Staff Notes Monthly March 1999
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
Volume 34, Number 3 -- March 1999
In this issue
USWRP gears up for its first science symposium
Keeping track of the two WRPs New leadership at MMM: Rotunno steps in A progress report on the USWRP
Random Profile: Doug Woodard Art Hundhausen wins NAS Arctowski Medal for solar research Science Briefing: AMS Meisinger Award goes to Clara Deser F&A today: Reorganization is just the start
A road map for F&A The new HESS team
After 35 years, Mike Howard packs up (cleverly, of course) Catch a static wave in the ML lobby Chris Berntsen, 1962-1999 ArachnoFile: Comparing apples with apples: The Extreme Weather Sourcebook New Hires Other issues of Staff Notes Monthly
Just One Look
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/[4/19/2013 1:00:35 PM] Staff Notes Monthly March 1999
Sometimes it doesn't take a scientist--rocket, atmospheric, or otherwise--to detect a cold front from the NCAR mesa. This one on the afternoon of Wednesday, 10 February, was hard for anyone to miss. CGD scientist Jerry Meehl has been at NCAR since the early 1970s, and he called this front "one of the more dramatic I've ever seen. My mother lives out in Brighton, and she said there was this terrifically strong north wind; then, when the snow started, it was like a blizzard." Jerry snapped this photo at about 3:20 p.m. as the front approached northeast Boulder. By 4:00 p.m., the view of Boulder from the mesa was almost totally obscured by dust. At Jeffco, the temperature dropped from 64°F at 3:00 p.m. to 52°F (with blowing dust) at 4:00 p.m. By 6:00 p.m. it was snowing and 30°F. The snow and dust congealed to produce a thin, car-soiling mix, reminding us that winter is never too far away even during Boulder's mildest February in more than a decade.
About this publication
Production Writer/editor: Bob Henson Copy editor: Zhenya Gallon Design: Michael Shibao Printing: Speedy Bee Print distribution: Milli Butterworth Electronic distribution: Jacque Marshall Photography: NCAR Imaging & Design Center, Carlye Calvin
Unless otherwise noted all images are copyrighted by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research / National Center for Atmospheric Research / National Science Foundation.
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/[4/19/2013 1:00:35 PM] Staff Notes Monthly March 1999
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Edited by Bob Henson, [email protected] Prepared for the Web by Jacque Marshall
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/[4/19/2013 1:00:35 PM] USWRP gears up for its first science symposium
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search USWRP gears up for its first science March 1999 symposium
Flood damage is on the increase: this 1993 flood in the Mississippi Valley (left) was one of the worst on record. Rit Carbone (above) has been examining heavy rain and other weather hazards as lead scientist for the U.S. Weather Research Program and as a key player in the World Weather Research Program. (Photos by Curt Zukosky, left, and Carlye Calvin.)
Landfalling hurricanes and heavy rain. They're two of the thorniest problems in weather forecasting. They, along with winter storms, are at the center of the U.S. Weather Research Program. After several years of problem definition and initial science at NCAR and elsewhere, the USWRP will unveil some of its first findings in a Mesa Lab symposium on 29-31 March. A sampling of the science results is included in a sidebar to this article.
The meeting will also serve as a brainstorming session among several groups: forecasters, weather researchers, social scientists, and the end users of forecasts, such as emergency managers. About 100 of these people will be on hand. For each of the two key topics--hurricanes and quantitative precipitation forecasting--there will be oral presentations,
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poster sessions, and two panels. The first panel will integrate research, impacts, and policy considerations on the topic at hand. The second will examine the USWRP's contributions to the issues raised in the first panel.
"I think [the symposium structure] is unique," says Roger Pielke, Jr. (ESIG), moderator of the kickoff panel. "I hope that it's as multidisciplinary as the USWRP should be."
The meeting marks a turning point for the USWRP and its international cousin, the World Weather Research Programme (See sidebar). Both are moving from multiyear planning phases into more active research components. Senior scientist Rit Carbone, who has been lead scientist for the USWRP since its inception, is passing the baton to Bob Gall (See sidebar) and turning his attention to the WWRP. Rit has been involved with both programs for years, serving as chair of the WWRP's Interim Science Steering Committee. Now that the WWRP has become part of the World Meteorological Organization, "it requires a much larger effort to lend substance to the original notion," says Rit.
The USWRP is the latest incarnation of an effort spanning the better part of two decades. It started as the Stormscale Operational Research and Meteorology Program (STORM), whose project office was based at NCAR through much of the 1980s. Ever since, a growing contingent of atmospheric scientists has been pressing for sustained support. However, the undertaking has found itself in a funding environment that includes the National Weather Service modernization and the growing national effort to study global change.
Despite the fact that funding has been consistently lower than requested, the USWRP has already made its presence felt. A series of prospectus reports reprinted in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has called attention to the science issues at the heart of the program. About $10 million of the annual NCAR budget is now allocated to USWRP-related work. Some of these funds are distributed internally through a competitive process on a two-year cycle, first carried out in 1997 and recently completed for 1999. This year, for the first time, the USWRP was included in the NOAA budget from the outset, as part of the president's proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. When it rains . . .
On both the national and global scales, it's clear that heavy rain is a central problem, even with hurricane landfall. Out of the 500 or so U.S. hurricane deaths since 1970, more than 90% were related to freshwater flooding rather than to high winds or storm surge. (Of course, a hurricane storm surge is still capable of tremendous loss of life, notes Roger: "It doesn't mean you let your guard down.")
Although it was one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, Hurricane Mitch caused most of its damage through flooding rains in Honduras and Nicaragua as it lingered for days in the Caribbean and then moved slowly inland. Mitch packed winds of 180 miles per hour (290 kilometers per hour) on 26 October 1998 but was only a minimal hurricane when it reached the Honduran coast three days later. More than 9,000 people are believed to have died as a result of Mitch. (Enhanced satellite image produced by Hal Pierce, NASA.)
The catastrophic Hurricane Mitch wreaked most of its havoc last fall through heavy rains and mudslides as the storm ground itself down just offshore of Honduras. "It's a perfect example," says Rit, "a really graphic example of how winds weren't the cause of any significant damage. It was all heavy rainfall. Flooding tends to be the principal societal impact of tropical cyclones."
According to Rit, predicting how much rain or snow will fall at a given spot "is the area of lowest skill in forecasting
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today. It's an exceedingly tough problem." Both the USWRP and the WWRP will hit the heavy-rain problem from several angles: better mesoscale modeling, improved radar estimates of rainfall, and better understanding of the societal variables.
What lies behind the global increase in flood damages? Rainfall has certainly gone up in many cases. Last year's Yangtze River floods in China were driven by all-time rainfall records that, according to Rit, bested the previous marks by factors of two or three at some stations.
However, in China and with Hurricane Mitch, deforestation and other land-use changes appear to have played into the disastrous flooding. In the United States, flood damages have risen steadily, but rainfall increases can only explain part of the increased flood damage. Roger and colleagues in ESIG are examining factors such as growth in population and wealth to which they attribute the balance of the U.S. flood damage. An Olympian effort in 2000
As the USWRP continues its ongoing research, major international field studies will be conducted under the WWRP. The first one takes place this summer and fall in southern Europe. The Mesoscale Alpine Program (MAP) will study the effect of the Alps on local airflow and heavy rainfall. MAP will feature substantial NCAR involvement, including the NSF/NCAR Electra and the S-Pol radar. The experiment's U.S. project office is headed by Joach Kuettner, who holds the UCAR Distinguished Chair for Atmospheric Science and International Research. For more on MAP, See the winter UCAR Quarterly. The focus tightens to a single metropolitan area next year, as some of the world's most advanced nowcasting systems are assembled in Australia for the Sydney 2000 project. Side by side, the systems will predict local weather over three months. The most intensive forecasts will coincide with the Olympic Games in late September. A U.S. "team" will be composed of the people behind various expert systems, including candidates for future NWS technology such as the NCAR/RAP Auto-Nowcaster, which projects short-term thunderstorm development. The United Kingdom and Canada will also deploy advanced forecast systems.
Using all of the technology on hand, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology will issue its routine forecasts and nowcasts along with specialized Olympic outlooks. At the same time, the forecasts that would have been issued in the experiment's absence will be archived. Later, an evaluation team of atmospheric and social scientists will compare the two sets of forecasts to determine the improvement made possible by the enhanced capabilities.
"These systems have all been tested in their home countries. We know they work," says Rit. "The question is how portable are they and how much value do they have individually and in combination."
If they prove durable outside their home countries, the systems could be of use to nations whose meteorological infrastructure is less developed. A team of 10 to 15 expert forecasters from such nations as Brazil and Russia will observe the Sydney 2000 project to help determine what technology might be transferable.
Undoubtedly, some financial and proprietary hurdles will emerge down the line. Still, Rit believes that Sydney 2000 could be a big step toward improving forecasts across the world. Because an increasing share of people in developing countries live in huge urban clusters, a forecast strategy that focuses on these areas may be more economical and feasible than one that attempts to extend a single approach to every acre of land.
In the United States, says Rit, a long-standing congressional mandate for "uniformity of service" means that folks in rural Wyoming now get forecasts similar to those received by urbanites in Manhattan, despite their different needs. If the USWRP has its way, the kinds of weather forecasts we receive may someday vary depending on where we live, even if the laws of physics don't. •BH
Keeping track of the two WRPs
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/USWRP.html[4/19/2013 1:00:52 PM] USWRP gears up for its first science symposium
As reflected by their similar acronyms, the U.S. Weather Research Program and the World Weather Research Programme are closely related. Both programs address the growing societal impacts of landfalling hurricanes and heavy rainfall, among several forecast problems. However, there are some differences between the programs.
The USWRP has four major sponsors: NOAA, NSF, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Defense (primarily the Navy). Launched early in the 1990s, the USWRP is the outgrowth of over a decade of work to foster storm-related research that has real-world applications. NCAR participates as a home for the lead scientist's office and as a recipient of ongoing NSF funds. Universities and other research labs also participate through grants. The USWRP aims to
mitigate the effects of weather disasters lower the costs of routinely disruptive weather use weather information to help increase economic competitiveness create highly specific predictions for densely populated urban zones provide weather information to help the military accomplish its missions.
Along with its emphases on hurricanes and heavy precipitation/flooding, the USWRP is studying the Pacific origins of winter storms and the societal and economic aspects of disruptive weather. For more on the program, check the Web.
The WWRP was approved as a program of the World Meteorological Organization last February. It serves as an international umbrella beneath which many national research programs related to weather prediction can function more effectively. Its key research topics include those of the USWRP, and it is developing a similar built-in component of social science, but the WWRP funds no research itself. Instead, it initiates, endorses, and facilitates projects that require an especially large critical mass of effort.
The WWRP's three emphases are research and development; forecast demonstration projects, such as the Sydney 2000 effort (See main article); and information sharing that helps developing nations to leverage the technology and know-how from countries whose meteorology infrastructure is better developed. The WWRP is interested in a range of high-impact weather events: tropical cyclones, heavy rain and flooding, in-flight aircraft icing, sand and dust storms, winter storms developing upstream from continents, and Mediterranean cyclones. •
New leadership at MMM: Rotunno steps in
"I've been in this job for eight years," says MMM director Bob Gall. "It's a job I know very well, so the challenge of doing something different is exciting."
Bob's challenge is to serve as lead scientist for the USWRP for two years, effective 1 March. He'll be taking a sabbatical from MMM for most of this calendar year to focus on his new duties. "The idea is to spend one hundred percent of my time on USWRP for about eight months, so I can get up to speed and really think about it."
In Bob's place, the interim director of MMM through August will be Rich Rotunno, an NCAR scientist since 1980 and a senior scientist since 1989. Rich is known for Bob Gall. (Photo his studies of supercell thunderstorms, tornadogenesis, and other mesoscale by Carlye Calvin.)
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weather features.
From September through November, a yet-to-be-chosen person will serve as acting director of MMM while Rich goes to Italy to participate in the Mesoscale Alpine Program. Then, from December 1999 into early 2001, Bob plans to return half-time as division director and maintain his USWRP duties. Rich will pitch in through the newly created slot of assistant MMM director while continuing a "significant amount of research."
Bob says he's looking forward to a chance to shape the USWRP during a key period. "It's a program that has been near and dear to my heart for a long time. I think it's important to the nation."
The USWRP also has two new deputy lead scientists. Tom Schlatter (NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory) will spend part of Rich Rotunno. (Photo by Carlye his time at an FL3 office near the MMM divisional headquarters. Calvin.) The other deputy lead is Russ Elsberry (Naval Postgraduate School). •BH
A progress report on the USWRP
Some 50 scientific presentations are booked for the First USWRP Science Symposium in late March at the Mesa Lab. With the program's research phase just getting under way, many of these talks and posters will cover works in progress. Below are a few of the highlights. The full set of abstracts can be accessed at the USWRP's Web page. Space will be very limited at the symposium. For more details, contact Carey Bousquet, ext. 8197, [email protected].
Hurricane evacuations: Conventional wisdom holds that each hurricane evacuation costs an average of $1 million per mile of coastline. However, Chris Adams (Colorado State University) will show that the costs may exceed $50 million per mile in key areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
Despite these costs and despite NOAA's increased skill at hurricane track forecasts, the average length of coastline warned for a given hurricane has nearly doubled since the 1960s. Hugh Willoughby (NOAA Hurricane Research Division) is studying the factors behind this increase, which include tradeoffs between lead time and overwarning. Apparently, forecasters and forecast users have been drawn toward longer forecast lead times at lower precision rather than shorter lead times at high precision.
Model development: NCAR is teaming with NOAA and the University of Oklahoma to create a next- generation mesoscale forecast model that will build on current mesoscale models at each institution. Joe Klemp (MMM) and colleagues have begun testing alternatives for the architecture and coding of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. A community version for research may be ready in two to three years, with an operational version possible by 2004. The WRF will feature multiple nesting of model grids at 1 to 10 km to better depict thunderstorms and other mesoscale precipitation features.
Meanwhile, a series of field projects is testing the use of ensemble blends that outperform any single model. Dingchen Hou and colleagues at OU's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms tested four mesoscale models last May across the Southeast. Each model was run with slight variations at the starting points to produce a suite of possible outcomes. The resulting set of up to 25 forecasts per period
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showed that each model excelled in one or more measures, but the model consensus was superior to any single run.
Heavy summertime rainfall: Chris Davis (MMM) will present findings on long-lived mesoscale cyclonic vortices that help trigger multiday rainfall episodes. These vortices appear with mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) that typically develop overnight and dump heavy rain for 6 to 12 hours. Chris and colleagues have found that when the vertical wind shear is fairly weak, the vortices can persist for hours after an MCS dissipates, sometimes forming the seed for a new MCS the next night. If mesoscale models can track these seed vortices, then there is hope for better forecasts of multiday heavy-rain events. According to Chris, such modeling may also lead to better forecasts of tropical cyclone formation.
Rit Carbone and other scientists from USWRP, MMM, and NOAA have embarked on a major climatological study of MCSs using data from satellites, radars, and profilers. Condensed water vapor will be calculated in three dimensions, providing an estimate of the latent heat added through condensation and the radiative effects of dense clouds devoid of rainfall. The study will help test and improve data assimilation techniques for mesoscale models. •
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/USWRP.html[4/19/2013 1:00:52 PM] Random Profile: Doug Woodard
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search Random Profile: Doug Woodard
March 1999 Every other month, Random Profile spotlights a stochastically chosen staff member. This month we feature Doug Woodard, a project engineer with the HIRDLS Project Office.
So who does he work for, anyway?
Technically, the University of Colorado. Doug joined ACD in 1991 to work on the high-resolution dynamics limb sounder (HIRDLS), an instrument that will measure ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other airborne constituents from space. In February 1997 the HIRDLS Project Office was transferred to CU's newly formed Center for Limb Atmospheric Sounding. The program itself remained in the FL4 location where it resides today, with Doug and six other former ACD staff on board. John Gille, who oversees the U.S. component of HIRDLS, continues half-time as an NCAR senior scientist. The project is a collaboration between the Boulder team and a group at Oxford University, England, led by John Barnett.
What he has in common with Thomas Edison:
Doug's an engineer who never earned a degree in the subject. "Actually, I have a master's degree in physics, but I've never gotten a job as a physicist. All my jobs have been in engineering. This has worked out well because I've been able to contribute in a variety of fields, rather than becoming obsolete in five years in a narrow engineering specialty."
Where his time goes:
Doug has spent almost half of the last several years putting together the Doug Woodard with a computer- HIRDLS Instrument Technical Specification (ITS), which guides the generated mockup of the optical HIRDLS construction team at Lockheed Martin. "It doesn't tell you how bench for the HIRDLS to build the instrument; it tells you what the instrument has to be able to instrument. Infrared light entering do when you're done." The ITS is now far along in an alphabetic sequence of updates: "We started at A and just did a massive revision through the "hot dog aperture" between R and T. Now I'm working on U, which should be a minor (the oblong opening near the top) cleanup." Another 30% of Doug's time is spent preparing and proofing is reflected and refracted through interface control documents. These detailed specifications define the the instrument and sampled at links between different parts of the HIRDLS instrument. The task is 500 times per second in each of vital because HIRDLS is being developed by two teams of scientists, 21 spectral channels. (Photo by each in a different organization in a different country. "Since neither Carlye Calvin; illustration side has complete contractual oversight, you have to take time to be courtesy Phil Arter.) sure the subsystems mesh correctly." The rest of his workday is divided among the usual miscellany: e-mail, phone calls, and fixing other group members' Macintosh problems.
What's satisfying about his job:
"Solving problems. Bringing organizations together when they reach an impasse. Coming up with creative
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technical solutions and making sure the documentation is complete enough."
What gives a satellite designer nightmares?
"You put a decade of your life into one of these things and it crashes on launch." For example, France's highly touted Ariane 5 launch vehicle exploded on 4 June 1996 above French Guiana less than a minute after its first takeoff. "It was spectacular--it rained debris, including bits of the payload satellites, over a large area." The accident occurred because software from the Ariane 4 had been reused without being properly upgraded. "The failure scenario was reconstructed in exacting detail, but I'm sure this wasn't much consolation to the payload teams." HIRDLS is slated for launch in 2002 aboard a Delta rocket, "which is a well-established launch vehicle."
Previous work lives:
After completing his master's degree at the University of Michigan in 1966, Doug worked as a development engineer for General Radio Company (Bolton, Massachusetts) before moving to the Boulder area in 1969. He then did design engineering for Scientech; senior electronics engineering at CU; machining and programming at Emerling Machine Tools in Nederland; and, through the 1980s, a range of tasks at Boulder's now-defunct Tycho Technology.
Most offbeat job:
A brief stint at RELA helping to design systems to verify that commercials were being aired as scheduled on local TV stations. Before the process was automated, "they'd tape shows, and then a set of humans would watch them to verify the length of the commercials. This was extremely tedious, expensive, and error prone. I got in on the tail end of the automation process, dealing with signal processing. We'd divide the TV screen into regions and try to verify the content of each region." The biggest problem was distinguishing among talking heads: "They all tend to look alike."
If he hadn't become an engineer:
Doug might have spent his career in religious sanctuaries. He began playing piano and organ at age six and (despite his Presbyterian roots) served as the organist at the First Baptist Church in his hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan. Although he doesn't perform for audiences anymore, Doug still enjoys playing church organs, such as the one at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Boulder. He's gotten the green light to play the organ at St. Michael's at the Northgate, a medieval church in Oxford, when he's there for HIRDLS meetings. "It's very pleasant. It's a small building but it has pretty reverberant acoustics." As for his repertoire, "I play a lot of Bach, as most organists do. Lately I've been working on the Toccata in F Major and on the Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor. "
Most devious mischief:
Doug is an amateur locksmith. "I'm not registered, but I've done a lot of it for the fun of it." While attending Alma College, he took a few campus locks apart and deduced the master key configuration for the entire campus. "I took the key and tried it in a number of places--the president's office, the administration building." The prank stopped there. "I decided, 'That's that. Now on to the next challenge.' " •BH
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UCAR NCAR UOP Edited by Bob Henson, [email protected] Prepared for the Web by Jacque Marshall http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/profile.html[4/19/2013 1:01:29 PM] Art Hundhausen wins NAS Arctowski Medal for solar research
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search Art Hundhausen wins NAS Arctowski March 1999 Medal for solar research
The National Academy of Sciences' 1999 Arctowski Medal is going to Art Hundhausen, senior scientist emeritus in HAO. The academy's prestigious award in support of research in solar physics and solar- terrestrial relationships will be presented to Art in a ceremony in Washington in April. Art was chosen "for his exceptional research in solar and solar-wind physics, particularly in the area of coronal and solar-wind disturbances."
This is the second time in a row an HAO scientist has won the Arctowski Medal. Ray Roble received the triennial award in 1996. To division director Michael Knölker, the back-to-back awards are an affirmation of HAO's programs and "an encouragement for the future Art Hundhausen. (Photo by Carlye of coronal research at HAO." Calvin.) Art's award is for "a lifetime's achievement in coronal physics, which he pursued unbent by fashion or external pressures," says Michael. Art earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. He came to HAO in 1971 from the University of California's Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. An early interest in interplanetary space evolved into pursuit of questions about the physical structure of the solar corona and its influence on interplanetary magnetic fields and plasma flow. Mapping the solar wind
By the time Art completed his graduate studies, theory suggested that interplanetary space was not a vacuum, but was filled with ionized gas flowing out from the sun's corona--the solar wind. Its existence had been inferred through geomagnetic activity that recurred on a 27-day cycle in sync with the sun's rotation. But little was known about the coronal structures giving rise to the solar wind. A second major puzzle was the source of sudden, drastic changes in the earth's magnetic field that produced the auroras borealis and australis (the northern and southern lights), disrupted radio transmissions, and occasionally interrupted electrical power supplies. Solar flares, sudden brightenings observable just above the surface of the sun, were thought to be associated with these disruptions.
"It was very exciting when I came into this field in the late 1960s. We were just doing the first space-based observations of the solar wind," says Art. "Everything was new. You'd give ten papers a year and it was never enough. It was a marvelous period." The launch of NASA's science and engineering laboratory, Skylab, in 1973, heralded a new era of observations of the sun's corona from space. This was a major improvement over previous observations from eclipses or ground-based coronagraphs. "You could see things in a new way, and in particular you could see the corona in X rays against the disk of the sun." To Art and his colleagues, "something became so evident that many people discovered little pieces of it at the same time."
What they had discovered was the magnetic field in the corona, with its closed and open regions. In the closed regions, magnetic field lines start at one point and come back to the sun at another to form a closed loop. Open regions have field lines going out into space. Open regions are called coronal holes, because they appear dimmer than the surrounding corona. Art recalls a series of Skylab workshops run by HAO and then-NCAR director Gordon Newkirk in Boulder in the mid-1970s that brought all the pieces together to describe the origin of the solar wind in the coronal holes.
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/hundhausen.html[4/19/2013 1:02:11 PM] Art Hundhausen wins NAS Arctowski Medal for solar research
"Suddenly this great puzzle which had been around for 30 or 40 years--with some correct ideas in the literature and some really wacky ideas there--suddenly the whole problem was solved, in the geometric sense [i.e., the location of the sources of the wind]. . . . In a few sessions, things that had puzzled everybody for decades just fell into place."
Art received two NCAR Outstanding Publication Awards recognizing his efforts in the 1970s. The first came in 1972 for his book Coronal Expansion and Solar Wind (Springer-Verlag). In the book, "I drew pictures of [coronal holes] and said this had to be the answer, but I didn't know what they looked like yet." His article "An interplanetary review of coronal holes" in the book reporting on the Skylab workshop, Coronal Holes and High Speed Wind Streams (edited by J. Zirker; University of Colorado Press), was recognized in 1977, the year it appeared.
What about the second question--the sudden, violent disruptions of the earth's magnetic field associated with what were then called solar flares? In the 1980s, the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) and other second-generation spacecraft began providing data that led to identification of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) as the source of dramatic changes in the earth's ionosphere. Art became principal scientist on SMM, contributing analysis and theory that pointed to the magnetically closed regions in the corona as the probable source of these interplanetary shock waves.
Some researchers still subscribe to the theory that solar flares are the cause of CMEs. But many more, including Art, believe the flares are the aftereffect of much larger mass ejections of solar plasma. Art subscribes to the idea that a sequence where a huge area of plasma (up to one-seventh of the sun's circumference) blows out, dragging previously closed, stable field lines with it. After the explosion, the open lines close back down again, "and that's where the flare happens. . . . The flares are the aftereffect of the mass ejection."
The bottom line, says Art, is that the cause of CMEs is still a mystery. "We're at the point now where I think we know pretty much what the observations presently available can tell us. We need a whole new generation of observations to make the next step." What's next?
Art plans to use proceeds from the Arctowski Medal to help inspire the next generation of solar physicists. The medal includes a prize of $20,000 plus $60,000 "to an institution of the recipient's choice." If matching funds can be arranged, Art would like to see a postdoc hired in HAO for two or three years "to continue this kind of work. Or to go back and do the part of it right that we haven't done yet."
Reflecting on his long career, Art notes, "There's been real progress, and I've managed to be in on a good bit of it, but nobody ever discovers anything by themselves." He cites the work of NCAR founding director Walt Roberts, Don Billings, and other HAO pioneers beginning in the 1940s as the underpinnings of his research. He also credits Walt and Francis Bretherton for creating a culture at HAO that encouraged long-term approaches to scientific problems.
Art still comes in to work for a few hours each week to advise students, from undergrads to postdocs. The current team working with Art in HAO includes associate scientists Joan Burkepile, Andy Stanger, and Alice Lecinski, who've analyzed coronal data from Skylab, SMM, the Yohkoh and Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellites, and the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory.
When you ask Art a question, he picks up a marker, strides to the blackboard (or whiteboard), and tells you a story. His gift and passion for teaching were recognized in 1997 with a nomination for the UCAR Outstanding Performance Award for Education (with Joan Burkepile). And if you spend enough time with Art, you learn about his other research passion: Italian history and culture, particularly that of Rome. He leaves for his annual two-week pilgrimage to Italy the day after the awards ceremony. "I can't go to other places until I'm finished with Rome. It's like science--the more you understand, the more things hold together, and the more you enjoy it." •Zhenya Gallon
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UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
March 1999
AMS Meisinger Award goes to Clara Deser
The 1999 Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award, one of the highest accolades given by the American Meteorological Society, has been presented to Clara Deser, a CGD scientist since 1997. The AMS cited her "for insightful and dynamically informed analyses of climate variability on time scales ranging from days to decades." Clara received the award in January during a ceremony at the 79th annual AMS meeting in Dallas, Texas.
The Meisinger Award is given to young, promising atmospheric scientists who have recently shown outstanding ability. In particular, according to the AMS award committee, the honor acknowledges an individual whose research achievement "is at least in part aerological [pertaining to all levels of the atmosphere] in character and concerns the observation, theory, and modeling of atmospheric motions on all scales." Clara Deser. (Photo by Carlye Calvin.) According to CGD director Maurice Blackmon, "Clara has written several papers that have had a major impact on climate research, and the Meisinger Award is confirmation that the community recognizes the quality and importance of her work." In her research Clara examines historical observations of air-sea-ice interactions, upper-ocean dynamics, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation phenomenon, and other features of global climate. Her goal is to learn more about the interrelationships among such elements and about climate variability on several time scales.
A native of Newton, Massachusetts, Clara earned a bachelor of science degree in earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 and a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington in 1989. Before joining the NCAR staff, she was a research associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She has served as an adviser to students at Colorado State University and is currently advising JoAnn Lysne, a VSP postdoctoral fellow at NCAR.
Clara has served on numerous scientific committees, including those of the National Research Council and the AMS. The Journal of Climate presented Clara with its Editor's Award in 1996. "I feel honored and humbled to have received the Meisinger Award," Clara says.
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UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
March 1999 F&A today: Reorganization is just the start
If you interact with Finance and Administration--and virtually everyone in UCAR does--you may have already noticed some changes afoot. On 1 January, a new organizational structure became effective in F&A, with some employees in new positions and some major regroupings (see chart).
More change is forthcoming, says Katy Schmoll, vice president for F&A. Katy wants to automate a growing number of functions and make F&A more customer-oriented. "I think we'll be making some major changes in the way we do business."
About 12% of the total staff at UCAR/NCAR/UOP assist the entire organization as members of F&A. These folks labor to keep our work spaces safe, our accounts in order, and our technology up to date. "The caliber of people in F&A is very impressive," says Katy, who came to UCAR in 1997 after serving as comptroller of the Environmental Protection Agency. "I would match the talent and dedication [here] with that of any other administrative organization I've been involved with." Katy Schmoll. However, Katy notes, F&A sometimes finds itself having to play the role of naysayer--for instance, sending back a travel voucher for corrections or denying a facilities request. "All too often, we have to say no, but we don't always explain why the answer is no," says Katy. "We need to explain."
To help guide their efforts toward a more efficient, user-friendly system, F&A will sample the opinions of users throughout NCAR divisions and UOP programs over the next few weeks. Each of the seven managers in the new F&A structure will develop her or his A road map for F&A own methods of getting feedback: "It very much depends on the service that's being offered." The surveys will be coordinated so that Below is the new organization chart no single user gets inundated with requests for feedback. that F&A into seven major groupings, along with an overview of the functions in each group and the person in Automating processes charge. It's already clear that information technology will become an ever- bigger part of F&A. "If you look at the statistics," says Katy, "the Human Resources and F&A staffing has remained relatively stable while the rest of the Employee Relations organization has skyrocketed. We're not going to be able to contain (Edna Comedy) this much longer unless we can get some of our time-consuming but necessary functions automated." Compensation and benefits, housing, staff development, For example: corporate policy, SOARS program Since March 1997, much of the billing for Federal Express has been handled through the Web-based FedEx InterNetShip. This has eliminated "an incredibly tedious process" of reconciling thousands Health, Environment, Safety, and of statements by hand each month, says Katy. Shipments can now Security be carried out for a fraction of their previous administrative costs. A (Steve Sadler) happy side effect is that the costs of personal FedExes can be withdrawn automatically from staff members' paychecks. Workers' compensation, toxics
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/fanda.html[4/19/2013 1:02:35 PM] F&A today: Reorganization is just the start
removal/disposal, front desk A voluminous summary of finances for each program and operations division, the Quarterly Management Information Report, is being moved to the Web. The first partially Web-based report appeared on 1 January. Budget and Finance (Melissa Miller) Travel forms can now be downloaded via the Web. However, paperwork for the thousands of travel orders each year is still Payroll, accounts payable, travel, submitted and input from hard copies. F&A is working on Web- budget monitoring, contract based forms with "auto-audit" capabilities that could hunt for numerical errors, along with smart software that could provide, for support instance, the correct per diem for any destination entered.
Even time cards are destined to go electronic once the technology Information Technology is worked out, says Katy. "When you add up the time that everyone (Rebecca Oliva) spends on [filling out and/or reconciling] time cards, it's not insignificant." With automation, "you wouldn't have to worry about Software development/support, Bi- time cards getting lost in the mail." Tech, multimedia, telecommunications The Holy Grail of automating F&A tasks is authentication: making sure that unauthorized people aren't making changes to your timecard or your travel orders. "It's a problem the government has been dealing with for years. They have yet to come up with a Business Services standard," Katy notes. It's unlikely we will be engineering an in- (Jeff Reaves) house solution. Instead, UCAR will examine a number of commercial authentication packages, perhaps in consultation with Procurement, funding negotiations, NSF, with an eye toward a consistent, institution-wide solution. risk management, intellectual property The new groupings
Much of the change on 1 January occurred in functions that had Physical Plant belonged to the former Facilities Support Services group. Katy (John Pereira, asked Melissa Miller and Steve Dickson to lead an internal F&A acting head) team that examined FSS and the rest of F&A and determined which tasks best fit with each other. This "affinity analysis" resulted in a Engineering, space management, matrix showing the closeness of the relationships among 64 maintenance, construction, functions performed by F&A. From this, the new set of seven custodial services groups was developed. Among the major changes:
Information Technology was spun out of Business Services to Support Services become a higher-profile entity. (Watch Staff Notes Monthly for more (Steve Dickson, on this group and on UCAR's overall IT strategy.) acting head)
Health, Environment, Safety, and Security was also brought up the Transportation, warehouse, organizational ladder, taking on several security-related tasks shipping/receiving, conference formerly housed elsewhere. support, food services The new Physical Plant group includes some of the former FSS tasks, such as building maintenance and the contract for custodial services.
Support Services was created to hold a number of the FSS tasks that didn't belong elsewhere. "They don't necessarily fit together," says Katy, "they just don't fit anywhere else." Steve will be acting head of this group for six months while its structure is reviewed. http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/fanda.html[4/19/2013 1:02:35 PM] F&A today: Reorganization is just the start
Steve and Melissa "did a wonderful job" on the regroupings, according to Katy. "It was a very analytical process, which frankly doesn't happen much with reorganizations." She adds that she's "been through more reorganizations than I want to think about. Each one has been traumatic. By and large, at the 95th percentile, I think most people have been pleased at this one."
When Katy worked at NASA, which has "a very strong mission-oriented culture," she noticed that each project made a special effort to recognize administrators as "being part of what made that mission happened." As F&A evolves, Katy hopes that people will recognize the importance of administrative staff to NCAR and UOP science. •BH
The new HESS team
From left: Carol Manteuffel, Milenda Powers, and Steve Sadler. (Photo by Carlye Calvin.)
The acronym is the same, but HESS--the name and the office--have undergone some transitions. HESS now stands for Health, Environment, Safety, and Security. The last word alludes to the new placement of front-desk and security functions under the office headed by Steve Sadler (center?). Combining the functions makes sense, Steve points out, because the front desk becomes "a central communication point in the event of fire, medical emergencies, or building evacuations. Hopefully we'll have few emergencies, but if and when they occur, we hope to have a more efficient and better coordinated response."
Pictured with Steve are Milenda Powers (center) and Carol Manteuffel (right). Milenda, an industrial hygienist, has been at UCAR part time since early 1998. She's responsible for training and handling protocols to make sure the institution properly handles toxic materials and disposes of hazardous waste. Carol is the newest arrival at HESS. She brings an academic background in nursing and public health and extensive experience in workers' compensation. HESS wants to provide improved, streamlined services for employees injured on the job. Toward that goal, Carol will work with employees, supervisors, doctors, and insurance carriers to update our workers'-comp procedures and ensure that injured staff get the best possible care. She'll also administer the ergonomics injury-prevention program. • http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/fanda.html[4/19/2013 1:02:35 PM] F&A today: Reorganization is just the start
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/fanda.html[4/19/2013 1:02:35 PM] After 35 years, Mike Howard packs up (cleverly, of course)
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search After 35 years, Mike Howard packs up March 1999 (cleverly, of course)
Another UCAR veteran from the pre-Mesa Lab days is calling it a career. Michl Howard, who began designing instruments for the fledgling NCAR in 1964, retired on 5 February. (Incidentally, his first name isn't a typo: it seems Mike's mom didn't care for extraneous vowels. "When my mother named me, she said, 'It's MIKE-ul! M-I-C-H-L.' " But everyone calls him Mike.)
Exactly 323 of the creations that have emerged from Design and Fabrication Services are Mike's. That's nearly a third of the shop's output to date, since DFS recently logged its thousandth project. "I've been doing basically the same thing for 35 years," he laughs. Not that Mike has been merely turning the crank. His innovations have saved the institution many thousands of dollars over the years and have made some otherwise impractical science possible.
Michl Howard. (Photo by Carlye Take, for instance, the S-Pol radar. The extra-portable, multiparameter Calvin.) Doppler unit was completed in 1995 and is now measuring tropical rainfall at a field project in Brazil. It's a highly sophisticated instrument, but what makes S-Pol especially handy is its packability. ATD director Dave Carlson calls it "an ingenious solution to a big radar problem."
"I got the idea for 'containerizing' equipment from the old Transformer toys," recalls Mike. Each Transformer changes shape with a few twists and turns of its carefully arranged parts. S-Pol can be broken down to fit into six 'seatainers,' each 8x8x20 feet. When the radar is unpacked, four of those containers, arranged like spokes on a wheel, serve as a base for the radar's transmitter-receiver. This does away with the radome (the standard shell resembling a giant golf ball), and it allows the unit to fit easily into the seatainers.
Mike's solutions have proven to be economical as well as elegant. In the 1980s and early 1990s, NCAR spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship two cloud physics radars (CP-3 and CP-4) to remote international field sites. The radars required nonstandard, 40-foot-long containers. In contrast, each of the six S-Pol seatainers can be sent outside the country using standard 20-foot containers for around $7,000 internationally and $2,000-3,000 domestically. Mike has applied the containerizing concept to the Atmosphere-Surface Turbulent Exchange Research Facility (ASTER) and a set of equipment created for the Mauna Loa Photochemistry Experiment (MLOPEX).
Although most of his projects have taken from months to years to design, Mike is comfortable working on tight deadlines. He saved the day at the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Program's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) across the western Pacific in the winter of 1992-93. A NOAA weather radar modified by ATD and DFS was being deployed aboard a Chinese research vessel. Two hours before the ship set sail from Guangzhou, China, technicians found that its navigational system wasn't linked properly to the radar's. "The ship's electronics needed to know which way the radar was pointing relative to which way the ship was pointing," explains Mike. With a deadline breathing down his neck, Mike adapted the top of a felt-tip marker to serve as a coupling mechanism, physically linking the radar's directional encoder to the ship's compass.
Mike's career began in 1956 at Boeing Aviation in Wichita, Kansas, just north of his hometown of Mulvane. (Norm Zrubek, RAF's recently retired aeronautical engineer, was also at Boeing in Wichita, although the two didn't meet until both were at NCAR.) Later, "We were just getting into the space age, and I went to work for Martin Marietta in Denver. Hal Cole [ATD/SSSF manager] and I were in the same group, and we both ended our time there working on
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/howard.html[4/19/2013 1:02:49 PM] After 35 years, Mike Howard packs up (cleverly, of course)
the Viking project--Hal at Vandenberg Air Force Base and me at Ball Brothers."
Some of Mike's fondest recollections of his early NCAR career involve Walt Roberts. The NCAR founding director took special interest in the machine shop and the instrument design group. "I remember the days when [Walt] would come in and sit on the corner of your desk, eating an apple. He'd ask you how things were going and tell you about all the meetings he'd gone to and all the fun things we'd have coming up."
Often, the fun things would vie among each other for Mike's attention. "It's been busy enough that I'd be doing nine different projects at the same time. That keeps your mind going." One of his favorites was a "cloud gun" created for Tony Delany in 1970. In order to collect cloud particles, the device launched transparencies coated in oil "just like you'd shoot a pinball" along a four-foot-long track arcing outside the old Queen Air research aircraft. Another memorable project for Mike was creating two balloon launchers for the National Scientific Balloon Facility, which NCAR managed in Palestine, Texas, from the 1960s to the 1980s. One of the launchers involved a six-by-six-foot platform attached to the front of a truck: "That caused the whole thing to steer like a boat, because the front wheels were now the back wheels."
Mike's retirement promises to be as active as his employment. He's moonlighted for years, designing some 45 houses, additions, or garages for friends and colleagues. "If the sun's shining and it's bearable to be outside, I'm outside. I've got to be out digging in the dirt, landscaping or whatever." He enjoys carving kachina dolls, building furniture, and many other crafts. A collector of Indian artifacts, Mike also enjoys lecturing on Native American culture at local schools (he's the adopted brother of Chief Left Hand's grandson Samuel Left Hand and Sam's wife, Anne Sweet Medicine). Frankly, he admits, "I've got too many things to do."
Mike's motto for living is the perfect antidote to Murphy's law: "Always be prepared for something to go wrong and have the right equipment to fix it." •BH
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/howard.html[4/19/2013 1:02:49 PM] Catch a static wave in the ML lobby
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
March 1999 Catch a static wave in the ML lobby
In NCAR's newest public exhibit, static electricity is producing patterns that are anything but static. Unveiled in February and dedicated in a ceremony on 1 March, Static Landscape is another creation of master exhibit designer Ned Kahn. Kahn produced the ML lobby's tornado and several other NCAR installations. His twisters also grace a number of other science centers, but Static Landscape is unique to NCAR.
The exhibit's wavelike patterns are created by thousands of tiny steel balls, each roughly the size of a grain of sand, sandwiched between three-foot-wide sheets of Plexiglas. The sandwich is mounted on a By running their hands over the Mesa spindle so that visitors can tilt it back and forth. This forces the steel Lab's newest exhibit, Static spheres to cascade between the Plexiglas sheets, building up static Landscape, visitors can produce a charges. The charge distribution steers the balls in wildly varying patterns, creating elaborate and beautiful black-and-white designs. The world of intricate patterns. (Photos by exhibit serves as a metaphor for raindrops and ice particles that collide Carlye Calvin.) and exchange charge as they build the electric field inside a developing thunderstorm.
Funds for Static Landscape were provided by a special one-time donation from the Hovermale Education Fund. The fund was established in 1994 following the death of John Hovermale, who was well known for his contributions to numerical weather prediction. Hovermale's career path included Pennsylvania State University, the National Weather Service, and the Naval Research Laboratory. The Hovermale contribution toward Static Landscape was matched by UCAR.
Another new arrival has claimed a place in the NCAR lobby. A model of an air traffic control tower has been added to the Thunderstorm Detectives exhibit, which is now upstairs above the reception desk. The tower was part of a traveling version of Thunderstorm Detectives that toured airports and science centers across the country in the mid-1990s.
Visitors will soon have a new space to watch UCAR-based research in action. A mini-theater for tour groups will be installed in part of the area now occupied by the smoking lounge just off the south end of the main ML lobby. The lounge is being reduced to make room for the new theater. It will seat 50 and provide a space for screening the introductory NCAR video, research highlights, and products from NCAR's Visualization Laboratory. •BH
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/static.html[4/19/2013 1:03:04 PM] Chris Berntsen, 1962-1999
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
March 1999 Chris Berntsen, 1962-1999
People throughout UCAR were shocked and saddened by the unexpected death of Chris Berntsen last month. A shuttle driver for Traffic Services since January 1997, Chris was found in his Boulder home on Monday, 8 February. He was 36. Before joining the staff as a shuttle driver, Chris was a familiar face in the ML fitness center for several years as a yoga instructor. In both roles, Chris touched the lives of a broad cross section of employees.
Diane Norman (F&A) remembers the aroma of herbal tea on the 7:00 a.m. shuttle run that Chris drove from ML to FL. "He was gentle in his tone of voice, and he had a soothing way about him. He'd talk about how he enjoyed hiking along the Mount Sanitas trail or how he enjoyed going to New Orleans for yoga instruction."
"He was the best yoga teacher I've ever had," says Beth Holland. The CGD scientist was one of a core group of six people who attended Chris's Iyengar yoga class each Friday for years. "He had a very analytical style of teaching, and he had a really great way of conveying exactly what sensation he wanted you to be aware of."
Chris taught Ashtanga yoga at the Yoga Workshop in Boulder for several years before switching to the Iyengar technique. After Chris stopped teaching his ML classes last August, Beth stayed in touch through occasional shuttle rides. "Chris wasn't the most talkative person, but we kept in contact, and he made sure we were keeping in touch with yoga," she says.
Chris's untimely death hit the team of shuttle drivers hard, says shuttle manager Jean Hancock. "He was very dependable and I could count on him being here. Chris was a sensitive, thoughtful person, but very private. He could get into good philosophical discussions."
Shuttle driver Mike Sullivan notes that Chris's absence has been felt by a number of riders as well as by colleagues in Traffic Services. Although some encountered Chris during his retiring moments, others made closer contact. "The people that are most affected by this are the people Chris opened up to--the ones who broke through to him or the ones he broke through to. He was a very gentle soul." •BH
A memorial service for Chris took place on 18 February at the Yoga Workshop. Contributions are being collected toward installing a bench along a local nature trail in Chris's memory. Checks can go to Cynthia Lusk, c/o The Yoga Workshop, 2020 21st St., Boulder CO 80302. Chris's father, Gary Berntsen, would appreciate receiving anecdotes and reflections on Chris. Write to him at 5437 Leete Road, Lockport NY 14094.
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UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
Each month in this column we highlight an in-house Web page of March 1999 interest. Send your suggestions to [email protected]. Comparing apples with apples: The Extreme Weather Sourcebook
Tornadoes cost Texas on average more than $40 million a year, while Iowa ranks first in costs of flooding, according to a new Web site launched by ESIG in February. The Extreme Weather Sourcebook provides quick access to data on the cost of damages from hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes in the United States and its territories. Decades of information are presented in constant 1997 dollars, simplifying comparisons among extreme-weather impacts and among states or regions.
"We created the site to spur investigation, because we're all affected by weather and climate," says ESIG's Roger Pielke, Jr., who led the project. The Sourcebook is also intended to be a user-friendly tool for journalists on deadline. "Users of information on weather impacts have been frustrated in the past by data in incompatible formats," says Roger. With the harmonized data on the new Web site, "people can compare apples with apples."
Visitors to the Sourcebook will find the states and U.S. territories ranked in order of economic losses from hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and all three events combined. A dollar figure for the average annual cost in each category for each state is also provided. Links take the reader to graphs with more detailed information on cost per year for each state and each hazard. For those who want to dig deeper, there's a link to Roger's Societal Aspects of Weather pages.
The data for hurricane impacts covers 1925-1995 (based on a study by Roger and NOAA's Christopher Landsea); for tornadoes, 1960-1994 (based on a database maintained by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center); and for floods, 1983- 1996 (based on data published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers). The flood and tornado data were updated to 1997 dollar values using the Gross National Product Implicit Price Deflator, which is published annually by the White House. The hurricane data were normalized to 1997 values by adjusting for growth in population and wealth, in addition to inflation.
The site allows relative comparisons of where a region or state stands in the national picture. "This is quantitative information that should be used in a qualitative way," says Roger. He also warns that historical costs should not be used to predict what future damages might be: "The future could be very different."
The Sourcebook was partially funded by the U.S. Weather Research Program, which is focused on improving predictions and their use by decision makers (see the cover story in this issue). See the USWRP home page. Working with Roger to put together the Extreme Weather Sourcebook were ESIG Web expert Baat Enosh and former ESIG visitors Angel Gutierrez (Carleton College) and Miles Mercer (Florida State University). •Zhenya Gallon
On the Web: Sourcebook on Economic Losses
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http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/arachno.html[4/19/2013 1:03:30 PM] New Hires
UCAR > Communications > Staff Notes > March 1999 Search
March 1999 New Hires
(front row, left to right): Andrew Kohler, computer operator with SCD. Rachel Buchberger, graduate research assistant with CGD. Rachel Weaver, scientific visitor with ACD. Louisa Emmons, scientific visitor with ACD. Julia Lee-Taylor, scientific visitor with ACD.
(back row, left to right up the stairs): David Harper, software engineer/programmer with RAP. Mark Lord, engineer with ATD. Ludgar Scherliess, scientific visitor with HAO. Lindsay Frisch, student assistant with ACD. Scott McIntosh, postdoctoral fellow with ASP. John Teague, software engineer/programmer with RAP. Keith Oleson, postdoctoral fellow with CGD.
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/newhires.html[4/19/2013 1:03:50 PM] New Hires
(front row, left to right): Natasha Flyer, postdoctoral fellow with ASP. Carol Manteuffel, health and safety specialist with F&A. Sherie Palmer, administrative assistant with HAO.
(back row, left to right): Andrzej Klonecki, postdoctoral fellow with ACD. Dara Houliston, administrative assistant with RAP. Michael Wright, software engineer and programmer with Unidata. Other New Hires
Rebecca Boger, program specialist with JOSS. Michael Ek, scientific visitor with VSP. Franz Geiger, postdoctoral fellow with VSP. Christopher Kerr, scientific visitor with JOSS. Walter Meier, postdoctoral fellow with VSP. Richard Powers, student assistant with ACD. David Verardo, project scientist with JOSS. Matthew Wheeler, postdoctoral fellow with ASP. Yihua Wu, scientific visitor with VSP.
Retirements Departures
Michl Howard, 5 February Jonathan Corbet, 12 February Sandra Jensen, 29 January Robert DeConto, 24 January Paul Seagraves, 31 January Kenneth Forbes, 19 February Theresa Jacobs, 29 January Laura McGrory, 20 February Hester Neilan, 19 February Tracy Paplow, 9 February Ctherine Pirok, 12 February Brian Rook, 13 January Linda Sitea, 8 February Starley Thompson, 5 February Gail Tonnesen, 31 January http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/9903/newhires.html[4/19/2013 1:03:50 PM] New Hires
Arthur Tucker, 27 January
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