Recent Publications & News:

GEST congratulates Andrea Molod and Hailan Wang, both of Code 610.1, on receiving GMAO Peer Awards, which will be presented today, November 20th. Dr. Molod is being recognized for outstanding contributions in GEOS-5 model development through the implementation of Monin-Obukhov surface layer theory and improved turbulence and moist processes tuning, leading to improved AMIP climate and AOGCM simulations. Dr. Wang is being honored for outstanding work in the successful production and initial analysis of the post-war (1948-1978) extension of the 2° reanalysis used for the MERRA Scout run. The awards ceremony will take place in Building 33, Room H114, at 1:30pm.

Shin-Chan Han, Code 698.0, as informed by the AGU geodesy section president that he has been selected for the 2009 Geodesy Section Award of the American Geophysical Union. The Geodesy Section Award is intended to honor young members (40 years of age or younger) of AGU's Geodesy Section who show the potential to become AGU Fellows in the future, but who are not yet Fellows. The Geodesy Section Award is given in recognition of major advances in geodesy. These advances can be in geodetic science, technology, applications, observations, or theory. A plaque will be awarded at the Geodesy Section Reception in San Francisco on December 15th, at which Han will be invited to describe highlights of his research.

This recent article from NASA discusses Einstein's theory of relativity and Erricos Pavlis' work with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) on the Laser Relativity Satellite (LARES): "A Snag in Space-Time".

Tom Narock, Code 698.0, is featured in a November 9th article in Scientific American regarding a grant to Rensslaer Polytechnic Institute that will fund "a software development tool kit to better connect researchers with the information they seek."

Scott Boardsen's paper, "Comparison of ultra-low-frequency waves at Mercury under northward and southward IMF", was published on September 23, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters.

GEST congratulates Shin-Chan Han Code 698.0 and Nickolay Krotkov Code 613.3 on receiving Robert H. Goddard Honor Awards, and Wayne Kasprzak Code 699.0 on receiving a Robert H. Goddard Merit Award. Dr. Han and Dr. Krotkov both will be presented with an Individual Award in the area of Exceptional Achievement for Science at the awards ceremony to be held on Tuesday, September 22nd at 10:00 am in the GSFC Building 8 Auditorium.

Assaf Anyamba's paper, "Prediction of a Rift Valley Fever Outbreak", published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is one of PNAS' most-read online papers during the month of July 2009.

JGR has published a paper by Thomas Eck, et al. titled "Optical properties of boreal region biomass burning aerosols in Central Alaska and seasonal variation of aerosol optical depth at an Arctic coastal site", which currently occupies the #2 spot of Top Weekly Downloads from the JGR-Atmospheres website (as of June 8). Eck's paper was published June 2, 2009 in J. Geophys. Res., 114, D11201, doi:10.1029/2008JD010870.

A paper by Hongbin Yu, Mian Chin, Lorraine A. Remer, Richard Kleidman, Nicolas Bellouin, Huisheng Bian, and Thomas Diehl titled "Variability of marine aerosol fine-mode fraction and estimates of anthropogenic aerosol component over cloud-free oceans from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)" was published in May 2009 in J. Geophys. Res., 114, D10206, doi:10.1029/2008JD010648.

On April 28, at a meeting chaired by Jennie Gromoll of the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau, Deputy, Office of Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat Reduction, Assaf Anyamba (614/GEST-UMBC) and Dr. Kenneth J. Linthicum (Center Director USDA-Center for Medical, Agricultural & Veterinary Entomology) jointly presented their inter-agency (NASA-DoD-USDA) collaboration efforts in monitoring, detection and prediction of climatic and ecological conditions associated with vector-borne disease outbreaks to the State-run interagency group overseeing the Biological Weapons Convention. In preparation for an Experts Meeting of BWC States Parties to be held in Geneva in August, the State Department is vetting possible U.S. presentations to be made highlighting key U.S. efforts towards disease surveillance capacity-building.

Anyamba and Linthicum presented on the Biology, Ecology, Climate Variability, Remote Sensing Mapping and Prediction of Rift Valley Fever Outbreaks and provided a detailed programmatic synthesis of how NASA remote sensing data, science and applications expertise contribute towards DoD and USDA efforts in monitoring prediction of vector-borne disease, and how these efforts contribute to early warnings for global public health through coordinated efforts with international agencies, including the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. The State Department indicated that elements of the presentation would indeed be very helpful for the gathered scientists, WHO, FAO, OIE, the diplomatic corps as well as industry and NGO/professional society representatives. In response to a request from the State Department, a presentation will be created to highlight this uniquely American capacity to share predictive satellite data on Rift Valley Fever, Dengue, etc. in an effort to enhance disease surveillance, particularly in Africa and South East Asia.

Mei Han, (UMBC, 613.1), S. A. Braun, P. O. G. Persson, and J.-W. Bao, have recently had their paper titled "Along-front variability of precipitation associated with a midlatitudes frontal zone: TRMM observation and MM5 simulation" (2009) published in Mon. Wea. Rev., 137, 1008-1028.

From Code 698, Shin-Chan Han, Erwan Mazarico and Frank Lemoine are co-authors of a paper, "Improved nearside gravity field of the Moon by localizing the power law constraint", which was recently submitted to Geophysical Research Letters, and for which only minor revisions have been requested prior to publication.

Timothy Stubb's continued research into dust from the moon is featured in this latest release from NASA, "LRO to Help Astronauts Survive in Infinity".

A paper by Oreste Reale, William Lau, Joel Susskind, Eugenia Brin, Emily Liu, Lars Peter Riishojgaard, Marangelly Fuentes, and Robert Rosenberg titled "AIRS impact on the analysis and forecast track of tropical cyclone Nargis in a global data assimilation and forecasting system" was published in March 2009 in Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L06812, doi:10.1029/2008GL037122.

Maria Frostic's film, Plight of the Puffin, has been selected as a finalist and will be screened at the 32nd International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana in May 2009.

A paper titled "Prediction of a Rift Valley fever outbreak" by Assaf Anyamba, Jean-Paul Chretien, Jennifer Small, Compton Tucker, Pierre Formenty, Jason Richardson, Seth Britch, David Schnabel, Ralph Erickson, and Kenneth Linthicum was published this week in PNAS, 106, No. 3, doi:10.1073/pnas.0806490106(2009).

A paper by Scott Boardsen, Brian Anderson, Mario Acuña, James Slavin, Haje Korth, and Sean Solomon is being published this week in GRL: "Narrow-band ultra-low-frequency wave observations by MESSENGER during its January 2008 flyby through Mercury's magnetosphere", Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L01104, doi:101029/2008GL036034 (2009).

Peter M. Norris, Lazaros Oreopoulos, Arthur Y. Hou, Wei-Kuo Tao and Xiping Zeng have a new paper "Representation of 3D heterogeneous cloud fields using copulas: Theory for water clouds" in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 134, 1843-1864 (2008).

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