Workshop on 3D Radiative Transfer
October 31, 2005
The Third Intercomparison of 3D Radiation Codes (I3RC) (http://i3rc.gsfc.nasa.gov/) Workshop was held October 11-14, 2005 at the Leibniz-Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel (Germany) and partly on board the vessel Color Fantasy. Climate & Radiation Branch members (Cahalan, Marshak, Oreopoulos, and Varnai) were among the main organizers of the workshop. Click here to view the agenda. This is the third I3RC workshop; the first two workshops were held in Tuscon, Arizona in 1999 and 2000, respectively. The I3RC is an international project that compares the performance of 3D radiative transfer codes used in a variety of scientific applications in the atmospheric sciences. I3RC participants come from more than 30 research groups based in several countries. The project is sponsored by the GEWEX Radiation Panel and the International Radiation Commission, and has been jointly funded by the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurements Program and by the NASA Radiation Sciences Program. Full Story

Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Workshop Held October 24-28, 2005
October 31, 2005
NOAA 30th Annual Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Workshop was held in State College, Pennsylvania, October 24-28, 2005. The Workshop is co-hosted by CPC of NCEP/NOAA and the Department of Meteorology of Pennsylvania State University. Hailan Wang (UMBC/GEST and the Climate & Radiation Branch) attended this meeting and presented the following two papers. Full Story

New MODIS Atmosphere Team Processing Stream
October 26, 2005
Final deliveries of all operational algorithms from the MODIS Atmosphere Team have been delivered to the MODIS Data Processing System (MODAPS). These updated algorithms will be used for the reprocessing of all Terra MODIS data (going back to “first light” on February 24, 2000) and well as Terra MODIS forward processing. Data products produced from the new processing stream are referred to as the “collection 5” stream. The Atmosphere Team reprocessing schedule starts with the following selected months (to allow team assessment): July 2000, and January, March, and April of 2001. Reprocessing is then expected to continue from the beginning of the Terra MODIS data record forward (in parallel with the Terra MODIS Ocean Team SST reprocessing). Full Story

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Working Group 1 The Physical Basis of Climate Change
October 12, 2005
The Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007: The Physical Basis of Climate Change is available for review from September 12 to November 4. The draft is subject to change, but at this time publications from Goddard researchers are strongly cited in the section on aerosol forcing within Chapter 2 on Atmospheric Constituents.

If you would like to review this draft, you can register as a reviewer here. A forum to discuss the aerosol part of the draft report will be sponsored by AeroCenter. See calendar for details. Full Story

Paper on space-time scaling of rainfall statistics accepted for publication in the Journal of Hydrology
October 3, 2005
The paper, entitled "Space-time scaling behavior of rain statistics in a stochastic fractional diffusion model," by P. K. Kundu and T. L. Bell, provides some physical motivation for a statistical model of rainfall and shows how the model predicts simple power-law dependence of rain behavior on the spatial and temporal resolution of rain observations. Such behavior has been seen in both ground-based and satellite observations of rain.
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