views” column cited a 2006 article co-written by ESSIC Scientist Ross Salawitch as one of the most significant studies in the history of the Antarctic ozone hole and the successful environmental policy that followed. In the article, author Susan Solomon from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology chronicles the ozone hole from the moment it was discovered to the enactment of …

ESSIC/CISESS Research Professor Xiaolei Zou and Post-doctoral Associate Xiaoxu Tian recently published an article in Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography titled, “A comprehensive 4D-Var vortex initialization using a nonhydrostatic axisymmetric TC model with convection accounted for”. The article discusses the development of a four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) vortex initialization system meant to measure different variables of severe weather events, including temperature, …