News

Uganda

Aug 02, 2024 11:28 AM

CISESS Scientist Daile Zhang works to Mitigate Lightning Hazards in Uganda

CISESS Scientist Daile Zhang visited Uganda to help with the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems at Two Primary Schools in Kalangala.

RGCVS

Mar 29, 2024 10:24 AM

A Prototype Robotic Ground-based Cal/Val System

Under a CISESS Seed Grant, Xi Shao and his colleagues at the CISESS Remote Sensing Lab built a Robotic Ground-based Cal/Val System and used it in a field campaign for JPSS/VIRS and GOES-R/ABI validation.

John Xun Yang and His Daughter

Mar 29, 2024 10:10 AM

New Satellite Error Simulator Released

SatERR is a community error inventory for satellite microwave observation error representation and uncertainty quantification, described by John Xun Yang and his co-authors in a new publication.

Flash Drought Hot Spots

Mar 29, 2024 09:52 AM

Agricultural Flash Droughts

In their recent publication, CISESS Scientist E. Hugo Berbery and his co-authors examine agricultural flash droughts worldwide and reveal their characteristics and life cycle.

First CISESS Seed Grants Announce Results

The four CISESS Seed grants awarded in 2022 have completed with outstanding results! (1) Guangyang Fang & Joseph Patton have developed a remote streaming VR interface to view 3D climate data on ENSO. (2) Daile Zhang has designed a low-cost Raspberry Pi camera lightning monitor with 16 cameras currently in place. (3) Veljko Petkovic and and Malarvizhi Arulra have a PMW emulator from ABI data based on AI/ML. (4) Hu Yang and Jun Dong helped students build and test a microwave radiometer.

Student-Built Microwave Radiometer

CISESS Microwave Radiometer Seed Grant Results

CISESS Scientists Hu Yang and Jun Dong worked with student interns Samatha Smith, Feng Pei Zhang, Richard Zhou, Chao-Wei Tu and Zhuo-Yu Yang, and with Electrical Engineer Doug Baker, to build a working microwave radiometer. The goal was to let students get hands-on learning of an important satellite instrument.

Raspberry Pi Lightning Camera Network

CISESS Lightning Camera Network Seed Grant Results

CISESS Scientist Daile Zhang, with the help of her student interns Dominic Brooks, Alex Friedman and Samantha Smith, has designed and built a Raspberry Pi camera network for high-speed lightning video observation. Four Raspberry Pi Cameras were set up in Maryland, two in Arizona and one in Oklahoma.

Virtual Reality

CISESS Virtual Reality Seed Grant Results

The goal of CISESS Scientists Guangyang Fang and Joseph Patton’s Seed Grant project was to develop a Virtual Reality (VR) tool that allows researchers and forecasters to interpret 3-D weather and climate datasets on a sphere more intuitively and efficiently. They redesigned their earlier user interface to make it easier to use – this effort was led by undergraduate interns Damian Figuero and Ashmita Pyne.

Emulated Microwave Brightness Temperature

CISESS Passive Microwave Emulator Seed Grant Results

CISESS Scientists Veljko Petkovic and Malarvizhi Arulraj, with the help of PhD student, Vesta Gorooh, completed their CISESS Seed Grant used the GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager to achieve highly accurate and location-specific information on clouds by approximating of passive microwave (PMW) observations using artificial intelligence/machine learning.

Ocean Acidification

Ocean Acidification Indicators for the Global Surface Ocean

CISESS scientist Li-Qing Jiang and colleagues published a landmark study on the evolution of 10 ocean acidification (OA) indicators in the global surface ocean from 1750 to 2100. The article was published on 23 March 2023 in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

Vogel and Abecassis win NESDIS Collaboration Awards

CISESS Scientists Melanie Abecassis and Ronald Vogel received NESDIS Collaboration Awards for their contributions as part of a team who created new and upgraded existing content exploiting multimedia, and pivoted the CoastWatch Satellite Course to a virtual environment, hosting educational content on CANVAS at UMD/CISESS.

Gorogh & CHRS

CISESS Internship Project in Collaboration with University of California, Irvine

University of California–Irvine PhD candidate Vesta Gorooh, completed a12-week internship at CISESS where she explored the capabilities of using machine learning to improve satellite retrieval of precipitation rate. This project will continue as a collaboration with UCI's Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (CHRS).

Bio-GO-SHIP

Martiny Participating in this Year’s Bio-GO-SHIP Cruise

CISESS Consortium Scientist Adam Martiny (UCI), the task leader of “UCI Bio-GO-SHIP - A Global Analysis of Large-Scale Changes to Ocean Plankton Systems” is currently on this year’s Bio-GO-SHIP cruise.

ABI Calibration

Fangfang Yu Presents at the 2022 SPIE Meeting

CISESS Scientist Fangfang Yu from the STAR GOES-R cal/val support team attended the Earth Observing Systems XXVII Conference of the SPIE Optics + Photonics Meeting on 21–25 August 2022 in San Diego, CA, where she delivered an oral presentation, “On-orbit radiometric calibration performances of GOES-16/17 ABI IR channels”, co-authored with Xiangqian Wu (NOAA sponsor, STAR/SMCD/SCDAB), Hyelim Yoo (CISESS) and Haifeng Qian (CISESS).

CISESS Deputy Director E. Hugo Berbery Wins a Fulbright Specialist Award

The U.S. State Department announced on August 9 that UMD Research Professor Ernesto Hugo Berbery has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award.

CISESS Summer Interns Share their Summer Accomplishments

Our 21 CISESS Summer Interns presented the results of their projects during our CISESS Summer Intern Celebration on August 24. See their one-slide summaries on our website Students' Page.

The Storm

Rare 12-Stroke Lightning Captured by Raspberry Pi High-Speed Camera

Daile Zhang and her team of interns captured a 12-stroke lightning flash on campus just before the lights went out using the Raspberry Pi High-Speed Camera during the powerful thunderstorm that knocked out power at UMD on July 12.

SPIE Award

May 21, 2021 09:00 AM

Zhipeng Wang Wins Best Paper Award

CISESS Scientists Zhipeng Wang (lead author), Fangfang Yu, Hyelim Yoo, Haifeng Qian and Xi Shao have been honored with a SPIE Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 2020 Best Papers Award. Their article, “On-orbit calibration and characterization of GOES-17 ABI IR bands under dynamic thermal conditions,” was selected as the best paper for Photo-Optical Instrumentation and Design.

State of the Ecosystem Report

May 11, 2021 01:49 PM

Ron Vogel Commended for Work on the New Mid-Atlantic State of the Ecosystem Report

CISESS scientist Ron Vogel, Operations Manager for the East Coast Node, was recently recognized and highly praised for his contributions to the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office to identify satellite derived products that support habitat and fisheries management applications. He contributed to the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center's (NEFSC) 2021 State of Ecosystem - Mid-Atlantic Report with seasonal anomalies of satellite sea surface temperature.

Joseph Patton

Apr 26, 2021 08:50 AM

Using Satellite Lightning Data for Forecasting

CISESS Scientist Joseph Patton was a speaker at the “Satellite Book Club,” a program run by the NWS Forecast Decision Training Division. His talk was about how to use the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) as a tool in forecasting. He received a commendation letter this week from GOES-R Data Operations Manager Matthew Seybold for his “outstanding” presentation.

MiRS Water Vapor

Feb 26, 2021 07:56 AM

Satellite Microwave Data for Water Vapor Retrievals

CISESS scientists Chris Grassotti and Yong-Keun Lee coauthored a paper published on January 30th that showed that satellite microwave observations at 23.8 GHz improve the accuracy of total precipitable water (TPW) products over land as well as oceans. This study was motivated by concerns of channel overlap from new 5G communication frequencies.

SFR Analysis

Feb 26, 2021 07:13 AM

ATMS SFR Performance in Recent Snowfall Event

A case study of the East Coast snowstorm from January 31 to February 2 examined the NOAA snowfall rate (SFR) product, which is worked on by CISESS scientists Huan Meng, Jun Dong, Yalei You, Yongzhen Fan, Cesar Kongoli, and Ralph Ferraro. Preliminary results show experimental Snowfall Detection algorithms performed well.

Forest Structures

Feb 25, 2021 05:01 PM

Monitoring the 3D Structure of Forests

CISESS Scientists Khaldoud Rishmawi and Chegquan Huang co-published an article on January 25th that demonstrated the integration of Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation measurements with VIIRS data to produce 1-km resolution forest products.

TPW Retrievals

Using Satellite Microwave Data for Water Vapor

CISESS scientists Chris Grassotti and Yong-Keun Lee coauthored a paper published on January 30th that showed that satellite microwave observations at 23.8 GHz improve the accuracy of total precipitable water (TPW) products over land as well as oceans. This study was motivated by concerns of channel overlap from new 5G communication frequencies.

AI Chlorophyll-A

Retrieving Chlorophyll Concentration from GOES-16 Using AI

CISESS Scientist Guangming Zheng gave a presentation on January 21st that demonstrated the use of deep learning techniques to retrieve chlorophyll a concentrations for the open oceans from GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager data.

Upper Ocean Temperatures

Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020

CISESS Scientists Alexey Mishonov and Jim Reagan are coauthors on a newsworthy article, published online on January 13th, which reported that upper ocean temperatures hit a record high in 2020.

NAQFC

Dec 08, 2020 10:03 AM

CISESS Scientists Commended for Air Quality Modeling Work

Eight scientists from CISESS and the CISESS Consortium who work at ARL received a UMD letter of recognition for their work on the National Weather Service’s National Air Quality Forecasting Capability (NAQFC). This is in conjunction with a NOAA Administrator's Award to the team's federal employees.

Nov 13, 2020 10:11 AM

VOA Interview on Virtual Reality Meteorology Data

CISESS Scientists Mason Quick, Eric Lee and Scott Rudlosky were interviewed by Voice of America reporters on their development of cutting edge virtual reality software to view 3-D meteorological data. See the video!

SFR Performance

Oct 29, 2020 09:00 AM

SFR Captures Early Season Snowstorm

The NOAA Snowfall Rate Product, developed by Huan Meng, Jun Dong, Cezar Kongoli, and Ralph Ferraro, performed well when several western states experienced one of the earliest snowstorms on September 8-9.

Jul 24, 2020 06:56 AM

Did you see all that lightning last night?

CISESS Scientist Daile Zhang shares her lightning movies from a local storm at the end of July.

Hurricane Michael

Jul 06, 2020 07:11 AM

Sting Jets in Hurricane Michael?

Deirdre Dolan discusses her research on possible sting jet development during the extra-tropical transition of Hurricane Michael.

Surface Reflectance & NDVI

Feb 04, 2020 07:38 AM

AMS Award Winner Tianning Su

CISESS Graduate Student Tianning Su was selected for a speaking award at the recent American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting. He received the award for his talk on “Retrieving Aerosol Optical Depth Retrievals over Land by Constructing the Relationship of Spectral Surface Reflectances through Deep Learning: Application in Himawari-8.”

CISESS Attendees

Dec 06, 2019 09:00 AM

CISESS Science Meeting Archive Available

The abstracts, slides, and posters presented at the recent CICS Science Meeting are now available for viewing on the CISESS website.

Heather Mattern

Nov 06, 2019 06:00 AM

CISESS Financial Director Heather Mattern and the New CISESS Finance Office

One of the big new changes in the Cooperative Institute, other than its name, is the creation of a CISESS Finance Office. Heather Mattern has been named the CISESS Financial Director. The office will have two Business Manager-Proposal Coordinators and a Business Specialist. They will be colocated with CISESS on the 3rd Floor of the ESSIC Building.

CREST

Aug 15, 2019 01:14 AM

Six JPSS SPARKS Students Present their Research Results

The JPSS Students Professional and Academic Readiness with Knowledge in Satellites (SPARKS) program held a nine-week course this summer for graduate students with speakers drawn from NOAA and Affiliate JPSS Scientists. In addition, each of the six students had a NOAA mentor to work with on a summer research project. The program just wrapped up and the students gave their presentations on their projects on Tuesday, August 6. Here are some of the highlights:

CoRP Science Symposium will be held on August 27-29 at UMD

CICS/CISESS is hosting this year's NOAA CoRP Science Symposium. It will be held at ESSIC on August 27 to 29. There will be awards for best presentation and best poster (1st, 2nd, 3rd). We have 20 speakers and 25 posters on topics including satellite, data, applied, and Earth system science.

Sheekela Baker-Yeboah wins Technology Rising Star Award

CISESS Scientist Sheekela Baker-Yeboah, who works with STAR/SOCD, has been selected to receive the 2019 Women of Color Outstanding ""Technology Rising Star" Achievement Award.

Jul 03, 2019 02:30 PM

Join Us for the CoRP Science Symposium

CICS/CISESS is hosting this year's NOAA CoRP Science Symposium. It will be held at ESSIC on August 27 to 29. There will be awards for best presentation and best poster (1st, 2nd, 3rd). We encourage all CICS students and young scientists to submit an abstract for the conference. Everyone who sends us an abstract will get to present (oral or poster) at the Symposium. Abstracts are due on July 29.

Jun 03, 2019 09:33 AM

CICS is now the Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS)

NOAA has announced the approval of the University of Maryland’s proposal to host the Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS). The institute is slated to start on July 1st and will receive funding of up to $175M over five years. This is NOAA Grant NA19NES4320002 (Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies) with an end date of 30 June 2025.

May 28, 2019 09:49 AM

CICS-MD Students win Tannebaum Prize

Matt Nicholson and Tyler Richman are this year's recipients of the Tannebaum Prize for Climate Science.

CICS-MD Scientists to Present New Climate Vulnerability Index

CICS-MD Scientists Melissa Kenney and Michael Gerst will present findings supporting their recently completed "Climate Change Variability/Vulnerability Index” in a complimentary webinar, hosted by software firm and project partner Resilinc, at 2 p.m. Wednesday May 8.

OSOS

Apr 21, 2019 10:59 AM

CICS-MD Seeks Student Posters on Satellite Oceanography

CICS-MD is collecting student posters on oceanography/satellites to display at a reception for the First International Operational Satellite Oceanography Symposium. This conference will be held June 18 - 20 at NCWCP. We are also looking for student note-takers for the sessions.

Data Availability

Apr 19, 2019 02:38 PM

SMOPS Blended Soil Moisture Product Improves Land Model Simulations

CICS-MD Scientists Jifu Yin, Jicheng Liu, and Mitch Schull co-authored an article with STAR Scientist Xiwu (Jerry) Zhan about results from their CICS task on “Advancing the Effectiveness and Efficiency of GLDAS Assimilation of JPSS Land Data Products for NCEP NWP and Drought Monitoring Operations.”

CICS-MD Circular

Jan 31, 2019 08:28 AM

CICS-MD Issues its Winter Circular

The biannual newsletter for CICS-MD is now available. It features articles by CICS-MD Scientists Gang Liu, Jun Dong, Cezar Kongoli, and Veronica Lance.

WRF-LIS Experiments

Nov 05, 2018 08:23 AM

Recent CICS-MD Research on Data Assimilation of Satellite-Observed Land Surface Information

CICS-MD Scientist Li Fang describes her latest research on adding satellite-based surface green vegetation fraction, land surface temperature and soil moisture to the the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS).

Pat Meyers

Nov 02, 2018 06:42 AM

Patrick Meyers wins Outstanding Communications Award

CICS-MD Scientist Patrick Meyers received the GOES-R Series Program Award for Outstanding Communication for his animations of Geostationary Lightning Mapper data.

UNESCO Report

Nov 02, 2018 05:51 AM

NOAA Coral Reef Watch Spearheads UNESCO Report

CICS-MD Scientist Erick Geiger and CICS Consortium Scientist Scott Heron from NOAA Coral Reef Watch co-authored a UNESCO update report assessing the historical, recent, and projected heat stress and bleaching at natural World Heritage properties with coral reefs.

Sea Ice Thickness

Data Assimilation of CryoSat-2 Sea Ice Thickness

CICS-MD Scientist Sinéad Farrell has a new article, published in Advances in Space Research on improving the results of coupled ice-ocean models. In this study, ice thickness products from CryoSat-2 were used to initialize the model.

Cover

CICS Contributes to 2017 "State of the Climate"

The American Meteorological Society just released their annual State of the Climate report as a supplement to the latest issue of the Bulletin of AMS. Seven CICS-MD scientists wrote sections of the report.

Skew-T Results

Folmer's Dropsondes in the Saharan Air Layer

CICS-MD Scientist Michael Folmer has designed a dropsonde mission to study the Saharan Air Layer. The first deployment of the sondes by a NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft occurred on September 20. The results are compared with NOAA-20 profiles.

Lightning in Hurricane Florence

Sep 14, 2018 10:00 AM

Lightning from Hurricane Florence

CICS-MD Scientist Patrick Meyers prepared a video of Hurricane Florence lightning as recorded by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) on GOES-16 on September 13 for the “NOAA Satellites” Facebook and Twitter Accounts. President Donald Trump included it in his tweet on the hurricane.

Schematic

Aug 27, 2018 07:06 AM

Stratocumulous-to-Cumulous Transition

CICS-MD Scientists Youtong Zheng and Zhanqing Li have a new article that uses passive satellite sensors to test a theory of stratocumulous-to-cumulous transition in the subtropics during cold advection.

Meteor

Aug 27, 2018 05:23 AM

UPDATE: Geostationary Lightning and Meteor Mapper?

CICS-MD Scientists Scott Rudlosky and Michael Peterson found that the GLM on GOES-R/GOES-16 observed a fireball near Detroit, MI on January 16. UPDATE: Rudlosky co-authored an article on this and nine other meteors observed by GLM now in press at the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science and published online on July 15.

JPSS SPARKS

Aug 20, 2018 12:29 PM

JPSS SPARK Students Presentations

This summer's JPSS SPARKS students gave presentations on their research projects, developed with NOAA mentors, on August 9.

Tornado Lightning

Aug 20, 2018 12:25 AM

GLM and the Iowa Tornado

GOES-East Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) captured a tornado outbreak in Iowa last month and mapped the density of lightning flashes within the storm. CICS-MD Scientist Patrick Meyers started with the GLM data to create this video of the event.

Mid-Atlantic Rain

Jul 31, 2018 09:29 AM

The Mid-Atlantic Deluge from the GCOM-W Satellite

CICS-MD Scientist Patrick Meyers uses the record-breaking rain in the Mid-Atlantic on July 21-25 to test a new satellite precipitation algorithm.

Moisture Transport

Jul 31, 2018 08:45 AM

Water Vapor Transport and Near-Surface Salinity in the North Atlantic Ocean

CICS-MD Scientist James Reagan has a new article published on June 11 in the on-line journal Scientific Reports. He and co-authors from NCEI studied the subtropical-subpolar North Atlantic (NA) atmospheric moisture transport.

Rep. Sarbanes

U.S. Congressman & President Loh Visit CICS Proving Ground

U.S. Congressman Paul Sarbanes visited the CICS-MD office to tour the Proving Ground Training Ground's new Visualization Lab. He was joined by UMD President Wallace Loh.

Precipitation

Mar 09, 2018 08:22 AM

Analysis of 2017 Precipitation

CICS-MD Scientist Robert Adler, who works with NCEI to produce a monthly Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) precipitation product, has written a short summary for NOAA/NCEI of where the last year (2017) fits in to the long-term (1979-2017) global precipitation record using our GPCP CDR.

AMS Slides

AMS 2018 Summary Slides

The one-slide summaries of AMS talks and posters from STAR and the NESDIS Cooperative Institutes, annually collected by Ralph Ferraro, are now on the STAR website.

Science

Ultrafine Aerosol Impact on Climate

CICS-MD Scientist Zhanqing Li and his graduate student Yuwei Zhang are co-authors of a new article in "Science." Their article, “Substantial convection and precipitation enhancements by ultrafine aerosol particles,” appeared in the January 26th issue.

Scott Rudlosky

Rudlosky wins the NOAA Dave Johnson Award

The winner of the prestigious and highly competitive NOAA Dave Johnson Award has been announced and it is STAR/CICS Scientist Scott Rudlosky.

NOAA-20 ATMS Temperature

Dec 08, 2017 07:08 AM

A First Look at JPSS-1/NOAA-20 ATMS

The JPSS-1 satellite was launched on November 18 and the first data from the ATMS microwave instrument was received 11 days later on November 29th. CICS-MD Scientists Hu Yang and Chris Grassotti both worked on processing the data.

3D Hurricane Irma Lightning

Nov 28, 2017 06:53 AM

3D View of Hurricane Irma Lightning

CICS-MD Scientist Patrick Meyers has developed a three-dimensional animation of Hurricane Irma with lightning data from the GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper.

Spider Lightning Flashes

Nov 21, 2017 06:58 AM

Spider Lightning Flash via Satellite

CICS-MD Scientist Micheal Peterson has created a video that shows a spider lightning flash observed by the Lighting Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite - a predecessor to GLM. It traces the lateral development of the optical energy of the flash as it evolves along its various branches.

Oct 12, 2017 08:19 AM

Lightning for Hurricanes Harvey through Maria

Using the GOES-16 GLM and ABI data, CICS-MD Scientist Michael Peterson created an animation of lightning within and around Hurricanes Harvey through Maria. To go to the CICS-MD Lightning Page and see the full animation, click on "Read More."

Sep 22, 2017 01:30 PM

Can Satellites Measure Lake Surface Temperatures?

A recent CICS-MD project headed by Andy Harris is assessing whether NOAA can extend its lake surface temperature products for the Great Lakes to other U.S. lakes.

State of the Climate 2016

Sep 15, 2017 10:32 AM

AMS Releases State of the Climate 2016

CICS-MD Scientist Jim Reagan is one of the authors of "State of the Climate 2016," just released by the American Meteorological Association.

GPM Constellation

Sep 11, 2017 08:35 AM

Brightness Temperature Temporal Variation and Precipitation Rate

CICS-MD Scientist Yalei You (NESDIS/STAR/CRPD/SCSB) has a new paper published in the September issue of the Journal of Hydrometeorology. It shows how precipitation rate retrievals can be improved using brightness temperature temporal variation. You works on the CICS Task "Precipitation Research and Applications."

Sep 08, 2017 01:52 PM

CICS-MD Staff Promotions

On September 7, the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical & Natural Sciences, which oversees ESSIC and CICS, announced the promotion of 66 professional-track faculty. Sixteen of these promotions were earned by CICS-MD staff.

Hurricane Harvey Lightning

Sep 01, 2017 09:58 AM

Hurricane Harvey Lightning as seen by GOES-16

CICS-MD Scientist Michael Peterson has created an animation of GOES-R GLM images of the i lightning that Hurricane Harvey released when it made landfall.

Posters

Aug 28, 2017 08:14 AM

JPSS Posters on Display

The posters presented by CICS-MD at the recent STAR JPSS Science Meeting are currently on display at the ESSIC Building on the 3rd Floor. Feel free to come over and browse. Click on "read more" to see the list of posters.

GOES-16 CONUS LST

Aug 16, 2017 05:28 AM

GOES-16 ABI Land Surface Temperature

CICS-MD Scientist Peng Yu describes the latest specifications for the GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager Land Surface Data Global and CONUS product releases.

Aug 07, 2017 07:17 AM

MiRS Land Surface Temperature

CICS-MD Scientist Chris Grassotti and his CUNY-CREST intern, Carlos Perez-Diaz, show the results of a comparison of Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MiRS) land surface temperature from Soumi-NPP/ATMS measurements to SURFRAD ground-based measurement.

Michael Folmer

Aug 01, 2017 01:29 PM

Folmer Named Outstanding Communicator

CICS-MD Scientist Michael Folmer was awarded an Outstanding Communication Award by the GOES-R Series Program for his work as a Satellite Liaison to the National Weather Service.

CESI

Jul 31, 2017 07:31 AM

CrIS Cloud Emission and Scattering Index (CESI)

CICS-MD Scientists Xioalei Zou and Lin Lin, in collaboration with NOAA scientists, took an innovative approach for developing a cloud detection algorithm using Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) observations.

S-NPP Precipitation

Jul 28, 2017 08:43 AM

NOAA Knows Remote Sensing of Precipitation

SCSB Chief Ralph Ferraro is the lead author of the first chapter in a new volume on the Remote Sensing of Hydrological Cycle, part of the nine-volume set on Comprehensive Remote Sensing released by Elsevier.

TWC

Mar 07, 2017 01:34 PM

Rudlosky & GLM on the Weather Channel

Scott Rudlosky appeared on the Weather Channel to show the first images from the GLM aboard GOES-R/GOES-16.

Tse-Chun Chen at AMS

Feb 21, 2017 11:49 AM

Tse-Chun Chen Wins AMS Student Speaker Award

Doctoral student Tse-Chun Chen, who works with CICS Scientist Eugenia Kalnay on proactive quality control using ensemble data assimilation techniques, was awarded Best Student Presentation at the IOAS-AOLS Conference at the 2017 AMS Annual Meeting.

J. Clim.

Jan 23, 2017 09:19 AM

Thomas Smith Tops Journal of Climate Citations in 2016

Thomas Smith is an author of three of the top 10 most cited articles over the past three years in the AMS Journal of Climate.

RAICES

Dec 09, 2016 07:14 AM

Berbery Receives RAICES Award

CICS Deputy Director E. Hugo Berbery was awarded the RAICES Award for International Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation from the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation.

Nov 22, 2016 11:23 AM

Vintzileos Recognized for Week-3&4 Forecasts

CICS-MD Scientist Augustin Vintzileos received a Certificate of Recognition from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center for his work on improving Week-3&4 weather outlooks.

Tom Smith

Oct 03, 2016 01:02 AM

Tom Smith Honored with a DOC Gold Medal

Thomas M. Smith was awarded the Department of Commerce Gold Medal in a ceremony held this week. Tom is a NOAA Scientist co-located with the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites at the University of Maryland (CICS-MD).

Sep 30, 2016 11:51 AM

Dr. Berbery Named CICS Deputy Director

Dr. E. Hugo Berbery, the CICS-MD Director, has been promoted to CICS Deputy Director.

ESI 9-29-16

Sep 30, 2016 04:11 AM

Evaporative Stress Index Goes Operational

Christopher Hain, Li Fang, Zhengpeng Li, and the rest of their team at NESDIS/STAR/SMCD/EMB are happy to announce that their GOES Evapotransporation and Drought Production System (GET-D) system is now operational. It generates 2-, 4-, 8- and 12-week Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) composites over the North American domain.

NOAAPORT Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN)

Mar 04, 2016 08:29 AM

CICS-MD SBN Antenna Installed

A NOAAPORT Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN) antenna, receiver, and server have been installed at CICS-MD on the roof of the ESSIC building.

Blue Carbon

Jan 10, 2016 02:15 PM

Successful Blue Carbon Projects

CICS-MD scientist Ariana Sutton-Grier and her Hollings Scholar intern, Lindsay Wylie, have documented the keys to a successful Blue Carbon Project in her new article to be published in the March 2016 issue of Marine Policy.

VIIRS Day-Night Band

Dec 10, 2015 12:46 PM

CICS-MD Scientists win NESDIS Award

CICS-MD Scientists Xi Shao, Bin Zhang, and Yan Bai were named NESDIS Outstanding Science and Research Employees of the Year .

Eqisha Glenn

Nov 13, 2015 09:24 AM

CICS-MD Intern's Research on Eos.org

CREST graduate student and former CICS-MD intern Equisha Glenn has a new journal article that is featured on the AGU website's Research Spotlight. It is entitled "Detection of recent regional sea surface temperature warming in the Caribbean and surrounding region."

CrIS

Nov 05, 2015 12:34 PM

Yong Chen Wins Best Paper Award

CICS-MD Scientist Yong Chen was awarded the Best Proceeding Paper award during the 20th International TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) Study Conferences in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Likun Wang

Sep 10, 2015 09:54 AM

Likun Wang Selected for ADVANCE Faculty

CICS-MD Scientist Likun Wang has been selected for ADVANCING Faculty Diversity Program in UMD in year of 2015-2016.

Galápagos Penguin

Aug 06, 2015 09:18 AM

Galapagos "Cold Pool" Helps Endangered Penguins

Geophysical Research Letters has just accepted a new article from CICS-MD Scientist Christopher Brown and co-authors on Galápagos penguins and equatorial undercurrents. They found that the expansion of a Pacific cold pool near the islands coincided with a doubling of the penguin population over a 30-year period.

Lightning

Pat's Lightning Movie

bTPW

Jul 20, 2015 09:12 AM

Satellite Tools for Superstorm Sandy

CICS-MD Scientist Michael Folmer has just had a new article published online. This retrospective analysis focuses on what satellite products were critical to real-time hurricane forecasting, including new JPSS products and those expected from GOES-R.

SSMIS F18 bakcgorund with/without the bias correction

Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs)

The CICS-MD OSSE Project led by Kayo Ide is currently using the operational 3D-hybrid data assimilation system in two different ways: (1) Observing System Experiments (OSEs) using real observations, to investigate the impact of hyperspectral IR sensors (IAS, CR, CrIS, and AIRS); and (2) Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) using simulated observations, to investigate the impact of the geostationary microwave observations.

Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS)

Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS): AMSR2 Contributions

The GCOM-W1 AMSR2 soil moisture product developed by CICS-MD Scientist Jicheng Liu and his team will play a significant role in the NOAA Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS), a blended product designed to produce “one-stop shopping” for all operational soil moisture products from different satellite sensors.

Land Surface Albedo

Improving Surface Albedo Estimation with VIIRS data

CICS-MD Scientists Dongdong Wang, Shunlin Liang, and Yuan Zhou improved the direct estimation algorithm to retrieve land surface albedo from VIIRS by considering surface anisotropy, impacts of aerosol type, and land cover type.

Snowfall Rate Product

Jan 30, 2015 01:20 AM

Blizzard of 2015 as Captured by Satellite

The 2015 Blizzard that clobbered the New England January 27th was well captured by the ATMS and AMSU/MHS Snowfall Rate product.

Nov 10, 2014 08:53 AM

Fall Foliage from VIIRS

CICS-MD Scientist Xiaoyang Zhang and NOAA Sponsor Yunyue Yu have developed a new method to monitor and predict short-term fall foliage coloration using the VIIRS daily vegetation index.

Oct 31, 2014 01:58 PM

New CICS-MD Acknowledgement

Please note that the CICS Award Number has changed from NA09NES4400006 to NA14NES4320003. This new number should appear in all acknowledgments for CICS Tasks.

Jul 31, 2014 09:20 AM

Likun Wang Interview

CICS-MD Scientist Likun Wang is featured in the July NOAA NESDIS Newsletter in the "Employee Spotlight."

WRR

Jul 21, 2014 11:38 AM

Kenney Wins Editors' Choice Award

The Water Resources Research journal has just announced that a 2013 "Editor's Choice Award" will go to an article by lead author Melissa Kenney, an ESSIC/CICS-MD Scientist.

Jul 07, 2014 06:42 AM

CICS Contract Renewed

On June 20, NOAA signed the renewal of a Cooperative Agreement with the University of Maryland/Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) extending the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) for another five years: July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2019.

TWC News

Jul 01, 2014 10:17 AM

TV Appearances by CICS-MD Scientists

Two CICS-MD scientists have recently been interviewed on TV to comment about current issues. Scott Rudlosky appeared on NBC 4 in Washington, DC, for Lightning Safety Week and Russ Dickerson spoke on the Time Warner Cable News in Austin,TX, about recent satellite data showing big improvements in air quality.

CICS-MD Award Winners

Jun 04, 2014 11:04 AM

Award Winners at CICS-MD

Several CICS-MD scientists and students have received awards in the last month: Yong Chen, Likun Wang, Ralph Ferraro, Huan Meng, Mike Natoli, Kate O'Brien, and Katie Lukens.. Congratulations on this success! You have made us all proud,

Apr 14, 2014 01:02 PM

Climate Voices is Rolling Out

CICS-MD Scientist Melissa Kenney is one of the "Climate Voices" in the new social media push by the United Nations Foundation and UCAR. The goal is to provide a registry of climate scientists that are available for discussions with local groups to spark community discussions about climate change.

Mar 31, 2014 09:58 AM

Coccolithophores at the Poles

Christopher Brown's article on coccolithophores at the Poles was featured on the cover of the Journal for Plankton Research.

Mar 31, 2014 09:53 AM

Using CRTM to Validate ATMS Data

CICS-MD Scientist Quanhua Liu and JCSDA’s Sid Boukabara recently published an article documenting the application of the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) for Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) data validation in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment.

Mar 31, 2014 08:47 AM

Improving Satellite-Generated Land Surface Phenology

CICS Scientists Mukesh Singh Boori and Ralph Ferraro just published a new article on microwave polarization and gradient ratio (MPGR) in the Journal of Geology & Geosciences.

OMPS

Mar 28, 2014 09:53 AM

Performance Evaluation of OMPS

The Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS) was launched aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership spacecraft on October 28, 2011.CICS Scientist Chunhui Pan and her team have done a comprehensive evaluation of sensor performance and validation of on-orbit calibration. End-to-end data analysis has been performed to evaluate sensor critical parameters, detector dark current, system linearity, optical degradation, stray light contamination and wavelength registration.

Cessna 402B with aerosol inlet

Aircraft Aerosol Observations for Satellite Evaluation

CICS Scientist Xinrong Ren and his team collect aircraft aerosol observations over representative land surfaces under different meteorological and air quality conditions to evaluate, test, and improve satellite retrievals.

Retrieving Tropospheric Humidity from ATMS

CICS Scientist Isaac Moradi has developed a method of calculating layer-averaged tropospheric humidity from the observations of Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) water vapor channels.

Proactive Quality Control

CICS-MD Scientist Daisuke Hotta and Eugenia Kalnay have made a major breakthrough in quality control using the the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter. The use of Ensemble Forecast Sensitivity to Observations (EFSO) on the GFS model is able to identify flawed observations in MODIS high latitude winds after only 6 hours.

Jan 23, 2014 12:37 PM

ClimateBits for Science on a Sphere

ClimateBits are essential Earth Science concepts made simple through minute-long videos for Science On a Sphere. The first video on Solar Radiation has just been released and more are coming soon.

Dec 02, 2013 10:52 AM

UMD and NOAA are Global Leaders in Remote Sensing Research

A new article in the academic journal Scientometrics found that the University of Maryland had the fourth and NOAA the fifth largest “institutional impact factor” based on their published research on remote sensing.

Atmospheric Rivers

Oct 16, 2013 05:00 AM

Atmospheric Rivers

Water vapor in the atmosphere as viewed by satellites appears to have a branching structure similar to liquid water on land. These “atmospheric rivers” play a central role in the global water cycle by transporting large quantities of water vapor. A new CICS-MD project seeks to identify, categorize, and study this phenomenon.

Megha-Tropiques

Aug 21, 2013 09:45 AM

MiRS for Megha-Tropiques Satellite Delivered

MiRS for Megha-Tropiques: A preliminary version of MiRS for Megha-Tropiques (using SAPHIR only) has been delivered to OSPO. This version is intended primarily to test sizing and resource requirements.

GHT

Aug 21, 2013 07:57 AM

Global Tropics Hazards and Benefits Outlook

CICS-MD Scientist Augustin Vintzileos helped develop the Global Tropics Hazard (GTH) tool that provides weekly tropical forecasts for the following two weeks. The GTH issued on August 20, shown below, forecasts that the tropical Atlantic will become more active.

SST Anomalies

Aug 20, 2013 02:35 PM

Caribbean Low Level Jet and Moisture Transport

Summer intern Equisha Glenn gave a talk on Thursday, August 15 at NCWCP (and shown on WebEx & Teleconference) entitled "Influence of SSTs Changes on the Caribbean Low Level Jet and Moisture Transport Variability in the Intra-Americas Region."

NPOL Radar

Aug 20, 2013 02:29 PM

Wallace Island Precipitation Validation Sensors

Nai-Yu Wang and Scott Rudlosky visited NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility to meet with Walt Petersen and David Wolff.

Saharan Air Layer Product

Aug 20, 2013 02:23 PM

NOAA's Small Business Innovation Research Program Updates

Two new Phase I projects were awarded by NOAA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program: (1) Dynamic Frequency Passive Millimeter-wave Radiometer Based on Optical Up-Conversion - Phase Sensitive Innovations, Newark, DE (R. Ferraro, Technical Representative); and (2) Mobile VHF Lightning Mapping System (S. Rudlosky, Technical Representative).

ALEXI v. AMSR-E

Aug 20, 2013 01:23 PM

Satellite Drought and Soil Moisture Prediction

CICS-MD Scientist Christopher Hain has just published four journal articles on the use of satellite data in the ALEXI model to calculate a daily of Evaporative Stress Index (ESI).

S-NPP VIIRS Aerosol Products

Jul 31, 2013 09:57 AM

A New Eye to Monitor Global Aerosol Activities

The new Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) provides both the operational and scientific data user communities new enhanced capability in monitoring global aerosol activities. The NPP/VIIRS aerosol products will prove a valuable asset to the data user community in meeting the operational and research needs of air quality, weather forecasting, and climate impact studies. It recently tracked a large cohesive African dust cloud.

Hail Dip

Jul 05, 2013 10:23 AM

Moore, Oklahoma F-5 Tornado Viewed by Satellite

GCOM passed over the Oklahoma region approximately 15 minutes prior to the touchdown of the EF-5 tornado that ravaged central OK on May 20, 2013. Rain retrieval rates, brightness temperatures, and polarization differences were analyzed.

Evaporative Stress Index

May 23, 2013 05:05 AM

CICS Researchers Develop Tools for Monitoring Drought from Space

Researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites led by Christopher Hain, along with colleagues from NOAA and the USDA Agricultural Research Service have developed a unique satellite based methodology for mapping drought over the United States.

Featured News

CISESS Scientist Daile Zhang works to Mitigate Lightning Hazards in Uganda

A Prototype Robotic Ground-based Cal/Val System