As befits the first full workweek of the new calendar year, the weather reminded us that winter has arrived in force (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/post/107605745427/field-photo-friday). But we can draw warmth from several items of good news.
Mark Cane learned this week that he has been named a Fellow of The Oceanography Society. Fellows are “individuals who have attained eminence in oceanography through their outstanding contributions to the field of oceanography or its applications during a substantial period of years.” Formal recognition of Mark’s Fellow status will be made at the next Ocean Sciences Meeting, scheduled for February of next year in New Orleans. Congratulations, Mark!
This week, too, the American Geophysical Union announced the winners of Outstanding Student Paper Awards for presentations made at last month’s AGU Fall Meeting (http://ospa.agu.org/ospa/2014-fall-meeting-ospa-winners/), and three of our graduate students are among those selected for awards: Alejandra Borunda in Atmospheric Sciences, Zach Eilon in Tectonophysics, and Hannah Rabinowitz in Seismology. Zach received similar recognition for his presentation at the 2013 Fall Meeting. To Alejandra, Zach, and Hannah, kudos on your awards!
The Ocean and Climate Physics Division welcomed Postdoctoral Research Fellow Jack Scheff this week. Jack received a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington last August (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~jack/) and now holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation. At Lamont, he will be examining changes in humid, semi-arid, and arid continental climates during warm periods in the geological past, Quaternary glacial and interglacial periods, and the future greenhouse climate. Jack’s goal is to understand the fundamental thermodynamic and atmosphere-ocean circulation mechanisms that control moisture availability on the continents and how those mechanisms change as climate changes.
The Geochemistry Division, in turn, welcomed the arrival of Visiting Scientist Paola Araya. Paola is an undergraduate at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she is working in the research group of Prof. Esteban Sagredo, a collaborator of Mike Kaplan and Joerg Schaefer in their study of glaciers, climate, and ice ages in southern South America. At Lamont until mid-March, Paola will work on measuring the cosmic-ray exposure ages of samples from the Rio Tranquilo valley to study the sequence of events that followed the Last Glacial Maximum in that region.
Not all news this week has been welcome, however. Kim Martineau, who has served as science writer and media liaison at Lamont and the Earth Institute for most of the last six years, announced that she will be taking another position within Columbia University. Kim is to be the Assistant Director of Strategic Communications and Media Relations at the Data Science Institute in the School of Engineering. Her last day at Lamont will be 26 January, and I hope you will join me in finding a moment before then to tell her how important her contributions have been to the Observatory and our efforts to tell the stories of our science to others.
For another week, Lamont has taken over the Instagram account of the International Center of Photography as part of their partnership with the Observatory and IRI to highlight climate change through photographs of climate scientists and climate change impacts. This week’s photos will be from the Antarctic expedition of Sid Hemming and Trevor Williams (http://instagram.com/icp). Two of the photos from that series are featured this week on The Lamont Log (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/).
In the media, this week’s issue of Science News includes a review of Adam Sobel’s book on Superstorm Sandy; reviewer Sid Perkins summarizes, “More than a tale of scientific success in storm path prognostication, Storm Surge potently illustrates the problems that will probably plague coastal regions worldwide in the future” (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/%E2%80%98storm-surge%E2%80%99-revisits-sandy-looks-future-hurricanes?mode=magazine&context=189583). A perspective on episodes in our planet’s past when living conditions were even more challenging can be found in a story posted Wednesday by Live Science on the Mesozoic Era, which was bookended by two of the largest extinction events in Earth history; Paul Olsen served as the source and narrator for the story (http://www.livescience.com/38596-mesozoic-era.html). One of the “snapshots” in new technology featured this month in Vision Systems features Chris Zappa’s incorporation of hyperspectral cameras on unmanned aerial vehicles to study ocean and sea ice variability in the Arctic (http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/print/volume-20/issue-1/departments/snapshots/humanoid-robot-employs-3d-imaging.html).
The inauguration of our spring season of the Earth Science Colloquium series is still two weeks off, but please save that time slot next week for our annual Awards Recognition Ceremony, at which we will acknowledge all of our colleagues who received research and education awards between October 2013 and December 2014. The reception that will follow should provide another shot of warmth to ward off the winter chills.
Sean