The Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San José State University (SJSU) is seeking applicants for the post of Assistant Professor with a specialization in Western US weather as it relates to precipitation events, together with impacts of climate change. Applicants must have completed a PhD in Atmospheric Science or a closely-related field by the start of the appointment. Applicants should have awareness of and sensitivity to educational goals of a multicultural population as might have been gained in cross-cultural study, training, teaching and other comparable experience.
Applications are invited for a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Arctic Atmospheric Research affiliated with the Probing the Atmosphere of the High Arctic (PAHA) project. Using measurements from the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Eureka, Nunavut and measurements from other sites around the Arctic and the rest of the globe, the PAHA project is investigating the changing atmosphere of the Canadian High Arctic.
The PAHA project has an opportunity for a post-doctoral fellow to conduct satellite validation and intercomparison studies using the PEARL dataset. Satellite validation establishes the accuracy and reliability of satellite measurements through comparisons with well-characterized data sets. Within PAHA, we are using this high Arctic data set for validating current satellite missions focusing on trace gases and aerosol properties.
Dr. Roland Stull, professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus and author of several widely-respected meteorology textbooks, has made the contents of his book Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (3rd Edition) available to the public at no charge. Alongside this 2011 edition he is making available a slightly revised version, completed in 2015, retitled Practical Meteorology.
Both books have been released to use and share for free under a Creative Commons License. According to the books' web site, they cover the same topics in the same order, and share the same index.
Version 4.5.3 of the netCDF Operators (NCO) has been released. NCO is an Open Source package that consists of a dozen standalone, command-line programs that take netCDF files as input, then operate (e.g., derive new data, average, print, hyperslab, manipulate metadata) and output the results to screen or files in text, binary, or netCDF formats.
The NCO project is coordinated by Professor Charlie Zender of the Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine. More information about the project, along with binary and source downloads, are available on the SourceForge project page.
Scott Jacobs of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has been awarded the 2015 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. The DeSouza Award honors “individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences.”
Jacobs is the IDP Onboarding Team Lead in the Production Management Branch (PMB) of NCEP Central Operations (NCO). PMB “serves as the technical transition between the research and development of all aspects of the NCEP's computing algorithms and their operational implementation. Production Management is responsible for final checkout of new applications software prior to operational implementation and its maintenance after implementation,” according to their web page. While Jacobs' duties at NCO currently encompass the release of the AWIPS II package, and specifically the National Centers Perspective, he has for many years been an important developer of the GEneral Meteorology PAcKage (GEMPAK) )and the associated National Centers NAWIPS software.
The Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) is an activity sponsored by the Amercan Geophysical Union (AGU) with a focus on real-world environmental challenges that local communities face within three areas: natural hazards/disasters, natural resources, and climate change. TEX endeavors to build collaborative relationships between scientists and non-scientists and help them design and implement local solutions together.
TEX and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are collaborating to use cloud-computing and Earth and space science to advance solutions to community challenges related to natural resources, climate change and natural hazards. Together, they have issued “Sharing Solutions Challenge” with the title “Using Earth and space science and cloud computing to advance community solutions.” For this challenge, they are looking for projects that have working prototypes that address community challenges using Earth science data or tools. Winning projects will receive $15,000 in grant funds to use AWS on-demand cloud services, Free registration to attend the annual 2015 AGU Fall Meeting, and creative assistance and direction in developing videos that highlight the work.
Editor's Note: Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) is one of a handful of universities of varying sizes that have incorporated AWIPS II into labs and classrooms in the past two years. MSU's experience shows that incorporating the new NWS technology into the educational mix is both possible and useful even for a small undergraduate program. This article outlines the MSU AWIPS II configuration and discusses some of the adjustments the program made to get the system running smoothly.
Thanks to a Unidata Community Equipment Award grant coupled with some local resources from our university, we (Professor Sam Ng and co-PI Chris Kimmett) at Metropolitan State University in Denver have been able to successfully bring the National Weather Service's AWIPS II forecasting system into the classroom. Professor Ng used AWIPS II alongside Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer as core tools in the Spring 2015 “Weather Analysis Techniques” course for undergraduate meteorology majors, and will continue using AWIPS II in the Fall semester and into the future.
As a part of its 2015 Outreach Program, UCAR's COMET Program has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for National Water Center (NWC) Cooperative and Partners Projects. Proposals can be submitted immediately, with a deadline of October 15, 2015 for NWC cooperative projects.
Version 4.5.2 of the netCDF Operators (NCO) has been released. NCO is an Open Source package that consists of a dozen standalone, command-line programs that take netCDF files as input, then operate (e.g., derive new data, average, print, hyperslab, manipulate metadata) and output the results to screen or files in text, binary, or netCDF formats.
The NCO project is coordinated by Professor Charlie Zender of the Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine. More information about the project, along with binary and source downloads, are available on the SourceForge project page.
Tom Hollingshead joined the Unidata Program Center as a System Administrator on July 30, 2015. He's built up a wide-ranging set of technical skills over more than 20 years in the field, ranging from systems administration of Linux and Windows servers to information security, network administration, and virtualization technologies. While he's new to Unidata, Tom is well acquainted with UCAR's Community Programs (UCP) — he spent nearly two years working as a systems administrator for the GLOBE program in 2012-2013.
It hasn't been just a succession of office buildings, though. “My first technical skills were acquired in the U.S. Navy where I worked on a short range, self-defense missile system on an aircraft carrier,” says Tom. He also spent a couple of years San Jose, Costa Rica, working for Intel.
