Discovery Online

Jianglong Zhang, an award-winning meteorologist and atmospheric scientist, received the prestigious NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) David S. Johnson Award, which recognizes young scientists for their innovative use of environmental satellite data at the 55th Annual Robert H. Goddard Memorial Dinner March 30 in Washington, D.C.

Jianglong Zhang, an award-winning meteorologist and atmospheric scientist, received the prestigious NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) David S. Johnson Award, which recognizes young scientists for their innovative use of environmental satellite data at the 55th Annual Robert H. Goddard Memorial Dinner March 30 in Washington, D.C.

First presented in 1999, the award is named after the first assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service and honors professional scientists who create new uses for observational satellite data to better predict atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial conditions.

Zhang was cited for developing new techniques that use satellite measurements to forecast the impact of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, which can impact daily human life. For example, an increase in aerosol concentrations can influence clouds, making them brighter and reflecting more sunlight back into space, thus reducing ground temperatures.

He also led the development of the world’s first operational aerosol assimilation system, which is being used by the U.S. Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center.

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The 2011-2012 snow season was a lot warmer than expected with a lot less snow. The dramatic change from “normal” underscores how tough it is to predict the weather. That’s why NASA regularly enlists the help of UND’s atmospheric scientists and their fully rigged Cessna Citation II research jet.

This past winter, the jet participated in the NASA-sponsored Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Cold-season Precipitation Experiment. GPM is an international satellite mission that will unify and set new standards for precipitation measurements from space, providing the next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours.

The Citation and its UND team were part of a field campaign based at the Muskoka, Ontario, airport, through March 1. Mike Poellot, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor and chair of the UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences and principal investigator for the jet, Tony Grainger, and Dave Delene — all atmospheric sciences faculty members — rotated through the project as flight scientist.

“Before NASA launches those satellites, they want to test how the instruments work,” said Poellot. “On this mission, like others before it, we’re validating what

the instruments that will later be installed on the GPM satellite network are measuring.”

Poellot

Grainger

Delene

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Thomas Mohr, professor and chair, and Renee Mabey, professor, from the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences’ Department of Physical Therapy, along with Debbie Ingram and Nancy Fell from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, earned the “Stanford Award” for 2011 at the recent American Physical Therapy Association’s Combined Sections Meeting in Chicago. The Stanford Award was given to the authors of the article containing the most influential ideas for physical therapy education published that year in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education (Vol. 25, No. 2, spring 2011). The editorial staff of the journal selects the award winners. The title of the article was “The Case for Academic Integrity in Physical Therapy Education.” Mohr was the lead author.

Mohr

Mabey