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GEST Third Annual Report FINAL The Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center Annual Report May 11, 2002–May 10, 2003 University of Maryland, Baltimore County Howard University Hampton University Caelum Research Corporation Northrop-Grumman Corporation UUMBCMBC GESTGEST AN HONORS UNIVERSITY IN MARYLAND GODDARD EARTH SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center (GEST) Third Annual Report May 31, 2003 GODDARD EARTH SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY CENTER This page intentionally left blank ii INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION iii GODDARD EARTH SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY CENTER This page intentionally left blank iv INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Publication of this annual report marks the completion of the third year of operation of the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology (GEST) Center. Progress continues in establishing GEST as a prominent center for research and international collaboration in the Earth sciences and related information technologies. The organization has grown in the past year to over 120 researchers; corresponding administrative staff changes have been made, as well. The breadth of research interests has also grown, necessitating the increase to six research groups, each composed of scientists with related and complementary expertise. Formation of these groups has also provided the structure needed to efficiently manage the organization. In addition, several new projects have been established during this year, providing exciting opportunities for outreach. Research Accomplishments Research by GEST faculty and staff has been recognized through significant publications in professional journals, invited presentations, and awards. The main body of this report contains brief discussions of the research focus and results for the faculty and staff who form GEST. The report consists of a total of 112 articles contributed by GEST’s faculty researchers and visiting fellows. Also included in each report are the names of GSFC collaborators, accomplishments during the past year, and a plan for next year’s work. Cumulative lists of publications in professional journals, conference proceedings papers, etc., are collected in appendices. During this year, there were 202 refereed scientific papers that were authored by GEST faculty and either accepted by or published in major journals. Most of the research activities in this volume are funded through the program budgets of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) collaborating civil servant scientists. However, an increasing number of GEST researchers have been successful in submitting proposals to NASA and other agencies, and have been awarded funding for their own research projects. Reports of these grant-funded activities are also found in this report, organized by grant number. In some cases, GSFC scientists are listed as co-investigators with GEST PIs. Ninety-five GEST-authored proposals were submitted in the past year; these are also listed in an appendix. Goddard Visiting Fellows Program in the Earth Sciences The Goddard Visiting Fellows Program in the Earth Sciences continued into its third year with seven prominent international researchers participating in the program during the reporting period. This program provides the opportunity for selected Ph.D.-level scientists to pursue independent research in collaboration with scientists in the laboratories within the Earth Sciences Directorate either at GSFC or at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This report contains a more complete description of the program, the fellows selected, and some of their accomplishments. This year marked the inauguration of the GEST Visiting Scientist Seminar Series. The purpose of these monthly seminars was to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and results of scholarly research for the NASA research and academic communities associated with the Earth and information sciences disciplines. The seminar speakers were usually one of the prestigious Goddard Visiting Fellows who provided a lecture reflecting their individual research results over a wide range of contemporary scientific topics of high interest. During the past year, the seminar location alternated between the UMBC campus and GSFC, with the presentation site selected to reflect the interests of the local scientific community. v GODDARD EARTH SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY CENTER Summer Educational Programs and Graduate Fellowships The Summer 2002 Educational Programs included a new program, the Goddard Coastal Research Graduate Fellowship Program. The GEST Center organized and conducted the following four educational programs at GSFC: · In the Visiting Student Enrichment Program (VSEP), 25 students in the physical sciences, mathematics, and computer science from high school through graduate school participated over a 10-week period in a wide variety of productive projects with GSFC-based mentors; · Sixteen advanced graduate students were guided through techniques for working with supercomputers on large, illustrative, computation-intensive problems in the High Performance Computing (HPC) summer program; · The Graduate Student Summer Program (GSSP) played host to ten students who worked with GSFC-based scientist mentors. In association with the latter program, we conducted a four-day seminar series entitled, “Climate Change and the Global Water Cycle”. Sixteen internationally recognized speakers presented seminars that stimulated thought and discussion amongst the students, researchers, and other interested participants. · In the Goddard Coastal Research Graduate Fellowship Program (GCR), six students selected for the inaugural year of this program worked with mentors at GSFC’s Wallops Flight Facility. The educational aspect of GEST activities also included the appointment of two GEST graduate fellows, one in the Physics Department at UMBC and one in UMBC’s Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Short-Term Visiting Scientist Program and International Workshops As part of our cooperative research program with the Earth Sciences Directorate, GEST facilitates collaboration between scientists based at GSFC and scientists in organizations outside the Center who must work for short periods at GSFC, at field research locations, or at external conference sites. In this report you will find lists of U.S. and international scientists and their collaborating organizations that were assisted by the GEST administrative staff. In 2002 two international workshops were hosted by GEST on the UMBC campus. These workshops contributed to fulfilling the vision of GEST as an international center for ongoing discussion and education on issues relevant to the Earth sciences and information technology. The first meeting was a Data Assimilation Workshop, sponsored by the Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC), part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Approximately 40 international experts participated in this three-day workshop in June 2002. The second workshop was the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis project, which is also linked with WCRP. Approximately 50 international researchers participated in the November meeting. Global Energy and Water Experiment A major new focus of the GEST Center involves supporting NASA Earth Science Program objectives through exploiting the opportunities for promoting coordination of broad international environment- related research within the framework of NASA/UMBC cosponsored activities. Such an opportunity developed over the past year with respect to the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX), an element of the World Climate Research Programme, sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and the International Council of Scientific Unions. GEWEX represents the most ambitious attempt to characterize, understand, model, and vi INTRODUCTION predict the behavior of the critical roles of water and energy in the Earth’s climate system. For example, improved knowledge of the availability of fresh water is of extreme importance to food production and human health worldwide. Climate is a major factor affecting the distribution of water resources, and GEWEX has been designed to help provide a reliable scientific basis for establishing sound environmental policy. In April 2003 NASA approved a UMBC proposal to assume responsibility for administering the International GEWEX Project Office (IGPO) within the structure of its GEST Center. The IGPO will be responsible for international coordination of all aspects of GEWEX with the worldwide scientific community and the space agencies. Details about GEWEX may be found on its website: www.gewex.org. Involvement of Consortium Members The contributions of our four consortium partners continue to be significant. Most of the collaborative researchers in GEST were faculty of UMBC. However, the number of researchers at Hampton University, Howard University, and Caelum Research Corporation increased during this third year of GEST. Northrop Grumman Corporation has provided invaluable advice and support through representation on the GEST Executive Board, and participation in the summer 2002 Goddard Coastal Research Graduate Fellowship Program. Acknowledgements The quality and significance of the research conducted by GEST and its collaborators is extremely satisfying. We have been especially happy to witness the realization of goals that were imagined during the inception of GEST, having to do with educational programs, support to graduate students and post- doctoral investigators, providing opportunities
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