During the past few weeks, researchers with GESTAR II and UMBC have published as lead author or co-author of publications in various journals. Select citations are listed below.

Gao, M., B. A. Franz, P.-W. Zhai (613/UMBC), K. Knobelspiesse, A. M. Sayer (616/UMBC), X. Xu (616/UMBC), J. V. Martins (613/UMBC), B. Cairns, P. Castellanos, G. Fu, N. Hannadige (Physics/UMBC), O. Hasekamp, Y. Hu, A. Ibrahim, F. Patt, A. Puthukkudy (613/UMBC), and P. J. Werdell (2023), Simultaneous retrieval of aerosol and ocean properties from PACE HARP2 with uncertainty assessment using cascading neural network radiative transfer models, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5863-5881, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5863-2023.

(For more information on the PACE mission, click here. To read about UMBC's ESI and HARP2, click here.) 

Hannadige, N.K. (Physics/UMBC), P.-W. Zhai (613/UMBC), M. Gao, Y. Hu, P.J. Werdell, K. Knobelspiesse, and B. Cairns (2023), Performance evaluation of three bio-optical models in aerosol and ocean color joint retrievals, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16 (23), 5749-5770, doi:10.5194/amt-16-5749-2023.

Lim, Y.K. (610.1/UMBC), D. Wu, K. M. Kim, and J. N. Lee (613/UMBC) (2023), Decadal changes in the Antarctic sea ice response to the changing ENSO in the last four decades, Atmos., https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14111659.

Yuan, T. (613/UMBC), H. Song, R. Wood, L. Oreopoulos, S. Platnick, C. Wang, H. Yu, K. Meyer, and E. Wilcox (2023), Observational evidence of strong forcing from aerosol effect on low cloud coverage, Sci. Adv., 9, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh7716.

Eunjee Lee (610.1/UMBC): Scientific Achievement: "The GMAO is proud to recognize your science achievements over the past year forwarding the GMAO's treatment of the land component of the global carbon cycle. Your studies utilizing the developing models are critical for guiding their continued development by illustrating their scientific value--and, importantly, their scientific limitations. You continue to serve as the scientific point person in the GMAO for land carbon science."

Yujin Zeng (610.1/UMBC): Outstanding Technical Contribution by a new GMAO Member: "The GMAO is proud to recognize you as an integral new member in your support of land surface model development. You successfully reinvigorated --in fact, completely reformulated--the GMAO's languishing river routing model through hard work and the application of impressive scientific insight."

On December 6, 2023, the 610AT Peer Awards Ceremony was held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This ceremony celebrates achievements within the Earth Sciences Division - Atmospheres (Codes 612, 613, and 614). 

Congratulations to the following individuals: 

Daeho Jin (613/UMBC), Best Earth Science Research Results Portal (ESRRP) Entry: For conveying succinctly in the ESRRP format the importance and significance of his paper "QBO deepens MJO convection".

Sergey Korkin (613/UMBC), Best Senior Author Publication: For an elegant and rigorous exposition in the paper "Radiative interaction of atmosphere and surface: Write-up with elements of code" that showed how the matrix-operator method can simulate polarized atmosphere-surface radiative interactions. 

Korkin, S., and A. Lyapustin, 2023, Radiative interaction of atmosphere and surface: Write-up with elements of code, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 309, 108663 [10.1016/j.jqsrt.2023.108663].

Alfonso Delgado-Bonal (613/UMBC), Best Senior Author Publication: For helping to understand the daytime variability of cloud properties in the paper.  

Delgado-Bonal, A., A. Marshak, L. Oreopoulus, and Y. Yang, 2022, Cloud height daytime variability from DSCOVR/EPIC and GOES-R observations, Frontiers in Remote Sens., 3, [10.3389/frsen.2022.780243].

Daniel Anderson (614/UMBC), Outstanding Performance in Science: For a novel effort to constrain tropospheric hydroxyl radical (OH), the atmosphere's primary oxidant, using NASA EOS's long data records of the drivers of OH.

Yuli Liu (612/UMBC), Outstanding Performance in Science: For outstanding support for simulation framework and algorithm development for the AOS radiometers, CoSSIR and the PoLSIR mission.

Anne Thompson (614/UMBC) as part of the Ozonesonde Team, Distinguished Contribution Group Award: For successful measurement system transition and integration for the NASA/WFF and Natal, Brazil, ozonesonde stations, ensuring the continued high quality of two of the longest-running sites in the world.

Amita Mehta (612/UMBC), Carl Malings (612/MSU), David Barbato (612/UMBC) and Selwyn Hudson-Odoi (612/UMBC) as part of the ARSET Team, Distinguished Contribution Group Award: For increasing the global use and impact of NASA Earth Science through the Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) Program.

Lorraine Remer (613/UMBC): The Plankton, Aerosol, Clouds, Ocean Ecosystems mission: NASA's next advanced imaging of Earth from Space

Amita Mehta (612/UMBC): Influence of Baltimore Urban Area on Chesapeake Bay Water Quality

Petya Campbell (618/UMBC): Combining Field Proximal and Space-borne Reflectance Time Series for Evaluation of Canopy Function at SERC

Fred Huemmrich (618/UMBC): Observing 20 Years of Tundra Change

Christopher Shuman (615/UMBC): Changes at the Zachariae Isstrom Front, North East Greenland, Summer of 2023

Kevin Turpie (616/UMBC): The Chesapeake Bay Tower WATERHYPERNET Station

Ali Tokay (612/UMBC): Radar Snowfall Estimate in New England 

To attend the seminar via Webex, click here.

This EO item also refers to the study of the Quelccaya Ice Cap by Dr. Lonnie Thompson and colleagues from The Ohio State University, who conducted expeditions starting in 1974 to study the shrinking ice cap. Dr. Thompson's life and research experiences are the subject of a new documentary titled Canary: 

"Witness the extraordinary life of Dr. Lonnie Thompson, an explorer who went where no scientist had gone before and transformed our idea of what is possible. Daring to seek Earth's history contained in glaciers atop the tallest mountains in the world, Lonnie found himself on the frontlines of climate change--his life's work evolving into a salvage mission to recover these priceless historical records before they disappear forever." More information, including the trailer, is available here. Dr. Shuman served as a technical consultant for Canary, and he also provided USGS Landsat imagery used within a scene.

Congratulations to Jianyu (Kevin) Zheng and Neranga Kaluappuwa Hannadige, who defended their dissertations on November 10 and 9, 2023, respectively! Both were Ph.D. candidates in the Atmospheric Physics Program of the Physics Department at UMBC, and both are Graduate Research Assistants with GESTAR II. 

Dr. Zheng's dissertation was titled "Characteristics of dust and aerosol properties using CALIOP and thermal infrared satellite observations," and his advisor was Dr. Zhibo Zhang (UMBC). He will be working as a postdoctoral research assistant in GESTAR II with Dr. Zhang and Dr. Hongbin Yu (NASA GSFC).

Dr. Hannadige's dissertation was titled "Remote Sensing of Aerosols and Ocean Color with Multi-Angle Polarimeters and Spectro-Radiometers," and her advisor was Dr. Pengwang Zhai (UMBC).  She will be working as a postdoctoral research assistant at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, working on aerosol remote sensing  from the SPEXone instrument on the NASA PACE mission. She also had been awarded a GESTAR II fellowship from 2022-2023. 

Photo: Jianyu Zheng (3rd from left) with his Ph.D. committee (left to right): Dr. Hongbin Yu, Dr. Belay Demoz (UMBC), Dr. Anne Garnier (LATMOS, Paris), Dr. Zhibo Zhang, Dr. Sergio DeSouza-Machado (UMBC), and Dr. Pengwang Zhai (UMBC). (Provided by B. Demoz.)

Photo: Neranga Kaluappuwa Hannadige celebrating the completion of her doctoral degree. (Provided by Z. Zhang.)