Outstanding Accomplishment Awards

1996 Award winners and nominees

At the holiday party on 13 December, a select group of staff were honored with nominations for the annual institution-wide Outstanding Performance Awards. Division and program directors made a record 27 nominations this year in the five categories described below. The winners are chosen by interdivisional committees and announced at the holiday party; they receive cash awards and medals.

Nominations and winners:
1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007

All Award Winners, 1967–present

1996 Winners

Outstanding Publication
Steve Tomczyk, for his papers on the Low Degree Oscillations Experiment instrument

Technology Advancement
Mitch Randall, Eric Loew, and Joe Vinson, for development of the PC integrated radar acquisition (PIRAQ) board and the VMEBus integrated acquisition (VIRAQ) board

Education
Jack Fox and Jim Holt, for their contribution to the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) initiative

Technical Support
Tie:
Jeff Cole, for developing and supporting RAP's Snowfall Test Site at Marshall
and
Ben Foster, for his support in development of HAO's series of thermospheric general circulation models

Administrative Support
Anita Monk and Teresa Shibao, for devising and implementing the new long-distance call accounting system

1996 Nominees

Technology Advancement

—The HAO development team (David Elmore, Alice Lecinski, Don Hassler, and Greg Kopp [Meadowlark Optics]) for development of the chromospheric helium imaging photometer (CHIP). This instrument tracks radiation emitted at the near-infrared wavelength of 1083 nanometers by helium on the solar surface. The emissions are a useful indicator of--and may serve as a precursor of--coronal mass ejections, which send coronal material toward the earth. CHIP detects emission changes to 0.01 percent accuracy with an innovative and unique design that relies heavily upon real-time computer processing to record and digitally correct images. Less than two weeks after its deployment at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, CHIP was providing high-quality data made available on the World Wide Web.

—Mitch Randall, Eric Loew, and Joe Vinson (ATD) for development of the PC integrated radar acquisition (PIRAQ) board and the VMEBus integrated acquisition (VIRAQ) board. These systems allow signals from weather radars, wind profilers, and Doppler lidars to be received and processed in a personal computer (PIRAQ) or a VMEBus chassis (VIRAQ). Despite the extreme complexity of the PIRAQ and VIRAQ circuitry, development went smoothly and quickly due to the design team's detailed understanding of analog, digital, and new design technologies.The compact nature of PIRAQ has enabled it to process data from the nose-cone radar of the NCAR/NSF Electra aircraft and from the portable Doppler on Wheels radar.

—Paul Seagraves (HAO) for creation of the azimuth ambiguity (AZAM) computer utility. When magnetic field vectors in the sun's atmosphere are inferred from polarimetric data, an ambiguity of 180 degrees can be present for each vector. AZAM tracks the continuity of the magnetic field across wide areas to resolve this ambiguity. Its interactive capability allows scientists to spot and adjust for areas where correction is needed. Paul developed the AZAM concept, implemented it in a user-friendly manner, and added features for visualization in various solar coordinate frames and comparison of multiple data sets. AZAM has received high praise in demonstrations at international meetings and is used by several institutions in addition to HAO.

Education

—Jack Fox and Jim Holt (Design and Fabrication Services) for their contribution to the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) initiative. Jack and Jim provided extensive assistance to University of Colorado students designing a small, low-cost scientific spacecraft. They taught the students fundamentals of computer-aided machining and guided them through the process, from the first test part to the completed spacecraft structure. Jack shared his extensive experience in aircraft design and materials, and Jim guided the students through the computer-aided machining and taught the basics of optimal tool paths for parts of varying size and complexity. Through the efforts of Jack and Jim, seven students gained exposure to NCAR and to the instrument machining process.

—The HAO home-page team (Alice Lecinski, Becky Ruttenberg, Joan Burkepile, Rob Montgomery, Chris Pankratz, Barry Knapp, Alan McAllister, Bill Roberts, Ben Foster, Dick White, and Paul Charbonneau) for creation of the division's Web page. From the outset, the page was designed to be both a scientific resource and a public education tool at the K-12 levels and higher. The page's Education section begins with simple questions designed to lead elementary-level students to more advanced ideas about the sun and its effect on the earth. A glossary of terms common in solar-terrestrial physics serves as an essential background source for users at all levels.

—Kevin Trenberth (CGD) for editing the book Climate System Modeling (Cambridge University Press, 1992). This collection of 23 chapters by 27 contributors summarizes the components of a climate-system approach to global climate modeling. Kevin's initial outlining, thorough editing, and proofreading of each chapter led to a clear, definitive work on the state of climate system modeling from first principles onward. Reviewers have called the book an "extremely valuable contribution." It is being used as a text for graduate study as well as a reference manual for scientists concerned with interdisciplinary aspects of climate variability.

—Morris Weisman (MMM) and Pat Parrish and Wendy Abshire (COMET) for development of the COMET computer-based learning module A Convective Storm Matrix: Buoyancy/Shear Dependencies. This, the first module in a series on convection, is the result of a fruitful collaboration between MMM and COMET. Users can select one of 3 buoyancy regimes and 16 different wind-shear profiles to follow any of 54 storm-development scenarios, each spanning three hours of simulated time. Thanks to the MMM/COMET teamwork and the efforts of the core development team, modern educational technology is bringing the results of mesoscale modeling and visualization techniques to forecasters as well as university students in a highly innovative manner.

Administrative Support

—Louise Beierle (HAO) for long-term assistance in coordinating three major annual HAO workshops and conferences. The work involved myriad complex duties, including handling all foreign and domestic travel arrangements for upwards of 400 participants, scheduling hotel rooms and negotiating their rates, and arranging for catering, meeting rooms, registration, and other elements. Several meeting participants have gone out of their way to express their gratitude and appreciation for Louise's efforts on their behalf.

—Anita Monk (Finance and Administration) and Teresa Shibao (Facilities Support Services) for devising and implementing the new long-distance call accounting system. Anita and Teresa chaired a committee to gather input on the new system, then developed and carried out the plan in time for fiscal year 1997. The project involved complicated and intricate accounting work by Anita and considerable reprogramming of phone switches by Teresa. The system allows long-distance calls to be charged to individual program numbers and personal calls to be charged separately, reducing workloads for many administrators and project investigators.

—Nita Razo and Linda Carbone (Visual Communications) and Quindi Franco (participant, Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science program) for their contributions in development of the Digital Media Catalog (DMC). Available on the World Wide Web, the DMC includes a broad range of images on UCAR/NCAR research and related weather phenomena. Nita and Linda oversaw the selection and preparation of more than 1,000 images and related materials for the DMC, while Quindi carried out much of the Web programming. The Web-based format allows frequent users of NCAR imagery, such as the media and educational institutions, to browse a far wider selection than previously possible.

—Jon Rush and Steve Morgan (JOSS) for their work in developing the JOSS Information Management System. The novel JOSS system, created in house over the past eight years, automates many common office procedures and permits managers and administrators ready access to activity and account status reports. It downloads data from the Bi-Tech administrative computing system and unites them with information from JOSS data bases, allowing over 130 accounts and a total of $9.9 million to be managed efficiently and effectively. The system is serving as a prototype for other administrator-friendly systems being developed elsewhere in UCAR.

—R. C. "Butch" Taylor (Finance and Administration) for securing hangar space at Denver International Airport (DIA) for the NCAR/NSF WB-57F aircraft. In the summer of 1996, it became evident that the 100-foot-wide (30-meter) runways at Jeffco were too narrow for routine use by the WB-57F. In less than 30 days, Butch negotiated a complex, 12-month agreement with Continental Airlines for use of their hangar at DIA. The speedy and skilled negotiation resulted in favorable terms for NCAR and allowed the WB-57F to continue providing support for a major field project without interruption.

Outstanding Publication

—Paul Charbonneau (HAO), "Genetic algorithms in astronomy and astrophysics," The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 101 (1995), 390-434. Genetic algorithms are search techniques that incorporate, in a computational setting, the biological notion of evolution via natural selection. While increasingly used in computer science, artificial intelligence, and engineering design, these algorithms had attracted little attention in the physical sciences. Paul's paper illustrates their use in modeling the rotation curve of galaxies, extracting star pulsation periods from Doppler velocity measurements, and constructing wind models for solar-type stars. Some three dozen researchers in several countries are now using software by Paul that incorporates genetic algorithms.

—Gokhan Danabasoglu, Jim McWilliams, and Peter Gent (CGD), "The role of mesoscale tracer transports in the global ocean circulation," Science 264 (1994), 1123-1126. Mesoscale oceanic eddies exist on horizontal scales of 10-100 kilometers, too small for routine monitoring in the oceanic part of a climate model. This paper summarizes, and presents results from, a new scheme for parameterizing mesoscale eddies in an ocean model. The eddies' diffusion is traced along surfaces of constant density rather than horizontal or vertical planes. Comparisons of model runs with and without the new parameterization show how this technique helps the model to produce more accurate north-south heat transport, reduce temperature biases, and place convection more precisely. One reviewer called this work "a striking example of such efforts helping to solve several endemic problems in a global ocean model."

—Andrew Heymsfield and Larry Miloshevich (MMM), "Homogeneous ice nucleation and supercooled liquid water in orographic wave clouds," Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (JAS) 50 (1993), 2335-2353, and "Relative humidity and temperature influences on cirrus formation and evolution: Observations from wave clouds and FIRE II," JAS 52 (1995), 4302-4326. Although cirrus clouds cover roughly 20 percent of the earth's surface on average, there has been relatively little study of their formation. Over the past seven years, Andy and Larry have conducted airborne experiments to study how ice crystals develop in cirrus as a function of temperature and relative humidity. From this, they have built a conceptual model that describes how rapid ice production results in many small particles, while gradual production leads to fewer but larger particles. These two papers dramatically increase our understanding of cirrus formation and will permit improved treatment of the clouds in radiation and climate models.

—Jeff Kiehl and Bruce Briegleb (CGD), "The relative roles of sulfate aerosols and greenhouse gases in climate forcing," Science 260 (1993), 311-314. Sulfate aerosols are likely to partially counteract the enhanced warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases because of indirect effects (smaller cloud droplets that result in brighter clouds) as well as the direct effects of backscattering of solar radiation. This paper provides a much more comprehensive assessment of the sulfates' direct effects than did earlier papers. Through a blend of observations and modeling, Jeff and Bruce estimate that the globally averaged radiative forcing from sulfate aerosols is about -0.3 watts per square meter, less than half of the value obtained by previous authors. These findings stand to influence analyses of future global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other bodies.

—Gang Lu, Arthur Richmond, and Barbara Emery (HAO), "Interhemispheric asymmetry of the high-latitude ionospheric convection pattern," Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) 99 (1994), 6491-6510. Gang, Art, and Barb gathered data from 18 other coauthors of this paper and analyzed the data using the Assimilative Mapping of the Ionospheric Electrodynamics (AMIE) procedure. Their work clearly illustrates the power of the AMIE technique in analyzing complex electrodynamical phenomena occurring at high magnetic latitudes within the auroral zones and magnetic polar cap. During an observational campaign in January 1992, four polar-orbiting satellites measured ion drifts and auroral precipitation over the two magnetic poles. Using the AMIE procedure, the authors demonstrated the hemispherical asymmetry of the convection patterns for different orientations of the interplanetary magnetic field.

—De-Zheng Sun (CGD), "Dynamic ocean-atmosphere coupling: A thermostat for the tropics" (with Zhengyu Liu), Science 272 (1996), 1148-1150. This paper offers a new explanation for the apparent upper limit of 32 degrees C to the sea-surface temperature (SST) in the western tropical Pacific warm pool. De-Zheng's hypothesis involves an oceanic circulation in which warm-pool water is driven downward into cooler subsurface water and replaced by cooler surface water driven westward by the trade winds. This occurs at an increasing rate as the warm pool heats, thus providing a negative feedback. The hypothesis is particularly noteworthy in that it was developed by a postdoctoral researcher in the presence of a well-known competing hypothesis by highly regarded scientists.

—Jenny (Juanzhen) Sun (RAP/MMM), "Recovery of three-dimensional wind and temperature fields from simulated single-Doppler radar data" (with Dawn Flicker and Doug Lilly), JAS 48 (1991), 876-890; "Wind and thermodynamic retrieval from single-Doppler measurements of a gust front observed during PHOENIX II" (with Andrew Crook), Monthly Weather Review (MWR) 122 (1994), 1075-1091; and "Comparison of thermodynamic retrieval by the adjoint method with the traditional retrieval method" (with Andrew Crook), MWR 124 (1996), 308-324. These papers summarize an extensive body of research on using Doppler radar data in numerical forecast models. Though the new U.S. Doppler radar network measures only reflectivity and radial velocity, these data can be used to infer three-dimensional wind, pressure, and temperature fields. The techniques are now being used for the first time in storm-scale models. One reviewer comments that it is "difficult to overestimate the probable importance of these techniques and their key position in the future of numerical prediction of small-scale (and perhaps all scales of) weather."

—Steve Tomczyk (HAO), "An instrument to observe low-degree solar oscillations" (with Kim Streander, Greg Card, David Elmore, Howard Hull, and Alessandro Cacciani), Solar Physics 159 (1995), 1-21, and "Measurement of the rotation rate in the deep solar interior" (with Jesper Schou and Michael Thompson), Astrophysical Journal 488 (1995), L57-L60. In these papers, Steve and coauthors describe the the Low Degree Oscillations Experiment instrument (referred to as LOWL) and present analyses of its data. Through LOWL, the sun's inmost rotation rates are being assessed with unprecedented accuracy. LOWL data is also proving useful in addressing other questions, such as the thickness and location of the rotational shear layer at the base of the solar convection zone. Stable, inexpensive, and easy to operate, the LOWL instrument has become the central component of HAO's helioseismological observations of the solar interior.

Technical Support

—Brigitte Baeuerle (ATD) for producing a Web-based on-line tour of ATD. To help guide visitors from NSF during their review of ATD, Brigitte produced a virtual tour that involved 70 electronic pages and more than 100 images. Starting from a disorganized mass of material, Brigitte coordinated photography and maintained a consistent appearance and content level of the many pages to produce a seamless, coherent, and effective on-line tour. Since the panel meeting, the Web-based tour has been used in house for virtually every group visiting ATD; it is also being used extensively by people at NSF and elsewhere beyond UCAR. (The tour is located at http://www.atd.ucar.edu/homes/bb/NSF/index.html.)

—Tom Bettge, Lawrence Buja, Brian Kauffman, Nancy Norton, Jim Rosinski, and Mariana Vertenstein (CGD) for their contributions toward the development of NCAR's climate system model. Developing and releasing the CSM has been CGD's major focus for the last three years. Three independent numerical models were developed for the atmosphere and land, ocean, and sea ice, along with a fourth model that serves as the driver or flux coupler. All four models are now available in self-explanatory fashion through the World Wide Web. Development of the CSM would have been impossible without the very hard work of these six nominees, who produced not only the software but also extensive documentation that included four NCAR Technical Reports.

—Greg Card (HAO) for support of the Spartan 201 space shuttle missions. The NASA space shuttle program offered a unique opportunity to fly retrievable instruments in space where there is no scattered light from the earth's atmosphere. HAO developed a spaceborne white light coronagraph designed for collaborative investigation of the corona and the solar wind. Greg spent four years commuting between Boulder, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Kennedy Space Center to prepare the coronagraph and integrate it with the spacecraft, serving as project engineer and the sole liaison between HAO and NASA.

—Jeff Cole (RAP) for developing and supporting RAP's Snowfall Test Site at Marshall. Nearly single-handedly, Jeff set up a facility for testing snow gauges and evaluating the performance of deicing fluids for RAP's FAA-sponsored Ground Deicing and Snowfall Evaluation Program. Over the past three years Jeff has created a state-of-the-art test site with a wide variety of weather and snowfall sensors. He also has modified a trailer to serve as an operations center with real-time radar displays and output from the various sensors. The Marshall site has become an important component of RAP's winter research program and has attracted national and international attention.

—Ben Foster (HAO) for his support in development of HAO's series of thermospheric general circulation models. As the sole software engineer working on development of these models, Ben maintains them, implements all changes and upgrades, develops visualization and analysis tools, and constantly adds other new features, serving nearly 100 HAO and university users. One of Ben's recent achievements, a task that required considerable programming skill and motivation, was coupling the thermosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere-electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME-GCM) to two different versions of the NCAR community climate model. The results will be useful in developing models for predicting space weather.

—Rich Lueb (ACD) for his 34 years of engineering support for ACD and for an exceptional effort this year in configuring ACD's whole air sampler for a new location in NASA's ER-2 aircraft while designing and testing two brand-new airborne samplers. The whole air sampler's move from the ER-2 nose to a temporary location involved a major expansion of the sampler's capacity along with hardware and software alterations. A modular design for the new samplers allows for flexible deployment. Over the years, Rich's high technical and professional standards and innovative solutions have enhanced research both within and beyond ACD.

—Dick Oye and Sherrie Fredrick (ATD) for development of the Solo package for display and editing of remote sensing data. Over the last several years, Solo has become a standard tool for users of ATD's remote sensing data sets, greatly increasing their accessibility and value. The package now includes multiplatform display capability, complete editing tools, and an extensive set of translators. Solo's ability to handle airborne data is unmatched elsewhere. Through their determination and hard work as principal Solo engineers, Dick and Sherrie have produced a wide-ranging and versatile tool now being used in 54 institutions.