Previously Featured "NCAR in the News" Stories

• Center for Sustainable Innovation: Social Footprint Pilot at Ben & Jerry's Completed

  CSRwire.com (January 8, 2007)
  
  The Center for Sustainable Innovation (CSI) announced today the successful completion of an initial pilot of its Social Footprint Method. The Social Footprint Method (SFM) is an advanced corporate sustainability measurement and reporting tool ... measures social sustainability performance against standards of performance. Based on the so-called WRE350 scenario, developed by Tom M. L. Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO.

• Global warming fix offers hope, risk; Geoengineering sparks debate over tinkering

  San Jose Mercury News (December 14, 2007)
  
  Phil Rasch, a senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., has studied a number of geoengineering methods. Using a computer model, he recently looked at the idea of using a ship to suck up seawater and blast sea salt particles up into the sky. The particles would change the brightness of clouds, reducing the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth's surface and thereby cooling the planet.
  
  Rasch determined such a method might work - if you seeded 25 percent of the clouds over the ocean, especially if you focused on the Southern Hemisphere. But that doesn?t necessarily mean he's advocating the idea. [read more]

• Excerpts From Al Gore's Nobel Acceptance Speech

  Scoop (December 14, 2007)
  
  Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore delivered his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize during a ceremony in the City Hall in Oslo December 10, 2007. "So today we dumped another 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun". During the speech, Mr. Gore quoted research by Dr. Greg Holland (MMM/ESSL). [read more]

• Researchers claim computer records for speed, scale, detail and parallelism

  NetworkWorld.com (December 11, 2007)
  
  Researchers were looking for a way to produce more accurate weather forecasts; what they got was US records for size, performance, and detail of computer weather simulations. NCAR team members in the record-setting endeavor include John Michalakes, Josh Hacker, and Rich Loft. [read more]

• SDSC, NCAR, LLNL, IBM Team Sets US records in weather simulation

  First Science (December 11, 2007)
  
  A team of researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and IBM Watson Research Center has set U.S. records for size, performance, and fidelity of computer weather simulations, modeling the kind of "virtual weather" that society depends on for accurate weather forecasts. "The scientific challenge we're addressing is the question in numerical weather prediction of how to take advantage of coming petascale computing power," said weather scientist Josh Hacker of NCAR. [read more]

• Earth Monitoring: The planetary panopticon

  Nature.com (December 5, 2007)
  
  Technology will soon allow the world to be mapped in near-real time and at high resolution. Rick Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, discussed the potential for on demand climate information. [read more]

• Climatologist to address the future of global warming

  Tuscaloosa News (December 4, 2007)
  
  A notable climatologist will speak at the University of Alabama Thursday on how human activity is affecting global warming.
  
  Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., will present the lecture, ?Global Warming: Coming Ready or Not!? Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in room 127 Biology Building. The lecture is free and open to the public. [read more]

• In Bali, new urgency for a climate change accord

  Christian Science Monitor (December 3, 2007)
  
  As negotiators prepare to discuss a new emissions framework in Bali, environmental damage continues to exceed expectations.
  
  NUSA Dua, Indonesia - Talks to frame global efforts to fight climate change begin here Monday, as delegates from more than 180 countries try to design an agreement that picks up where the 1997 Kyoto Protocol leaves off. The meeting represents the most rigorous test yet of whether the UN process is nimble enough to yield the deep cuts in emissions that most scientists say could forestall the more serious economic, social, and ecological effects of global warming. [read more]

• Clouds form over rainmaking technology

  ABC.net.au (November 23, 2007)
  
  Rainmaking technology funded by the Australian government has already been given the thumbs down by international scientists, says an adviser to the World Meteorological Organization. Some Australian experts have already publicly said they are skeptical of the new ionisation technology and Dr. Roelof Bruintjes, a US-based researcher who advises the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on rainfall enhancement, agrees. [read more]

• U.N. panel releases comprehensive research on global warming

  San Francisco Chronicle (November 18, 2007)
  
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,000 scientists from 140 countries, has over the past several months been releasing volumes of its work on global warming. The report released Saturday is the synthesis of that work, a six-year endeavor to measure most of what is known about global warming and its effects on human health, the oceans, wildlife and how the world might adapt, among other topics.
  
  The summary report released Saturday is geared toward policymakers who will meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to begin forging a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. [read more]

• In Westchester, Cleaning Up After One Flood While Planning for the Next

  New York Times (November 13, 2007)
  
  At the First Unitarian Society of Westchester, at the foot of a dead-end road here, there are signs that the congregation is finally patching itself up after a devastating flood in April, one that ravaged parts of the East Coast and was one of the worst in the county's history.
  
  Kathleen A. Miller, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said flood damage had been on the rise worldwide as a result of population growth and development on flood plains. In recent years, the intensity of the rainfall in the United States has increased as well. [read more]

• Ex-NCAR chief an early climate-change scholar; John Firor died Nov. 5 in Pullman, Washington.

  The Denver Post (November 12, 2007)
  
  John Firor, former head of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and an early scholar studying the effects of humans on climate, died Nov. 5 in Pullman, Washington.
  
  Firor called attention to the effects of humans on the environment when that was considered almost a "radical idea", said Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of universities that supports NCAR. [read more]

• Warren Washington a Presenter at the 2007 Banneker Institute Awards Gala

  NCAR (November 9, 2007)
  
  Warren Washington, CGD senior scientist and head of the Climate Change Research Section, was a presenter at the 2007 Benjamin Banneker Institute for Science and Technology awards gala on November 7, 2007.
  
  The Banneker Institute was founded, with support from Congress, to address low participation rates of African Americans in science and math related studies and professions; it works to identify, create, and/or support pilot projects designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the most promising approaches.
  
  Bill Cosby, actor/comedian/activist, was the keynote speaker.
  
  View larger image and caption.

• Local wildfires add to growing problem of global air pollution

  San Diego Tribune (November 1, 2007)
  
  In the immediacy of a raging wildfire, smoke is a tangible, burning presence. It has a taste and a smell. It can color the world. But smoke is fleeting, too. When the fires are quenched or the wind shifts, the smoke can seem to vanish.
  
  Only it really doesn't. Rather than ceasing to exist, the smoke may simply have moved on, physically drifting and chemically shifting toward other, sometimes distant, places. [read more]

• Ballooning to the Sun; Solar Telescope Reaches 120,000 Feet on Jumbo Jet-Sized Balloon

  NASA's Astrobiology Magazine (October 28, 2007)
  
  In a landmark test flight, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and a team of research partners this month successfully launched a solar telescope to an altitude of 120,000 feet, borne by a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
  
  The test clears the way for long-duration polar balloon flights beginning in 2009 that will capture unprecedented details of the Sun's surface.
  
  "This unique research project will enable us to view features of the Sun that we've never seen before," said Michael Knoelker, director of NCAR's High Altitude Observatory and a principal investigator on the project. "We hope to unlock important mysteries about the Sun's magnetic field structures, which at times can cause electromagnetic storms in our upper atmosphere and may have an impact on Earth's climate." [read more]

• Climate scientist to speak at Embry-Riddle

  Daytona Beach News-JournalOnline (November 2, 2007)
  
  Kevin Trenberth, a prominent scientist who argues hurricanes have been more frequent and stronger because of global warming, will speak Monday [Nov. 5] at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
  
  Trenberth will offer evidence global warming is real and "responsible human stewardship of the environment plays a vital role in minimizing climactic impact," said Geoffrey Kain, director of the Honors Program, which is sponsoring Trenberth's visit. [read more]

• Pauling conference, peace lecture set

  Corvallis Gazette (October 27, 2007)
  
  A two-day conference on Linus Pauling?s legacy as a scientist and activist is set for Monday and Tuesday at Oregon State University and will be followed by the 25th annual Pauling peace lecture on Thursday night. Warren Washington, an OSU grad and NCAR Senior Scientist, will discuss global warming science. [read more]

• Wildfire smoke a culprit in mercury's toxic spread

  The Denver Post (October 19, 2007)
  
  Forest fires stir up as much mercury as power plants, scattering the toxic metal after it was originally deposited by industrial smokestacks, according to a study released Wednesday.
  
  Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder found that small concentrations of mercury that had landed in soil and been absorbed by vegetation were redistributed by wildfire smoke plumes. [read more]
  
  Related press release: Scientists Estimate Mercury Emissions from U.S. Fires; West Coast and Southeastern States are Major Emitters