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The USAF Weather (AFW) supports a number of military and U.S. government agencies by providing authoritative weather analysis and forecast products for any location globally, including soil moisture analyses. The long history of supporting soil moisture products and partnering with other U.S. government agencies led to the partnering between the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, resulting in a merger of those organizations' modeling systems, collaborative development of the Land Information System (LIS), and operational fielding of the system within the USAF 557th Weather Wing [557 WW; formerly, Headquarters Air Force Weather Agency (HQ AFWA)]. In 2009, the USAF implemented the NASA LIS and later made it the primary software system to generate global soil hydrology and energy budget products. The implementation of LIS delivered a significant upgrade over the existing Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) the USAF operated, the Agriculture Meteorology (AGRMET) system. Implementation enabled the rapid integration of new LDAS technology into USAF operations, and led to a long-term NASA–USAF partnership resulting in continued development, integration, and implementation of new LIS capabilities. This paper documents both the history of the USAF Weather organization capabilities enabling the generation of soil moisture and other land surface analysis products, and describes the USAF–NASA partnership leading to the development of the merged LIS-AGRMET system. The article also presents a successful example of a mutually beneficial partnership that has enabled cutting-edge land analysis capabilities at the USAF, while transitioning NASA software and satellite data into USAF operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seafloor observatories enable long-term, continuous, real-time, weather-independent, and multidisciplinary scientific observation and research that will promise major breakthroughs in ocean sciences. China has started to establish a seafloor observation system in the East China Sea (ECSSOS), and the purpose of this paper is to describe the remote control for ECSSOS. Technological development in system architecture and remote communication was first performed in this paper. Based on this work, an overall framework for the remote control solution for ECSSOS was developed, adopting a client-server architecture containing three components, that is, a control center, a shore station, and observatory facilities, as well as two strands of information flow, that is, flow of observation data and flow of control commands. To implement the present solution, operational data flow and the core module were further designed and the corresponding remote control subsystem for ECSSOS was developed against all design specifications. This backbone system has been put into operation in China's first seafloor observatory in 2009, and in this paper the practical performance is evaluated addressing both the general descriptions and results from case studies. Given the successful trial in the Xiaoqushan seafloor observatory, the remote control solution proposed in this paper could be a useful reference implementation to the following construction phases of ECSSOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wire Flyer towed vehicle is a new platform able to collect high-resolution water column sections. The vehicle is motivated by a desire to effectively capture spatial structures at the submesoscale. The vehicle fills a niche that is not achieved by other existing towed and repeat profiling systems. The Wire Flyer profiles up and down along a ship-towed cable autonomously using controllable wings for propulsion. At ship speeds between 2 and 5 kt (1.02–2.55 m s−1), the vehicle is able to profile over prescribed depth bands down to 1000 m. The vehicle carries sensors for conductivity, temperature, depth, oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyll, pH, and oxidation reduction potential. During normal operations the vehicle is typically commanded to cover vertical regions between 300 and 400 m in height with profiles that repeat at kilometer spacing. The vertical profiling speed can be user specified up to 150 m min−1. The high-density sampling capability at depths below the upper few hundred meters makes the vehicle distinct from other systems. During operations an acoustic modem is used to communicate with the vehicle to provide status information, data samples, and the ability to modify the sampling pattern. This paper provides an overview of the vehicle system, describes its operation, and presents results from several cruises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses storing information on papers in contrast to storing data digitally where there is a chance of information being lost due to change in operating systems or media. The author talks about the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) which began collecting data on geostationary satellites in 1983. It is stated that the method proved to be a huge success and provided information that aided in better understanding of the Earth's climate. The article differentiates between electronic data and information and focuses on the archive system. Information is provided about the functions of the Open Archive Information System (OAIS) Reference Model which is largely directed towards maintaining the integrity of information.

NOAA has launched the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) in partnership with the Weather Enterprise (academia, government, and industry) to bring the power of distributed innovation to bear on one of the greatest challenges of our time. EPIC provides a collaborative framework building upon the community-driven Unified Forecast System (UFS) to accelerate innovative improvements to the nation's forecast system in order to save lives, protect property, and enhance the economy. This article describes NOAA's strategic, tactical, and organizational approaches to utilize EPIC to transform the world-leading U.S. national forecast systems into an even stronger and more effective community-based, computationally advanced Earth prediction system to meet the expanding and pressing needs of national and international societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Board on Enterprise Planning (BEP) established the Committee on Mobile Observations to discuss the application and utilization of mobile weather and road condition data in the context of supporting the weather and transportation communities and how these data could be used to improve safety and mobility across the nation's surface transportation system. The goal of the committee is to articulate a clear vision for mobile data that captures the immense opportunities for these data to improve road weather services and transportation safety and mobility. The Committee on Mobile Observations is engaged in numerous activities to accomplish its goal, which includes a nationwide survey of the traveling public to obtain better information on their preferences for and interests in obtaining weather and road condition information, their willingness to share vehicle data, and their willingness to pay for enhanced services. This paper outlines the results of the survey. Working through Survey Sampling International, the survey obtained 1627 responses. Results show that people are strongly interested in obtaining road weather information, though they remain wary of sharing data, and they are disinclined to pay for the data. Stratifications note some regional differences in the level of interest in data, as well as dependencies between the amount of information desired, and the willingness to pay for it and to share vehicle information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the political platforms of two American Meteorological Society (AMS) presidential candidates. Jennifer C. Alexander says that if she is elected, she will focus her term on promoting innovation and efficiencies. Alexander E. MacDonald says that his commitment to the members of the AMS is to build on the true strength of the Society as a unifying force while fostering the spirit of inclusion.

The article offers information on the importance of atmospheric rivers (ARs) in global sciences and its applications in the U.S. The topics discussed include the advances in hydrology and atmospheric rivers, the key role of ARs in the determination of the precipitation events distributions and an overview of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography held in La Jolla, California held from August 8-11, 2016.

Precipitation amount, type, and snow depth Dshave been analyzed using data collected during the 4Wing Cold Lake Research Project in northeastern Alberta, Canada. The instruments used include the Vaisala present weather detector PWD22 and present weather sensor (FS)11P, the OTT Pluvio2 automatic catchment-type gauge, the manual standard Canadian Nipher (CN) and Type B rain gauges, and a snow ruler. Both the PWD22 and FS11P performed well at detecting snow, rain, and drizzle events as compared to the human observer. The sensors predicted a higher frequency of ice pellet cases than the human observer. Segregation of precipitation phase using temperature alone appeared unrealistic at near-freezing temperatures. All the sensors agreed well at measuring liquid precipitation, but the Pluvio2 gauge with a single Alter shield underestimated the snowfall amount by 40%, mostly due to wind effects. After correcting the CN gauge catch efficiency (CE) due to wind effects, the CE of the Pluvio2 relative to the CN gauge was found dependent on wind speed (ws). Using these data, a new transfer function (TF) for the Pluvio2 as a function of ws has been developed. The new TF was used to correct the Pluvio2 gauge, and the corrected data agreed well with the PWD22 measurements. Using the Ds and corrected CN data, snow density ratios ρv were derived, varying from 4.2 to 35 with a mean value of 12.2. The mean value derived in this study is higher than the 10:1 ratio usually assumed for converting Ds to snow water equivalent in Canada. On average pv increases with increasing temperature and the 10:1 ratio appears to be more appropriate for warmer temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The widening gap between the advance of science and technology, and the society's ability to benefit from it, is considered by the International Council for Science (ICSU) as the greatest challenge facing science in the 21st century. The AMS Council approved a new award of the Society honoring more than six decades of service and the weather and climate enterprise provided by Kenneth C. Spengler. Richard Alt II was recognized as a 2007 Davidson Fellow and received a $10,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.

The article outlines the history of the emergence of the National Hurricane Research Project (NHRP) in the U.S. It is stated that NHRP was initiated by the Weather Bureau (USWB) in 1955 in response to the devastating effects of the past years hurricanes. Accordingly, the government allocated $2.5 million to finance a new weather radar network. The author denotes that the last 50 years of the project's development depicts a tremendous increase for scientific understanding of tropical cyclones. He adds that the hurricane researchers have led the way in designing airborne experiments using new technologies to study tropical storms.

The article focuses on the Early Online Release (EOR) initiative which allows a new service that greatly improves the ability in the scientific community to learn the new research results, as soon as the studies have successfully passed the peer-review process. It notes that such technological development in the online release of journal manuscripts accelerates the availability of research results worldwide. It mentions the importance of the EOR initiative for various sciences.

The article reports on a research in the Southern Ocean which used 85 elephant seals in gathering climatic and oceanographic data from under the ice, where ships, satellites, and other instruments cannot reach. It states that the researchers collected data through specially designed equipment that were connected to the seals. It notes that the seals covered as much as 40 miles per day and collected more than 16,00 profiles.