Lorraine Remer (613/UMBC), Yingxi Shi (613/UMBC), and Huisheng Bian (614/UMBC) were among the co-authors on a recent paper in Science titled "Atmospheric nourishment of global ocean ecosystems," led by oceanographer Toby Westberry (Oregon State University). This research was recently highlighted by Sarah Hansen in UMBC News.

The paper discusses the relationship between atmospheric dust and phytoplankton, the latter being a part of the carbon cycle. Most phytoplankton find their food source within the ocean, but nutrients also are provided from dust that falls into the ocean, and this research is the first of its kind to investigate how phytoplankton is affected by these dust deposits.

For this research, the cross-collaboration was integral to their ultimate discoveries. According to Dr. Remer, "One exciting aspect of this study was working with the oceanographers, who brought an entirely different perspective. The scientific advances became possible only after the atmospheric scientists and oceanographers joined forces."

Additionally, a NASA feature titled "How Desert Dust Nourishes the Growth of Phytoplankton at Sea" is available here.  

Join us for a virtual seminar by Dr. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth System Science, University of California Irvine (UCI). Her talk is titled "Preserving space-time patterns and extremes in satellite precipitation retrievals: from spectral error analysis and diagnostics to Machine Learning."

Date and Time: Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 11:00am

Join us via Teams.

Abstract: 

"In this talk, I will provide a synthesis of our research in understanding and quantifying systematic and random errors in precipitation retrievals from multi-satellite platforms towards improving the accuracy and resolution of global precipitation products. I will first describe our efforts on multi-scale space-time decomposition of state-of the-art satellite precipitation estimates (QPEs) to diagnose the nature of the error and build a spectral error model that accounts for the space-time dynamics of precipitation. Diagnosing and quantifying the systematic error (intensity, wavenumber and frequency dependent) and the random error (additive or multiplicative) allows to characterize uncertainty at any time and location and across a range of scales. For hydrologic applications, getting the timing of storms right is also important and our event-based error decomposition allows to detect and diagnose systematic biases in the start, peak and end time of storms as well as event intensity. We apply the knowledge gained from our spectral decomposition analysis into constructing appropriate loss functions for training the new class of Machine Learning (ML) retrieval algorithms and show significant improvements in preserving extremes and the space-time structure of precipitation across multiple scales."

Biography:

Dr. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou is a Distinguished Professor and the Samueli Endowed Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and in Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. From 1989-2016 she was a McKnight Distinguished Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Director of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, and Director of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED). Dr. Foufoula-Georgiou studies hydrology and geomorphology with an emphasis on understanding the space-time organization and multiscale structure of precipitation and landforms for improving modeling and prediction. She has served the community in several capacities, including member of the NAS Water Science and Technology Board, NSF Advisory Council for Geosciences, NASA Earth Sciences Subcommittee, and Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Her elected positions include Chair of the Board of Directors of CUAHSI, Trustee of UCAR, President of the Hydrology Section of AGU, and AMS Councilor. Dr. Foufoula-Georgiou has been the recipient of several awards including the EGU John Dalton Medal, AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award, AMS Hydrologic Sciences Medal, and AGU Robert Horton Medal.  She received a diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and an M.S. and Ph.D. (1985) in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. She is a fellow of AGU, AMS, AAAS and member of the European Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the American Society of Arts and Sciences.

Ivona Cetinic (616/MSU) and Inia Soto Ramos (616/MSU) discuss preparing for, collecting, processing, acquiring and archiving in situ data from the two EXPORTS field campaigns in this NASA Earthdata article, "Deep Data: Analyzing Carbon in the Ocean." 

EXPORTS captured data from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Planning for and conducting the research during these campaigns is the first part, while the second part is (to paraphrase) "wrangling the data", analyzing it and sharing it with fellow researchers and open science sources. For EXPORTS, "there was a complex mix of data to be gathered and handled by many people in many different ways." 

Visit NASA Earthdata: "The Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program provides full and open access to NASA’s collection of Earth science data for understanding and protecting our home planet. Begin your Earthdata exploration by clicking on any of the discipline icons."

 

Held on Friday, April 21, 2023, this year's Earth Day Symposium began with opening remarks by Dr. Zhibo Zhang (UMBC) and introductions by Kylie Hoffman (Ph.D. student, UMBC), one of the organizers. The panel, "Synergy of Earth Sciences in Academia, Industry, and Government," was held in the morning. The panelists consisted of the following women: Dr. K. Emma Knowland (GESTAR II/MSU), Ms. Veronica Johnson (WJLA-TV/ABC7), Dr. Antonia Gambacorta (NASA/GSFC), Dr. Lorraine Remer (GESTAR II/UMBC), and Dr. Yaitza Luna-Cruz (NASA HQ). Panelists presented their backgrounds, which fully represented academia, industry and government. They shared how they originally became interested in atmospheric science and/or weather, and what they found rewarding in their work (fellow researchers, collaboration, research experiences in the field and in the air, plus seeing growth in diversity). They discussed overcoming obstacles and the advancement of technology. Another topic of discussion was the availability of (or lack of) open source/open science data and what could be done to make global data accessible. 

Join us for a virtual seminar by Dr. Chuntao Liu, professor in atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. His talk is titled "Connections between convection and the stratosphere in tropics."

Date and Time: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 1:00pm

Join us via Teams.

Abstract: 

Biography:

Dr. Chuntao Liu, professor in atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi, earned his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences at the University of Wyoming in 2003. In the early 2000s he spent two seasons at McMurdo, Antarctica monitoring the stratospheric ozone with balloons. Then he joined the University of Utah as research assistant professor and associate professor before joining Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. His primary research interests are in the areas of satellite remote sensing of global precipitation, cloud, and severe weather events. Dr. Liu also maintains several instruments measuring the fair-weather electric field at Barrow, Alaska and Corpus Christi, and is a science team member of NASA precipitation science mission. His authorship includes 90+ peer-reviewed journal publications and 100+ conference presentations. Dr. Liu has served as the associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres for a decade.

For more information on the GESTAR II Seminar Series, click here.