Monday 23 November 2009

WxChallenge : NCAR Forecasting Team Forming Now
The 2008-2009 WxChallenge is a national forecasting contest managed by the University of Oklahoma. NCAR is one of roughly 50 schools to participate, with members vying for both team and individual prizes. We are looking for as many forecasters this year as possible, no experience (or skill) necessary.

The tourney is all Web-based and easy to follow, with a time commitment of just a few minutes each forecast day (M-Th). The contest covers 10 two-week periods, forecasting next-day temperature, wind and precipitation for various cities around the country. You can participate in either or both semesters, roughly Oct-Nov and Feb-Mar.

The more forecasters who join, the better NCAR's standing will be. Please help NCAR show the rest of the weather community how strong our forecasting knowledge is. Join today, and invite your colleagues to join. See the Web site below for more information, and talk with the NCAR manager below to sign up.

For more information, contact Craig Hartsough at ext. 1335, craigh@ucar.edu, or see this Web page: http://wxchallenge.com/ of NCAR's Advanced Study Program (ASP). By combining these two positions, NCAR expects to save considerable administrative costs, allowing the center to focus its tight resources on scientific research.
Maura Hagan, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has been named NCAR deputy director

"Maura Hagan is well respected both within NCAR and by the university community we serve," says NCAR director Eric Barron. "She is also deeply committed to the success of NCAR and will help ensure that science is well represented in my office."

In addition to her duties as deputy director, Hagan will continue as director of NCAR's Advanced Study Program (ASP). By combining these two positions, NCAR expects to save considerable administrative costs, allowing the center to focus its tight resources on scientific research.
August 15, 2008 Town Meeting Webcasts

The August 15 webcast of the Mesa Lab Town Meeting with Cliff Jacobs, Rick Anthes, and Eric Barron is now available at the following url: http://www.fin.ucar.edu/it/mms/webcasting.htm. See instructions for viewing webcasts, if you have any difficulty.

To view each presentation online, without the video/audio of the webcast, please visit each speaker's link, below:
Cliff Jacobs' presentation (NSF)
Rick Anthes' presentation (UCAR)
Eric Barron's presentation (NCAR)
Joint UCAR/NCAR Town Meeting

Rick Anthes and Eric Barron will host a joint UCAR/NCAR Town Meeting to discuss funding issues, programmatic and scientific challenges and opportunities, and will welcome questions and comments from staff. The meetings will be held on:

Friday, August 15
10:00 am
FL2 1022 (Auditorium)

Friday, August 15
1:30 pm
ML Main Seminar

One of the Town Meetings will be recorded and will be available for later viewing via webcast.
From the NCAR Director, Eric Barron:
I am pleased to announce the development of the NCAR Distinguished Scholar Program. First and foremost, this program is designed to honor individuals that have had distinguished careers and retire at NCAR. Scholars will have resources that allow them to use their wisdom to benefit the future of NCAR. For a full announcement of this opportunity, please see the full announcement (PDF).
New NCAR Director, Eric Barron
Eric J. Barron was named director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) today, following a rigorous international search. He joins NCAR from the University of Texas, where he is dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences and holds the Jackson Chair in Earth System Science. Barron will join NCAR on or before August 1.
Read the NCAR press release
See Dr. Barron's University of Texas at Austin bio
For National Library Week, join the NCAR Library Celebrations
The NCAR Library will celebrate National Library Week during April 13 – 19. Join the celebrations at 3:00 p.m. in each of our three libraries: the Foothills Library on Tuesday April 15, the Center Green Library on Wednesday April 16, and the Mesa Library on Thursday April 17.

Enjoy refreshments (champagne, cake) and visit the “Citation Station” to learn how to calculate your h-index and total of times cited. In addition each library will hold a special event. See full event information for details (by clicking, you just may get a preview of the new library website before everyone else!.
Now, for something completely different
Our visitors are not always distinguished scientists! To watch our newest visitor raise her offspring, visit the owl cam.

Search for New NCAR Director
Dear friends and colleagues,

As you know by now, Tim Killeen has decided to accept the important position of NSF Assistant Director for Geosciences; please see the news release. While this new position is a big plus for the community, we now need to begin the search for a new NCAR Director. This will be an open international search and we invite applications and nominations. Please see the official position announcement and application/nomination procedures.

Rick Anthes, UCAR President
NCAR Town Hall Meetings

Tim Killeen held Town Hall Meetings to discuss budgets, plans, progress, and priorities on January 30 and February 1, 2008. If you couldn not attend, you can watch the webcasts of the Town Hall presentations (sign in with your UCAS password to access).

Special thanks to Multimedia Services for providing these.
NCAR's Plans & Accomplishments

Homepage of the 2007 NCAR Annual Report NCAR's plans and accomplishments are at your fingertips in a number of online reports. The recently released 2007 NCAR Annual Report covers the accomplishments of fiscal year 2007, including links to the extensive laboratory annual reports. The 2008 Program Operating Plan outlines broad directions and focus areas that NCAR will pursue in FY2008, and is available in PDF format. The NCAR Strategic Plan is a 5-year planning document, which was released in 2006.

If you are new to NCAR, or just want to brush up on research directions outside of your own focus areas, these reports can help. You can always find links to the most recent reports at the “Publications about NCAR” tab, here: http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/publications/.
November 11, 2007: IMAGe's Theme-of-the-Year for 2008: Geophysical Turbulence Phenomena

MHD Turbulence : Structures (from Annick Pouquet's homepage: figures section. The scientific leaders of NCAR recognized early on that in order to understand the dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans and the planetary boundary layer, the sun and solar-terrestrial interactions, investigating relevant turbulent processes at a fundamental level would be essential. An important part of IMAGe (The Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences) is its Theme-of-the-Year (TOY), a year-long focus on some aspect of applied mathematics and the geosciences, designed to advance research and education between the mathematical and the geoscience communities.

TOY08 will be led by Keith Julien (Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado at Boulder) and Annick Pouquet (Geophysical Turbulence Program, NCAR) with workshops and a summer school to be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration for the first workshop, “Turbulent Theory and Modeling 27-29 February 2008” is now open. For more information, visit the TOY08 website.
October 12, 2007: Tim Killeen's letter of Congratulations for NCAR scientific participation in the Nobel Peace Prize research efforts

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I’m sure all of you are as excited as I am by today’s announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to Al Gore. My sincere congratulations go out to Mr. Gore and the IPCC. I would, however, also like to extend these congratulations to NCAR and UCAR staff, and our partners in the wider research community. All of you played a critical role in developing the cutting-edge climate change science that is currently being lauded.

Many of you were directly involved in the most recent IPCC Assessment Report, as authors, reviewers, scientists, software engineers, data specialists, administrators, etc.– the number of parts you played were wide and varied. The fact that the IPCC has earned the recognition that this award embodies, is really a tribute to your knowledge, hard work and application. And, while this award brings the work you have done into the limelight, I want to also acknowledge the effective work that has been done quietly, with far less fanfare and ever since NCAR’s founding, to get us to this wonderful milestone for our science.

Since 1990, the IPCC has issued four major assessment reports, documenting the growing scientific understanding of the climate change issue. Throughout this time, NCAR’s community of scientists, engineers, modelers, and staff diligently worked to support this research, and it has contributed significantly to these reports, providing elements of the foundation for the IPCC’s work.

In addition to NCAR staff, I want to thank our sponsors – particularly the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy – whose steadfast support made these contributions possible.

The contributions of NCAR and its many external collaborators should be a source of pride to every one of us here. As far as I am concerned, you are all Laureates, and I commend you on your past, current and future efforts.

Have a great weekend!
- Tim
October 1, 2007: NCAR is proud to collaborate once again with ECOARTS!

During September and October, ECOARTS presents a unique series of exhibits, performances, talks, tours, feasts, fairs, films and more to explore climate change and to celebrate the possibility of a sustainable future. NCAR hosts several of these events. To find out more, visit UCAR's ECOARTS web calendar featuring both NCAR events, and links to general information.
September 4, 2007: Scientists, Software Engineers, System Administrators, Web Developers -- Did you know that you can access technical books online for FREE?
The NCAR Library subscribes, on your behalf, to a service called “Books 24x7”. As a staff member, you are entitled to set up a free account and access hundreds of current technical books, online (and FREE). You can create folders to store titles by topic for easy reference.

Keeping skills up-to-date is a daily endeavor; and sometimes, you just need a quick answer for a specific technical issue. You may find an answer in the online collection at the Books 24x7 link on the NCAR Library homepage.
August 20, 2007: The annual Up-the-Hill Race will be held August 24, 2007
Participation is open to all UCAR/NCAR/UOP/E&O staff and scientific visitors. UCAR insurance policy prohibits family members and friends from racing or joining a divisional relay. However, family members are encouraged to cheer on racers and join the party afterwards. 2007 Race Rules can be found here (pdf). More information on the EAC website.
August 12, 2007: All Staff --> PUBLIC SEMINAR on HURRICANES & CLIMATE, presented by Greg Holland
Are hurricanes really getting stronger and more frequent? Greg Holland, Director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division will present a talk for scientists AND the general public entitled, “Hurricanes and Climate: What's Hot and What's Not ” (abstract): Wednesday, August 15, 3:00pm in the Center Green Auditorium. This seminar is part of the ESSL public seminar series. For more information, please contact Barb Petruzzi, 303-497-1602.
August 6, 2007: Symposium held to honor Dr. Warren Washington
Please attend the “Symposium on Climate Modeling, Prediction, and Science Policy”, August 8 - 9, at the NCAR Mesa Laboratory Main Seminar Room. The seminar includes 3 sessions with many speakers on each topic: Session 1 - Evolution of Climate Modeling; Session 2 - Climate Analysis and Prediction; Session 3 - Policy Implications. There will also be a webcast and live audio/video on the CGD webpage. For more information, contact Susan Chavez: 303-497-1611.
July 30, 2007: NCAR Representatives Guests of Cheyenne
A group of NCAR and UCAR representatives were the guests of our planned Wyoming supercomputing partners for the Cheyenne Frontier Days events. Final approval of the partnership is working its way through NSF. The event was a way to help acquaint the Cheyenne community with the NCAR and UCAR staff.

See the write-up in the Caspar Star Tribune.
July 23, 2007: Recent Senior and Scientist III level Promotions
The NCAR Directorate wishes to recognize and congratulate NCAR scientific staff who were recently promoted to the Senior and Scientist III level.

They are - Senior Scientists: Jeff Anderson, Chris Cantrell, William Collins, David Edwards, Thomas Horst, and Bette Otto-Bliesner. And, Scientist III: Sarah Gibson, Marika Holland, Jean-Francois Lamarque, and Matthias Steiner.