IMAGE OF THE WEEK
A beautiful rainbow appears to descend into the ocean surrounding St. Lucia, a sovereign island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Send photos from your summer travels to geography@psu.edu. Photo by Rob Brooks.
GOOD NEWS
Doug Miller has been promoted to Senior Scientist.
Kathy Cappelli, undergraduate student with dual majors in geography and journalism, has accepted an internship with Penn State Strategic Communications.
Alumnus Rob Roth (Ph.D. ’11) has an article in Cartographic, Vol. 50, No.2, summer 2015.
NEWS
Jet contrails affect surface temperatures
High in the sky where the cirrus ice crystal clouds form, jet contrails draw their crisscross patterns. Now researchers have found that these elevated ice cloud trails can influence temperatures on the ground and affect local climate, according to a team of Penn State geographers.
“Research done regarding September 2001, during the three days (following 9-11) when no commercial jets were in the sky, suggested that contrails had an effect,” said Andrew M. Carleton, professor of geography. “But that was only three days. We needed to look longer, while jets were in the air, to determine the real impact of contrails on temperature and in terms of climate.”
Additional news coverage of this story
- www.theblaze.com
- news.discovery.com
- ww2.kqed.org/science
- And a poem: thepoetryofscience.scienceblog.com
Yosemite forest fire example of possible things to come
Forest composition, ground cover and topography are the best predictors of forest fire severity in the Western U.S., according to Penn State physical geographers who also see that the long history of fire exclusion on federal lands leads to uncharacteristically severe burns and potentially changes the dynamics of forests and their recovery.
A hunter’s illegal campfire in Stanislaus National Forest adjacent to Yosemite National Park started what would become the Rim fire, the third largest fire in California history, that burned from August through October 2013. The fire burned about 400 square miles inside and outside Yosemite, with 78 square miles burned on the worst day.
“We would never be able to do an experiment on this, never be able to burn the forest in this way, so this natural experiment is a perfect opportunity to see what happens,” said Alan H. Taylor, professor of geography.
Penn State selected as Center of Academic Excellence in Geospatial Sciences
Penn State was one of a select group of U.S. educational institutions to be named a Center of Academic Excellence in Geospatial Sciences (CAE GS) by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in partnership with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). This recognition cements Penn State’s reputation as a leading provider of geospatial science education, which includes mapmaking, spatial data analysis, visual analytics, remote sensing, geospatial intelligence, homeland security and geographic information systems (GIS). The selected institutions were acknowledged in a ceremony at the 2015 United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) GEOINT Symposium, June 22, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
Penn State researchers awarded funding for online learning innovations
Penn State’s Center for Online Innovation in Learning (COIL) has announced it will fund seven new projects through its Research Initiation Grant program.
The goal of the grant program is to provide seed money for Penn State researchers to gather preliminary evidence in the hope of pursuing external funding for larger studies that enhance teaching and learning through online innovation.
Recently (or soon to be) published
Wu J., Tschakert P., Klutse E., Ferring D., Ricciardi V., Hausermann H., Oppong J., Smithwick E. A. H. (2015) Buruli Ulcer Disease and Its Association with Land Cover in Southwestern Ghana. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 9(6): e0003840. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0003840
Buruli ulcer (BU), one of 17 neglected tropical diseases, is a debilitating skin and soft tissue infection caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. In tropical Africa, changes in land use and proximity to water have been associated with the disease. This study presents the first analysis of BU at the village level in southwestern Ghana, where prevalence rates are among the highest globally, and explores fine and medium-scale associations with land cover by comparing patterns both within BU clusters and surrounding landscapes.