ANNUAL REPORT 2016–2017 ANNUAL Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research Studies and Investigations GESTAR Staff Hanson, Heather Miller, Kevin Wen, Guoyong Achuthavarier, Deepthi Holdaway, Dan Mohammed, Priscilla Wiessinger, Scott Ahamed, Aakash Humberson, Winnie Monroe, Brian Wright, Ernie Amatya, Pukar Hurwitz, Margaret Moran, Amy Yang, Weidong Andrew, Andrea Ibrahim, Amir Ng, Joy Yang, Yuekui Anyamba, Assaf Jackson, Katrina Norris, Peter Yao, Tian Aquila, Valentina Jentoft-Nilsen, Marit Nowottnick, Ed Zhang, Cheng Armstrong, Amanda Jepsen, Rikke Oda, Tom Zhang, Qingyuan Arnold, Nathan Jethva, Hiren Olsen, Mark Zhou, Yaping Barker, Ryan Jin, Daeho Orbe, Clara Ziemke, Jerald Beck, Jefferson Jin, Jianjun Patadia, Falguni Bell, Benita Ju, Junchang Patel, Kiran GESTAR Integrated Belvedere, Debbie Keating, Shane Paynter, Ian Project Team (IPT) Bensusen, Sally Kekesi, Alex Pelc, Joanna Ball, Carol Bollian, Tobias Keller, Christoph Peng, Jinzheng Corso, Bill Bridgman, Tom Khan, Maudood Poje, Lisa Espiritu, Angie Brucker, Ludovic Kim, Dongchul Potter, Gerald Gardner, Jeanette Buchard, Virginie Kim, Dongjae Prescott, Ishon Houghton, Amy Carvalho, David Kim, Hyokyung Prive, Nikki Morgan, Dagmar Radcliff, Matthew Samuel, Elamae ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Castellanos, Patricia Kim, Min-Jeong Cede, Alexander Knowland, Emma Reale, Oreste Celarier, Ed Kolassa, Jana Rousseaux, Cecile Technical Editor Cetinic, Ivona Korkin, Sergey Sayer, Andy Amy Houghton Chang, Yehui Kostis, Helen-Nicole Schiffer, Robert Chatterjee, Abhishek Kowalewski, Matthew Schindler, Trent Graphic Designer Cheung, Samson Kucsera, Tom Seadler, Abigail Ryan Byrnes Chittimalli, Sandeep Kurylo, Michael Seegers, Bridget Cho, Naeyong Ladd, David Selkirk, Henry Cohen, Jarrett Lagomasino, David Sharghi, Kayvon Collow, Allison Lait, Leslie Shi, Jainn J. (Roger) Colombo, Oscar Lamsal, Lok Shi, Yingxi Concha, Javier Lawford, Rick Sippel, Jason Damoah, Richard Lee, Dongmin Soebiyanto, Radina de Matthaeis, Paolo Lee, Eunjee Sokolowsky, Eric Divakarla, Murty Lee, SeungKuk Soldo, Yan Draper, Clara Lee, Yuni Southard, Adrian Duberstein, Genna Leidner, Allison Stanley, Thomas Eck, Thomas Leitold, Veronika Starr, Cynthia Elkins, Kelly Lentz, Michael Steenrod, Stephen Errico, Ronald Li, Feng Strahan, Susan Estrada, Leann Li, Xiaowen Strode, Sarah Fitzgibbons, Ryan Liang, Qing Suarez, Max Follette-Cook, Melanie Liao, Jin Swanson, Andrew Freitas, Saulo Liao, Liang Taha, Ghassan Gallagher, Dan Lim, Young-Kwon Tao, Zhining Ganeshan, Manishan Lipschultz, Frederic Teinturier, Samuel Garner, Robert Liu, Fei Tian, Lin Gasso, Santiago Liu, Junhua Trapp, Cindy Gatebe, Charles Longo de Freitas, Karla Trossman, David Girotto, Manuela Lyu, Cheng Hsuan Ungar, Stephen Gong, Jie (Joseph) Unninayar, Sushel Graham, Steven Malanoski, Mark Van Oevelen, Peter Grecu, Mircea Malenovsky, Zbynek Vikhliaev, Yuri Gupta, Pawan Malespin, Charles Walker, Monique Gutierrez, Adriana Marchant, Benjamin Wang, James Manrique McGrath-Spangler, Erica Ward, Alan Han, Mei McLean, Debbi Weaver, Isaiah Handleman Seff, Mersmann, Kathryn Weaver, Kristen Michelle Meyer, Kerry Weir, Brad 2 | GESTAR Annual Report 2016 – 2017 TABLE of CONTENTS TABLE Letter from the GESTAR Director . 5 The GESTAR Team . 6 Technical Research . 7 Code 555: Microwave Instrument Technology Branch......................................7 Code 606.3: Information Science & Technology Research ..................................8 Code 610: Earth Sciences Division .....................................................9 Code 610.1: Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO)..............................10 Code 612: Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Laboratory .................................34 Code 613: Climate and Radiation Laboratory ...........................................41 Code 614: Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory ..............................48 Code 615: Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory ............................................75 Code 616: Ocean Ecology Laboratory ..................................................77 Code 617: Hydrological Sciences Laboratory ...........................................80 Code 618: Biospheric Sciences Laboratory .............................................87 Code 699: Planetary Environments Laboratory..........................................91 Delivering The Message . 95 Code 130 (Sponsors: W. Sisler and D. Kekesi)...........................................95 Code 606.4 (Sponsor: H. Mitchell) .................................................. 109 Science Communications Support Office (SCSO) (Sponsor: S. Platnick) . 120 Products . 125 Maniac Talks .................................................................... 125 NASA Viz........................................................................ 125 Student Engagements And Education/Public Outreach . 127 Student Engagement ............................................................. 127 Education and Public Outreach ..................................................... 127 Selected Items from NASA Earth Observatory (EO) ..................................... 130 Awards and Recognition . 131 Acronym List . 135. Still from “Life of the Monsoon”, Lead Producer Ryan Fitzgibbons, one of the Top Ten short videos from the AGU Fall Meeting in December 2016. The video looks at the meteorological ingredients for the monsoon and the seasonal pattern’s influence on Southeast Asia and beyond. Image provided by R. Fitzgibbons. GESTAR Annual Report 2016 – 2017 | 3 Gallery of items by Lead Visualizer Ernie Wright for the upcoming total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, a major event for NASA Communications this year. Image provided by E. Wright. Brian Monroe’s drawn vector art graphics were part of the animation style that brought to life the landscape and atmosphere of Venus in “Electric Wind of Venus”. Brian and Genna Duberstein received the DCSWA Newsbrief for Multimedia for this short video (see Awards section of this report). Image provided by B. Monroe. 4 | GESTAR Annual Report 2016 – 2017 Letter from the GESTAR Director We are pleased to offer this sixth NASA Goddard Earth Sciences, Technology, and Research (GESTAR) Cooperative Agreement Annual Report for the period 11 May 2016 – 10 May 2017. During this past year, NASA extended GESTAR for another five years to the team of Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Morgan State University (MSU), Johns Hopkins University (JHU), I.M. Systems Group (IMSG), and Global Science and Technology (GST). During the past year, GESTAR continued to be among major NASA Goddard Space Flight Facility partnerships. Everyone at GESTAR worked diligently with our NASA sponsors/collaborators to ensure the success of critically important projects that support NASA’s mission in Earth Sciences and beyond. Their efforts have resulted in many substantive accomplishments, highlighted in this report. Our sincerest thanks go out to all for their commitment and professionalism. This report summarizes multidisciplinary efforts of GESTAR-affiliated researchers, technologists, students, visitors, and staff. We describe accomplishments for the past year and technical progress in all research areas identified in the GESTAR Annual Research Program Plan, submitted to NASA on 31 July 2016. Within the report and its appendices are: a) abstracts and papers published by GESTAR-affiliated staff; b) GESTAR-affiliated presentations at conferences, seminars, and workshops; c) education and public outreach engagements by GESTAR-affiliated staff; d) awards received by GESTAR-affiliated staff; and e) engagement of GESTAR-affiliated staff in reviewing/ advising/committee participation activities. With NASA’s extension of GESTAR for another five years (2016-2021), we look forward to applying our knowledge and experience in the upcoming year to ensure GESTAR continues to exceed all of our expectations. William Corso Darryn Waugh (Associate Director – Johns Hopkins University) Daniel Laughlin (Associate Director – Morgan State University) Le Jiang (Associate Director – IMSG) GESTAR Annual Report 2016 – 2017 | 5 The GESTAR Team 7178 Columbia Gateway Drive GESTAR MANAGMENT TEAM Columbia, MD 21046 GESTAR Director ................ Dr. William Corso, USRA 410-730-2656 Associate Director .............. Dr. Darryn Waugh, JHU www.usra.edu Associate Director .............. Dr. Daniel Laughlin, MSU Associate Director .............. Dr. Le Jiang, IMSG http://gestar.usra.edu Business Manager .............. Ms. Dagmar Morgan, USRA Founded in 1969, Universities Space Research Association studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Morgan (USRA) is an independent nonprofit research corporation that State has continuously served the community with distinction conducts basic and applied research and operates programs and while meeting the educational needs of an increasingly diverse national facilities for government and industry, many of which are society. Designated as Maryland’s Public Urban University, MSU in support of NASA. USRA currently manages 20 programs and will continue its prominence in Maryland’s educational future. In facilities that employ more than 400 scientific, technical, and many fields, particularly in engineering and the sciences, MSU professional staff. With 105 university members, USRA provides accounts for large percentages of degrees received by African- a unique and special value that other research organizations do Americans from Maryland institutions. At the graduate level, it not. Only PhD-granting universities in Earth and space