The Information Technology Council (ITC) is hosting town hall meetings. This is a high level view of the kinds of applications available once we have transitioned to Google Apps. We will also discuss Google Apps feedback and next steps. Please join us.
May 28, 10:00 am CG1 Auditorium
Webcast link: http://www.fin.ucar.edu/it/mms/cg-live.htm
A town hall will be recorded for later viewing for those unable to attend.
Visit UCAR Google to learn more about the project or to submit questions.
Arctic climate is difficult to model accurately due in part to challenges with modeling clouds. In particular, while Arctic clouds are often in a mixed-phase state despite persistent subfreezing temperatures, many models including CAM5 predict insufficient liquid in Arctic clouds. These errors propagate into errors with surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes, adversely affecting confidence in model projections of Arctic climate change. Here we conduct a thorough comparison of Arctic cloud properties and surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes between CAM5 and observations, and explore causes of model biases. Two modified mixed-phase ice nucleation schemes are explored in CAM5 and their impacts on Arctic clouds and radiative fluxes are evaluated.
May 30, 9:30 am ML Main Seminar Room
Webcast link: http://www.fin.ucar.edu/it/mms/ml-live.htm
A town hall will be recorded for later viewing for those unable to attend.
Visit UCAR Google to learn more about the project or to submit questions.
RAL SEMINAR SERIES
Speaker: Dr Chris Hewitt
Climate Service Development at the
Met Office in the UK
Date: May 30, 2013
Time: 10am
Place: FL 2 Main Auditorium – Rm 1022
Title: Climate service developments globally, regionally and nationally
Abstract: There are many climate service activities underway,
globally, regionally, and nationally in the UK and elsewhere. At the
global scale the main activity is the Global Framework for Climate
Services (GFCS) which arose from the World Climate Conference 3 in
2009, as well as newer activities such as the Climate Service
Partnership and the associated annual International Conference on
Climate Services. In addition to describing such global activities,
this talk will present some regional activities in Europe (such as the
EUPORIAS project), activities at the UK Met Office, as well as ongoing
collaboration with NCAR.
Bio: Dr Chris Hewitt is Head of Climate Service Development at the
Met Office in the UK. He is responsible for developing strategic
relationships to improve, and maximise the use of, climate service
capabilities. He is the coordinator of EUPORIAS, a 4-year project
funded by the European Commission to develop climate service
prototypes. He is part of the core writing team for the GFCS
Implementation Plan and part of the core team (along with colleagues
from NCAR) of the International Climate Services Partnership.
Society requires assessment of weather statistics, particularly of extreme weather events, and their impacts with regional clarity. Over the last couple of years we have utilized both dynamical and statistical downscaling techniques to address this regional need.
We use the WRF model to dynamically downscale climate model data to resolutions as high as 4km, to assess possible changes in extreme weather events like tropical cyclone, drought and severe precipitation events. This talk will expand on the dynamical downscaling approach we adopted, and show some results from these experiments. Dynamical downscaling is expensive and therefore somewhat limited when examining extreme weather events. To address these limitations we also make extensive use of statistical methods to address specific areas like frequency and intensity of future tropical cyclones. This talk will showcase a couple of example of utilizing statistical methods to expand our dynamical downscale experiments.
Jeff Czajkowski
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
Over the past few decades scientific advances in hurricane prediction coupled with policy changes related to construction codes and evacuation procedures have reduced mortality and morbidity associated with tropical cyclones in the U.S.. Yet, the substantial costs of hurricanes when they make landfall suggests that this increase in awareness of hurricane risk has not been matched by commensurate increases in our ability to adapt to the risk, either through improved decisions about how and where to build or short-term decisions about how to prepare. We 1) report the findings of a program of research that tries to explain this adaptation paradox. We draw on evidence gathered from a unique program of survey research that measured coastal residents’ risk perceptions and preparation plans as they were being made while four hurricanes—Earl, Irene, Isaac, and Sandy---were approaching the United States coast during the 2010- 2012 hurricane seasons. The surveys measured subjective probabilities of different kinds of impacts, objective storm knowledge, the media channels through which this knowledge was being gained, and most importantly, the kind of preparation actions that had been taken and/or were planned.
And further as hurricane losses are often best mitigated from a local perspective it is important to delineate all the potential factors driving hurricane losses at the relatively local level. Thus we develop 2) A deeper understanding of the potential drivers of hurricane losses through a case study analysis contrasting two recent Category Three US landfalling hurricanes (Ivan in 2004 and Dennis in 2005) that, although similar in terms of maximum wind speed at their proximate coastal landfall locations, caused vastly different loss amounts. We show that the commonly used approach of making simplifying assumptions of loss confined to coastal counties and normalizing loss by specific exposure factors that typically represent only a single business line, can significantly misrepresent the true underlying localized loss, exposure, and vulnerability data. We also show that (in terms of the physical characteristics of the hurricane) size/area and duration of winds are at least as important as wind speed as potential drivers of damage; and (in terms of exposure and vulnerability attributes) building count, building density and building age are all potential drivers of damage. Appropriate consideration of these potential drivers of hurricane loss in statistical modeling and normalization techniques is essential for improved historical loss assessments and future projections of hurricane losses under climate change.
Thursday, 30 May 2013, 3:30 PM
Refreshments 3:15 PM
NCAR-Foothills Laboratory
3450 Mitchell Lane
Bldg 2 Main Auditorium, Room 1022
Society requires assessment of weather statistics, particularly of extreme weather events, and their impacts with regional clarity. Over the last couple of years we have utilized both dynamical and statistical downscaling techniques to address this regional need.
We use the WRF model to dynamically downscale climate model data to resolutions as high as 4km, to assess possible changes in extreme weather events like tropical cyclone, drought and severe precipitation events. This talk will expand on the dynamical downscaling approach we adopted, and show some results from these experiments. Dynamical downscaling is expensive and therefore somewhat limited when examining extreme weather events. To address these limitations we also make extensive use of statistical methods to address specific areas like frequency and intensity of future tropical cyclones. This talk will showcase a couple of example of utilizing statistical methods to expand our dynamical downscale experiments.
Different analyses of identical Hinode SOT/SP data of quiet-sun magnetic fields have in the past led to contradictory answers to the question whether the angular distribution of field vectors is preferentially horizontal or vertical. These answers have been obtained by combining the measured circular and linear polarizations in different ways in order to derive the field inclinations. A problem with such combinations is that the circular and linear polarizations scale with field strength in profoundly different ways. Here we avoid such problems by using an entirely different approach that is based exclusively on the fundamental symmetry properties of the transverse Zeeman Effect for observations away from diskcenter, without any dependence on the circular polarization. Systematic errors are suppressed by the application of a doubly differential technique with the 5247-5250 Å line pair for observations with the ZIMPOL-2 imaging polarimeter on the French THEMIS telescope on Tenerife. This allows us to determine in a model- and resolution-independent way how the angular distribution of the intranetwork magnetic fields changes from being preferentially vertical in the lower and middle photosphere to become preferentially horizontal in the upper photosphere.
RAL Seminar Series
3:30 p.m.
Wed 5 June 2013
FL2-1001
Global “warming holes” – their possible mechanisms and simulation in CMIP5 models
Zaitao Pan
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri
ABSTRACT
--------
During the 20th century the south-central U.S. cooled 0.5-2.0 oC while global warming accelerated. This abnormal cooling, termed “warming hole (WH)”, is most evident during summer daytime. Examination of past observations further found more WHs: one in central China and the other in central South America. The common underlying features among these three mid-continent WHs are that they occur (1) on the eastern slope of major mountain ranges where the warming gradient exists, (2) near the low-level jet terminals where warm-moist air converges, and (3) in the intense agricultural regions where deep crop roots can extract soil moisture. Are these WHs related to internal variability of the atmosphere-ocean system such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), or externally forced by land use changes and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration increase in the atmosphere? To attribute the causal processes responsible for the WHs, we examined 175-member ensemble simulations in the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) experiments. The GHG forcing alone runs suggest that the atmospheric GHG concentration increase would cause more warming, rather than cooling, in the central continents, suggesting that GHG forcing is at least not directly responsible for the HWs. Only 19 out of 100 historical runs simulated negative temperature trend (cooling) over the south-central U.S. with 99 members under-predicting the cooling rate, implying the limited ability of CMIP5 models in capturing regional abnormality in climate change.
An interactive discussion with Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and principal investigator for the landmark reports on Global Warming's Six Americas.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Leiserowitz will discuss his multiyear research analyzing Americans’ interpretations of and responses to climate change. This work segments the American public into six audiences that range from “Alarmed” to “Dismissive.” The intensive survey research has resulted in a typology of American beliefs about extreme weather, natural disasters, and responses to climatic change.
The presentation will illuminate the challenges scientists, policy makers, and others face in understanding the different segments of American public opinion and how to communicate with them. Scientists from NCAR and NOAA will join Leiserowitz to share insights gleaned from their public presentations.
Seating is limited and lunch will be served, so please RSVP to: http://president.ucar.edu/events/climate-change-american-mind
Sponsored by the NCAR & UCAR Communications Office and the UN Foundation.
Our next meeting is Wednesday, 12 June 2013 at 10:00 am MDT in FL3-1021. We continue our series on climate model evaluation with the paper:
Taylor, K. E., 2001. Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram. J. Geophys. Res., 106, (D7), 7183 - 7192.
Some related papers that may also be discussed include:
Boer, G. J. and S. J. Lambert, 2001. Second-order space-time climate difference statistics. Climate Dynamics, 17, 213 - 218.
Roberts, R. D., A. R. S. Anderson, E. Nelson, B. G. Brown, J. W. Wilson, M. Pocernich, and T. Saxen, 2012. Impacts of forecaster involvement on convective storm initiation and evolution nowcasting. Wea. Forecasting, 27, 1061 - 1089.
Roebber, P. J., 2009. Visualizing multiple measures of forecast quality. Wea. Forecasting, 24, 601 - 608, doi: 10.1175/2008WAF2222159.1
June 12, 2013
12:00-1:30 pm
FL2-1001
Sponsored by Elevations Credit Union
Refreshments and door prizes provided by ECU
The best investing strategy is a carefully planned and prepared approach to managing and accumulating money. A well-planned strategy can help you meet your short-term, mid-term, and long-term financial goals. Investment planning requires discipline and patience. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. Topics include: Investment fundamentals, including the effects of inflation and compounding; How to identify financial goals and time horizons; How to measure your risk tolerance, and the relationship between risk and return; The difference between cash equivalents, bonds, stocks and mutual funds, and the importance of asset allocation. A drawing for a door prize provided by ECU will be held after the session, must be present to win.
This seminar is open to anyone interested in this topic. Spouses/partners of employees are also welcome to attend.
Register at EOD Training Catalog via Connect: https://www.fin.ucar.edu/hrisConnect/employee
The solar spectrophotometer “Mark-I”, located at the Observatorio del Teide and continuously operated for the last 36 years, provides high precision measurements of the radial velocity of the Sun-as-a-star. This has enabled the study of the small velocity fluctuations produced by normal solar oscillation modes and the characterization of its spectrum. Furthermore, because of its high sensitivity and long term instrumental stability, Mark-I also provides accurate daily measurements (with a precision better than 1 m/s) of the radial velocity offset, the so-called “solar gravitational red-shift” (GRS). In the present work, the first results of the analysis of this parameter over the whole period 1976–2011 are presented.
The 2013 NCAR Workshop on Climate and Health will focus on two related atmospheric hazards, the individual and combined effects of extreme heat and air pollution on human health. The purpose of the workshop is to train researchers (graduate students, post-docs and early career scientists and faculty) on how to develop robust interdisciplinary research projects in the complex area of climate and health. The four-day workshop will take place from 9-12 July 2013 and will include lectures on relevant topics in climate and climate change and in public health and human health, vulnerability studies, urban studies, statistics, and special tools for analysis (e.g., GIS or NCAR model output datasets). In addition, a few successful research projects will be highlighted, providing detailed analyses of the methods and components of the projects that led to their success. There also will be multiple opportunities to engage public health practitioners and climate scientists to discuss the integration of epidemiology, ecology, behavioral science, modeling and atmospheric science.
The 2013 NCAR Workshop on Climate and Health will focus on two related atmospheric hazards, the individual and combined effects of extreme heat and air pollution on human health. The purpose of the workshop is to train researchers (graduate students, post-docs and early career scientists and faculty) on how to develop robust interdisciplinary research projects in the complex area of climate and health. The four-day workshop will take place from 9-12 July 2013 and will include lectures on relevant topics in climate and climate change and in public health and human health, vulnerability studies, urban studies, statistics, and special tools for analysis (e.g., GIS or NCAR model output datasets). In addition, a few successful research projects will be highlighted, providing detailed analyses of the methods and components of the projects that led to their success. There also will be multiple opportunities to engage public health practitioners and climate scientists to discuss the integration of epidemiology, ecology, behavioral science, modeling and atmospheric science.
The 2013 NCAR Workshop on Climate and Health will focus on two related atmospheric hazards, the individual and combined effects of extreme heat and air pollution on human health. The purpose of the workshop is to train researchers (graduate students, post-docs and early career scientists and faculty) on how to develop robust interdisciplinary research projects in the complex area of climate and health. The four-day workshop will take place from 9-12 July 2013 and will include lectures on relevant topics in climate and climate change and in public health and human health, vulnerability studies, urban studies, statistics, and special tools for analysis (e.g., GIS or NCAR model output datasets). In addition, a few successful research projects will be highlighted, providing detailed analyses of the methods and components of the projects that led to their success. There also will be multiple opportunities to engage public health practitioners and climate scientists to discuss the integration of epidemiology, ecology, behavioral science, modeling and atmospheric science.
The 2013 NCAR Workshop on Climate and Health will focus on two related atmospheric hazards, the individual and combined effects of extreme heat and air pollution on human health. The purpose of the workshop is to train researchers (graduate students, post-docs and early career scientists and faculty) on how to develop robust interdisciplinary research projects in the complex area of climate and health. The four-day workshop will take place from 9-12 July 2013 and will include lectures on relevant topics in climate and climate change and in public health and human health, vulnerability studies, urban studies, statistics, and special tools for analysis (e.g., GIS or NCAR model output datasets). In addition, a few successful research projects will be highlighted, providing detailed analyses of the methods and components of the projects that led to their success. There also will be multiple opportunities to engage public health practitioners and climate scientists to discuss the integration of epidemiology, ecology, behavioral science, modeling and atmospheric science.
