Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

About: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Snow & Data assimilation. The organization has 332 authors who have published 997 publications receiving 38835 citations. The organization is also known as: CIRA.

The atmospheric carbon and transport (ACT)-America mission

Abstract: The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT)-America NASA Earth Venture Suborbital Mission set out to improve regional atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) inversions by exploring the intersection of the strong GHG fluxes and vigorous atmospheric transport that occurs within the midlatitudes. Two research aircraft instrumented with remote and in situ sensors to measure GHG mole fractions, associated trace gases, and atmospheric state variables collected 1,140.7 flight hours of research data, distributed across 305 individual aircraft sorties, coordinated within 121 research flight days, and spanning five 6-week seasonal flight campaigns in the central and eastern United States. Flights sampled 31 synoptic sequences, including fair-weather and frontal conditions, at altitudes ranging from the atmospheric boundary layer to the upper free troposphere. The observations were complemented with global and regional GHG flux and transport model ensembles. We found that midlatitude weather systems contain large spatial gradients in GHG mole fractions, in patterns that were consistent as a function of season and altitude. We attribute these patterns to a combination of regional terrestrial fluxes and inflow from the continental boundaries. These observations, when segregated according to altitude and air mass, provide a variety of quantitative insights into the realism of regional CO 2 and CH 4 fluxes and atmospheric GHG transport realizations. The ACT-America dataset and ensemble modeling methods provide benchmarks for the development of atmospheric inversion systems. As global and regional atmospheric inversions incorporate ACT-America’s findings and methods, we anticipate these systems will produce increasingly accurate and precise subcontinental GHG flux estimates.

A multichannel temporally adaptive system for continuous cloud classification from satellite imagery

Abstract: A two-channel temporal updating system is presented, which accounts for feature changes in the visible and infrared satellite images The system uses two probabilistic neural network classifiers and a context-based predictor to perform continuous cloud classification during the day and night Test results for 27 h of continuous classification and updating are presented on a sequence of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 8 images Further test results of the system on two new sets of data with 1-2 weeks time difference are also presented that show the potential of this system as an operational continuous cloud classification system

Project ATLANTA (ATlanta Land-use ANalysis: Temperature and Air quality): A Study of how the Urban Landscape Affects Meteorology and Air Quality Through Time

Abstract: It is our intent through this investigation to help facilitate measures that can be Project ATLANTA (ATlanta Land-use ANalysis: applied to mitigate climatological or air quality Temperature and Air-quality) is a NASA Earth degradation, or to design alternate measures to sustain Observing System (EOS) Interdisciplinary Science or improve the overall urban environment in the future. investigation that seeks to observe, measure, model, and analyze how the rapid growth of the Atlanta. The primary objectives for this research effort are: 1) To In the last half of the 20th century, Atlanta, investigate and model the relationship between Atlanta Georgia has risen as the premier commercial, urban growth, land cover change, and the development industrial, and transportation urban area of the of the urban heat island phenomenon through time at southeastern United States. The rapid growth of the nested spatial scales from local to regional; 2) To Atlanta area, particularly within the last 25 years, has investigate and model the relationship between Atlanta made Atlanta one of the fastest growing metropolitan urban growth and land cover change on air quality areas in the United States. The population of the through time at nested spatial scales from local to Atlanta metropolitan area increased 27% between 1970 regional; and 3) To model the overall effects of urban and 1980, and 33% between 1980-1990 (Research development on surface energy budget characteristics Atlanta, Inc., 1993). Concomitant with this high rate of across the Atlanta urban landscape through time at population growth, has been an explosive growth in nested spatial scales from local to regional. Our key retail, industrial, commercial, and transportation goal is to derive a better scientific understanding of how services within the Atlanta region. This has resulted in land cover changes associated with urbanization in the tremendous land cover change dynamics within the Atlanta area, principally in transforming forest lands to metropolitan region, wherein urbanization has urban land covers through time, has, and will, effect consumed vast acreas of land adjacent to the city local and regional climate, surface energy flux, and air proper and has pushed the rural/urban fringe farther quality characteristics. Allied with this goal is the and farther away from the original Atlanta urban core. prospect that the results from this research can be An enormous transition of land from forest and applied by urban planners, environmental managers agriculture to urban land uses has occurred in the and other decision-makers, for determining how Atlanta area in the last 25 years, along with subsequent urbanization has impacted the climate and overall

Record 2007 Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt Extent and Runoff

Abstract: Record surface melting from the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) occurred in 2007, according to observations [Mote, 2007; Tedesco, 2007]. The surface melting and freshwater runoff contribution are of considerable importance to, for example, the global eustatic sea level rise and the ocean salinity. Remote locations and harsh climatic conditions are commonly cited as reasons for the lack of knowledge about the snow and ice contained within Greenland. Modeling studies incorporating available data sets are valuable resources in illuminating GrIS melting and runoff changes. Snow-Model [Liston and Elder, 2006a, 2006b], a snow evolution modeling system simulating snow-related physical processes, was used to model the GrIS surface water balance, including spatial variations in snow accumulation and redistribution, snowmelt and ice melt, and water balance components such as runoff (see equation below for further information), on the GrIS for 1995–2007. If snow temperature is below freezing, any percolating or liquid water refreezes and is stored in the snow (in the “pores”) as internal accumulation. This provides a method to account for heat and mass transfer processes, such as snowpack ripening, during spring melt.