ARL Weekly News – August 26, 2024

Upcoming Events

ARL Director Ariel Stein at the AiRMAPS 2025 Workshop

ARL/CSL will be co-hosting the AiRMAPS 2025 Coordination Workshop at the University of Maryland Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center on Sept. 3-4.  ARL Director Ariel Stein will give opening remarks at the start of the workshop.

ARL Mentor for International Research Experiences for Students Project Investigating Climate Change Effects on Animal Social Systems

Praveena Krishnan will serve as a non-NSF funded collaborator and mentor in a new NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) project led by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The project, running from 2024 to 2029, focuses on integrating biological, geospatial and mathematical modeling to study how climate change impacts animal social systems. It also supports U.S. students from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in conducting research on how environmental changes affect the social behavior and reproductive success of animal species, including the degu (Octodon degus), a rodent native to Chile.

The project fosters international scientific collaboration with researchers from Chile, Colombia, and the U.S. It includes a year-long STEM training program for underprivileged high school students participating in outreach programs, culminating in a week-long STEM camp where students learn data collection, geospatial analysis, and mathematical modeling skills similar to those used by IRES participants in Chile.

ARL to Participate in SCALES Field Campaign 

During the second week of September, Temple Lee and David Senn will be participating in the Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-Level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) campaign in Oklahoma. SCALES is a component of the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely piloted Aircraft (ISARRA) Flight Week campaign and will involve dozens of participants from NOAA, universities, and the private sector. To support the scientific objectives of the campaign, Temple and David will conduct UAS flights with ARL’s CopterSonde to obtain high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature, moisture, and wind. More details about the campaign are available here.

Recent Events

Atmospheric Sciences and Modeling Division Director Howard Diamond was Lead Editor for Tropics Chapter in the State of the Climate BAMS Publication

On August 22, 2024, the annual State of the Climate Report for 2023 was formally released by the American Meteorological Society. This annual publication is compiled by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and is based on contributions from over 600 scientists from around the world. It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice, and in space. This is the 34th issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the report also documents the status and trajectory of our capacity and commitment to observe the climate system. ARL’s Dr. Howard Diamond served as the lead editor for the Tropics Chapter, and this was his 19th such report in that role; and he has plans to do this again in 2025 for the 2024 report. The full report link can be found here and the Tropics Chapter link can be found here.

Fun Fact: Howard has been the lead editor for 19 years and has already committed to doing it again next year.

New ARL Project Funded by Oak Ridge Associated Universities Directed Research and Development Program

A project titled “Evaluating the Use of Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) to Advance Understanding of Micro- and Meso-Scale Weather Phenomena at the Urban-Rural Interface,” with Tim Wilson as Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) PI and Gijs de Boer of the University of Colorado-Boulder as CO-PI, has been approved for funding for FY25 by the ORAU-Directed Research and Development (ODRD) program. The project has also involved collaboration from NOAA scientists in the persons of Temple Lee and Praveena Krishnan. The project aims to: 1) examine the intercomparison of atmospheric measurement data from the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely-piloted Aircraft (ISARRA) field campaign in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, during September 8-14, 2024; 2) develop a comprehensive atmospheric measurement database of sUAS measurements; 3) use sUAS measurements as inputs and for validation of predicted atmospheric behavior by weather prediction models; and 4) finally, the project will help to assess the accuracy of given sUAS platforms in collecting valuable atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) measurements to improve understanding of localized weather patterns.

ARL at the National Society for Black Engineers Professional Development Conference

Philip Stratton and Lacey Holland attended the National Society for Black Engineers Professional Development Conference and supported NOAA’s networking suite on 22 August and the NOAA-led workshop session on 23 August 2024.It was fantastic to attend a cross-area professional conference. David Banner gave a rousing speech titled, “STEM and Social Justice: Advancing Activism in the Black Community” at Thursday’s luncheon, followed by post-luncheon photo-ops. There were a lot of great workshop sessions that provided training covering a range of topics such as: the ethical aspects of AI, Crucial conversations, problem solving methodologies, and building careers with global impact. While supporting NOAA’s networking suite and helping to field questions during the NOAA-led workshop session, the conference was a fantastic opportunity to network with people from diverse backgrounds and to provide information about the rewarding careers offered at NOAA, as an agency rated as one of the federal government’s best employers.

Publications and Presentations

Accepted for Publication

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers accepted a paper titled “International Foliar Air Velocity Characteristics for Soybeans Tested in a Wind Tunnel”

Authors: Nataraj Eswarachandra, Alvin Ray Womac, Lori Duncan, John Kochendorfer

ARL Scientist Presents Poster at TEMPO and GEMS workshop

Beiming Tang presented a poster at the TEMPO and GEMS joint workshop with the title “Developing high-resolution surface NO2 using NOAA UFS-AQM and TEMPO data via machine learning data fusion”. Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) is a sensor on board a Korean geostationary satellite, while Tropospheric Emission Monitoring of Pollutions (TEMPO) is the U.S. version of the sensor on a geostationary satellite launched in 2023.

The current scientific research focuses on 1) TEMPO air pollutant retrieval algorithm; 2) TEMPO product evaluation; 3) and TEMPO product applications.

Beiming’s research belongs to the 3rd section, using TEMPO tropospheric vertical NO2 column (gap filled with TROPOMI NO2) as input to downscale NOAA UFS-AQM to 1km by 1km. These initial results are presented in this workshop with potential future works focusing on re-processing historical data and the move to forecast mode.