This past weekend began with a once-in-a-century event, a Pi Day good to five significant figures (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/14/pi-day-kids-videos/24753169/). I spent that morning traveling to and from Norwalk, Connecticut, to give a 30-minute presentation on my work and Lamont more generally to the Columbia University Trustees. On the program for the Trustee retreat, I followed the new athletic director and the new football coach.
On Sunday, the Boston area broke the record for greatest accumulated snowfall during a winter season (108.6 inches) since the first snowfall measurements began being made in the city in 1872 (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/15/parade-day-snow-but-snowiest-winter-record-unlikely-today/BCxfh7yPtIrxtHVzty5sPM/story.html). Arnold Gordon, who is spending this semester on sabbatical leave at MIT, wanted everyone to know that he witnessed the exceptional season.
This week coincided with spring break at Columbia. No classes have been held, and there is no colloquium this afternoon.
I’ve spent the week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held in The Woodlands, Texas, north of Houston. The annual meeting, held during spring break at many universities, draws planetary scientists from around the globe to hear about new results from ongoing and recently completed spacecraft missions, extraterrestrial sample analysis, astronomical observations, and theoretical studies. Others with Lamont affiliations spotted in the sessions and hallways included Ellen Crapster-Pregont, Denton Ebel, Alex Evans, and Peter James.
It was a good week for the MESSENGER mission. We held a press briefing on recent findings on Monday (http://www.nature.com/news/mercury-seen-as-never-before-1.17088?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews), and we marked the fourth anniversary of insertion into orbit about Mercury on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the spacecraft completed the first of five small orbit-correction maneuvers that will keep the probe’s closest approach distance near 15 km until all onboard propellant is exhausted and the continuing gravitational tug by the Sun on the craft’s orbit will force it to impact Mercury’s surface at the end of April.
On Monday, Nature Geoscience posted an article by IRI’s John Allen, APAM’s Michael Tippett, and Adam Sobel on the influence of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on severe thunderstorms in the south-central U.S. With the use of environmental indices that correlate with tornado and hail activity, the group showed that fewer tornadoes and hail events occur during El Niño conditions, and more occur during La Niña. Because winter ENSO conditions often persist into spring, and because ENSO characteristics can be predicted several months in advance, the team’s findings provide a basis for making long-range forecasts of severe thunderstorm activity. The Weather Channel (http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/el-nino-la-nina-predicts-tornado-season-severity) and other media covered the story.
On Wednesday, Pete Sobel and I participated in an evening event sponsored by the Columbia Club of South Texas. I spoke to more than two-dozen Columbia alumni about Lamont and MESSENGER at the home of Charles and Doris Costenbader in The Woodlands. The audience included Lamont alumni Kyla Simons and Leon Thomsen.
On Thursday, the March issue of Lamont’s electronic newsletter (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=71431ee4099fcd9f2e20d401a&id=2eae055a0c) was sent out to a broad list of recipients. The issue includes stories on Maya Tolstoy’s paper on the relation between climate change and variations in the volcanic flux along mid-ocean ridges; the paper by Colin Kelley, Mark Cane, Richard Seager, Yochanan Kushnir, and SIPA’s Shahrzad Mohtadi on the contribution of the three-year drought in the Fertile Crescent to the Syrian Civil War; and Kevin Krajick’s summary of fieldwork planned by Lamont scientists for the coming year. Links to news stories that feature the work or commentary of Lamont scientists round out the issue.
Notwithstanding today’s weather, the vernal equinox will occur this evening. I hope you will join me in welcoming this year’s spring season with particular enthusiasm.
Sean