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Farquhar Named AGU Fellow

Professor James Farquhar of the University of Maryland (UMD) Department of Geology and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) has been named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). AGU Fellows are recognized for their scientific eminence in the Earth and space sciences. Farquhar joins several ESSIC scientists who have received this honor, including Drs. Zhanqing Li and Dorothy Hall. The newest of UMD’s AGU Fellows, Farquhar’s research focuses on sulfur isotope …

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Vintzileos Monitors Heat Events and Health on New Website

This has been a summer of record-breaking heat waves, both in the United States and across the world.  Last month, several European countries that usually enjoy temperate summer conditions have hit all-time heat records, with temperatures reaching up to 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat waves can be incredibly dangerous, especially for vulnerable populations like children and the elderly.  All over the world, health officials are urging people to stay home and hydrated to protect their…

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First Results Emerge from ICESat-2, Satellite Measuring Earth’s Ice Elevation

More than a trillion new measurements of the Earth’s surface height are now available to the public as the first results of ICESat-2, a mission devoted to measuring the changing height of Earth’s ice. Launched last September, the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 carries the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), an instrument that sends 10,000 laser pulses a second to Earth’s surface.  It measures the height of ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, and vegetation by …

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Brown Published in Ecological Forecasting Initiative Blog

ESSIC/CISESS Visiting Research Scientist Christopher Brown recently wrote a blog entitled “Making Ecological Forecasts Operational: Some Lessons Learned By NOAA” for the Ecological Forecasting Initiative (EFI) website as a member of the EFI Knowledge Transfer and Partners Working Group. The contents are a consolidation of ‘lessons learned’ from a 2014 unpublished study conducted by NOAA’s Ecological Forecasting Roadmap.  The study compared ecological forecasting projects that had …

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Gassó Speaks to the News on Siberian Wildfires

Associate Research Scientist Santiago Gassó was recently featured in two articles detailing the dangerous wildfires spreading across the Arctic Circle by Australia’s ABC World News and NASA Earth Observatory. While wildfires are common in Alaska, these fires were across Siberia where fires of this severity are unexpected.  The articles’ authors discovered Gassó on Twitter, where he was commenting on “smoke lids” created by the fire that billowed over 4.5 million square metres of …

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Wild Releases Infrastructure Planning Software to Public

ESSIC/CISESS Assistant Research Professor Thomas Wild recently released software to the public that has been used by river basin stakeholders in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam for infrastructure planning in the Mekong River Basin. The software, SedSim, is an open-source model for simulating water and sediment flows as well as hydropower production in networks of reservoirs and river channels. The software enables water resources systems analysts and planners to explore alternative system …

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New Study Identifies Causes of Multidecadal Climate Changes

This story was published by the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. UMD geologist contributes to analysis that suggests current climate models can accurately predict climate warming several decades into the future A new reconstruction of global average surface temperature change over the past 2,000 years has identified the main causes for decade-scale climate changes. The analysis suggests that Earth’s current warming rate, caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, is …

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Satellite Retrieved Precipitate Rates Lag Ground Precipitation Measurements, Find ESSIC/CISESS Scientists

Earlier this month, Geophysical Research Letters published an article co-authored by ESSIC/CISESS Assistant Research Scientist Yalei You and Faculty Specialist Jun Dong as well as Visiting Research Scientist Huan Meng and Visiting Assistant Research Scientist Scott Rudlosky. Titled “Time‐Lag Correlation Between Passive Microwave Measurements and Surface Precipitation and Its Impact on Precipitation Retrieval Evaluation”, the study showed a time lag between satellite radiometer-retrieved …

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Ferraro Talks Hydrological Products in Alaskan Webinar

Last week, ESSIC/CISESS Visiting Associate Research Scientist Ralph Ferraro gave a talk titled “Satellite Hydrological Products and their Utility in the Alaska Region”.  Over 50 participants listened in on the remote presentations. Passive microwave sensors on low earth orbiting satellites have the ability to monitor several parameters associated with the Earth’s hydrological cycle–falling precipitation, snow and ice parameters, soil moisture, etc.  These observations are …

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Wild Earns NSF Award for New Regional Food-Energy-Water Research Project

ESSIC/CISESS Assistant Research Professor Thomas Wild recently earned an award with the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a proposal titled “INFEWS/T1: Decision-Driven Advances in Integrated Assessment Modeling of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus”. The award will provide $2.5M of funding for five years. This research project will develop a new, integrated analytical approach that considers the interconnections among food, energy, and water systems to improve regional food-energy-water …

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