Goddard Scientist Present New Earth Science Research at Spring AGU Meeting

Several Goddard scientists presented findings on a variety of Earth science topics at the American Geophysical Union's 2002 Spring Meeting, which was held this week in Washington, D.C. Research findings included:

MODIS Observations of Smoke and Fire

Yoram Kaufman presented aerosol data in a movie form taken from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer - a key instrument aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites). The data shows the generation of smoke plumes and their dispersion around the globe.

Fire Locating and Modeling of Burning Emissions Project

Several federal agencies have teamed with universities in the development of revolutionary new fire and smoke monitoring products under a program using satellite data that will help with improving weather and visibility forecasts, firefighting efforts and air quality forecasts as smoke and fire events are happening. The Fire Locating and Monitoring of Burning Emissions (FLAMBE) Project is the combined effort of three federal agencies and two universities. The U.S. Navy, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Alabama, and Wisconsin-Madison have joined together to create more timely satellite and smoke data products.

A Warm Polar Winter Was Easier On Arctic Ozone

Susan Strahan's research has found unusually high levels of protective upper atmospheric ozone in the Arctic as a result of a rare sudden warming during the early winter of 1998. During the wintertime, as the temperatures drop, winds swirl around the poles and form a vortex. The atmospheric circulation brings ozone from the upper to the lower stratosphere, where temperatures are colder. The stronger the vortex, the less ozone is transported to the cold lower stratosphere, where breakdown of ozone by PSCs can occur.

New Method Links Rainfall Patterns to Developing El Ninõs

NASA researchers have created a tool that can predict El Niño events months before they occur, by linking variations in rainfall patterns over the Indian Ocean with developing El Niños. Scott Curtis of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), and Robert Adler of Goddard developed an El Niño Prediction Index (PI) formula that uses satellite-based rainfall data.

NASA Sensors Find Pollutions Hiding in the SHADOZ

Anne Thompson led the research with other NASA scientists and scientists from 10 tropical countries have used balloon-borne sensors to obtain the first picture of the structure of ozone (pollution) in the tropical troposphere, the atmospheric layer between the surface and 50,000 feet. Under the SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) Project, they have found that ozone "piles up" over the south Atlantic Ocean due to natural circulation patterns and that pollution (low-level ozone) from Africa and South America streams into the pile-up region, making the ozone even thicker.

"To envision how the pollution is moving, think of the Atlantic Ocean as having a horizontal wheel on either side, pushing pollution into the middle, where atmospheric motions are already dumping ozone. Both pollution and the pileup are strongest between August and November," said lead researcher of Goddard. Over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the ozone shifts locations with the waxing and waning of El Niño cycles. El Niños shift wind circulation patterns, decreasing the ozone over the eastern Pacific, and increasing it over the Indian Ocean.

For the complete article on each new earth science finding, click the heading