In 1986, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemical compounds known to break down ozone in the atmosphere, were banned by the Montreal Protocol. This led to an immediate rapid decline in emissions. However, recent studies have shown that CFC-11 emissions have increased, suggesting a contribution from eastern Asia.
On August 18, 2021, the western part of North Carolina suffered a catastrophic flash flood caused by Tropical Storm Fred. As part of a NOAA/STAR precipitation validation project, CISESS science team Malar Arulraj, Veljko Petković, Ralph Ferraro, and Huan Meng evaluated the performance of different satellite-based precipitation products during this event using Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (MRMS) observations.
ESSIC/CISESS scientist Sinéad Farrell is one of the contributors to the new “State of the Climate in 2020: The Arctic”, released by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in the August 2021 issue of the monthly bulletin (BAMS). She co-authored the section on sea ice extent.
Ralph Ferraro, previously the Chief of the NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research, Satellite Climate Studies Branch (SCSB) and ESSIC Visiting Associate Research Scientist, has been named the Associate Director of Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) starting August 1, 2021.
The Dashboard for Agricultural Water Use and Nutrient Management (DAWN) launched its website today. This marks the latest development of the UMD led project to provide farmers and water managers across the Corn Belt with the most relevant and reliable information for farm-level decision-making.
ESSIC/CISESS Scientists Xi Shao, Sirish Uprety and Wen-hui Wang are contributors to a new book, Remote Sensing of Night-time Light, to be released on August 10th. Their chapter is on the assessment of straylight correction performance for the JPSS Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) day/night band using Dome-C and Greenland under lunar illumination. This book captures key methodological issues associated with pre-processing night-time light data, documents state of the art analysis methods, and explores a wide range of applications.
CISESS Deputy Director E. Hugo Berbery has a new article published on May 17th in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences titled “Characteristics of droughts in Argentina’s Core Crop Region”.
NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW)’s operational daily global 5km satellite coral bleaching heat stress products are being used by Arizona State University (ASU) and its partners to create a new Bleaching layer (currently in beta status) in the Allen Coral Atlas. The Bleaching layer, which is updated every two weeks, detects variations in coral reef brightness using high-resolution Planet Dove satellite visible-band imagery and an advanced algorithm, to indicate whether reefs are experiencing heat stress, such as that from marine heatwaves, and bleaching.
ESSIC Visiting Research Scientist Xuesong Zhang is lead author on a recent study that simulated the environmental impacts from the conversion of grassland to corn and soybeans for 12 US Midwestern states using the EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) model. The paper’s co-authors include Tyler J Lark, Christopher M Clark, Yongping Yuan, and Stephen D LeDuc.
ESSIC/CISESS Senior Faculty Specialist Ron Vogel, Operations Manager for the East Coast Node, was recently recognized and highly praised for his contributions to the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office to identify satellite derived products that support habitat and fisheries management applications.
