Humans Are Disrupting Natural ‘Salt Cycle’ on a Global Scale, New Study Shows
The influx of salt in streams and rivers is an ‘existential threat,’ according to a research team led by a UMD geologist.
The influx of salt in streams and rivers is an ‘existential threat,’ according to a research team led by a UMD geologist.
The ESSIC/CISESS Lightning Team – Guangyang Fang, Joseph Patton, Daile Zhang, and two students Damian Joseph Figueroa and Ashmita Pyne – went to celebrate the 8th Spooky Science Expo in Alexandria, VA. This was the first time CISESS/ESSIC scientists participated in this event.
NASA recently announced the selections for the 2023 Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics (HBG) Annual Peer Awards. Several ESSIC scientists were awarded for scientific achievement and scientific/technical support. The ceremony commemorating these awards was held on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 2:00pm.
ESSIC/CISESS Scientists Daile Zhang, Scott Rudlosky (NOAA), and colleagues published a study that uses the well-documented Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Lightning Imaging Sensors (LIS) performance to determine if the International Space Station (ISS) LIS performs well enough to bridge the gap between TRMM LIS and the new generation of Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLMs).
ESSIC scientist Ali Abdolali is a co-author on a new paper in Frontiers in Marine Science titled, “A global unstructured, coupled, high-resolution hindcast of waves and storm surge”.
Post-doctoral associate Dr. Cheng Da was recently featured in a NASA Early Career Scientist Spotlight.
ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Qingyuan Zhang has published a paper entitled “Impacts of abiotic and biotic factors on tundra productivity near Utqiaġvik, Alaska” in Environmental Research Letters.
Veljko Petković is first author on a new paper in Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology titled, “Can We Estimate the Uncertainty Level of Satellite Long-Term Precipitation Records?”.
1.2 billion people around the world rely on seasonal snow for their water supply. However, no snow-focused satellite currently exists. The satellites that do attempt to look at the spatial coverage and temperature of snow often struggle to retrieve information about snow in forested regions, which accounts for nearly half of Earth’s snow cover. The forest canopy blocks a lot of satellite remote sensing retrievals, forcing scientists to rely on models. However, processes that control how snow accumulates and melts are pretty different in forested and exposed locations. For example, warmer forests like in the US Pacific Northwest have larger amounts of snow intercepted by the forest canopy and winter snowmelt. This typically makes snow last longer in clearings than in the forest. The opposite is true in colder climates, where snow tends to last longer in the forest.
Last week, NASA held its annual meeting of the Precipitation Measurement Mission (PMM) Science Team at the University of Minnesota. The team consists of approximately 40 principal investigators and several other co-investigators. ESSIC has eight scientists involved in this capacity. The PMM scientists present the current status of their projects that are centered around the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission and its constellation of other satellites.