NOAA Researchers Honored for Outstanding Scientific Publications
2009 Awards Presented to 24 Scientists

Two dozen researchers have received 2009 Outstanding Scientific Paper Awards from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) for discoveries that are expected to help improve weather forecasting and further understanding of climate change and ocean acidification.

Richard W. Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research, and Alexander E. MacDonald, Ph.D., NOAA deputy assistant administrator for Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes, announced the awards in a recent organization-wide meeting.

"These papers reflect the pre-eminence, the vision, and the passion of NOAA researchers," Dr. Spinrad said. "Their work provides a strong foundation for understanding the complex oceanic and atmospheric systems that govern our planet."

Winners were selected in three categories: ecosystems, weather and water, and climate.

Ecosystems

Richard Feely and Christopher Sabine from NOAA’s Seattle-based Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory measured ocean acidification — the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere known to threaten marine habitats — along the west coast, from central Canada to northern Mexico.

Their study, published in the journal Science, found that seasonal winds pull these acidic waters up onto the continental shelf where they can negatively impact commercially important shellfish such as clams, oysters, and crabs. The research was the first to measure the severity of ocean acidification on the U.S. West Coast.

Weather and Water

Three researchers from OAR’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colo., and their colleagues at the University of Washington and Scripps Institute of Oceanography are being honored for their study on atmospheric rivers — long, narrow plumes of water vapor that travel toward the South and North Poles, which impact snow and rain patterns along the west coast of North America.

The study, published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology and co-authored by Paul Neiman, Martin Ralph, and Gary Wick of ESRL’s Physical Sciences Division, described for the first time how these "rivers" are increasing snowfall in the winter and decreasing rainfall in the spring. The findings are expected to improve weather forecasting and flood prediction, water management and policy. Jessica Lundquist of the University of Washington and Michael Dettinger of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are co-authors of this paper.

Norman, Okla.-based researchers Pamela Heinselman of the National Severe Storms Laboratory, and David Priegnitz, Kevin Manross, Travis Smith, and Richard Adams of the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies found that new phased array radar was faster and provided more detail than Doppler radar in accurately detecting and analyzing the threat of severe storms in Oklahoma.

Their research, published in the journal Weather and Forecasting, is expected to lead to earlier warning times for severe storms such as tornadoes, supercell thunderstorms, and hailstorms.

Climate

Although most recent studies of climate change have focused on persistent greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane, for example), research by Hiram Levy, II, M. Daniel Schwarzkopf, Larry Horowitz, V. Ramaswamy, and Kirsten Findell of the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory showed that emissions from Asia — of short-lived pollutants such as soot and sulfate — would result in significant increases in surface temperature and decreases in summer rainfall in the United States throughout the second half of the 21st century.

The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, also predicted drier soil conditions for the central United States and exposed the potential of air pollution to impact the water and agricultural sectors through the year 2100.

Researchers Stephen Montzka, Bradley Hall, James Elkins, Thomas Conway, Pieter Tans, and Colm Sweeney of the ESRL Global Monitoring Division, and Paul Calvert of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science have demonstrated for the first time that carbonyl sulfide, a trace gas that impacts climate and stratospheric ozone levels, is closely connected to the global carbon cycle.

The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, demonstrates that variations in carbonyl sulfide appear to be tightly linked to photosynthesis. This finding offers scientists a potential new tool for improving our understanding of the carbon cycle.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

October 27, 2009