houck2040/artisci huggingface dataset:
during the geosciences career frontiers online career panel event feb 3 current texas a&m university students former students faculty and staff had the opportunity to hear perspectives from extraordinary leaders in the geosciences and ask for their advice on specific career questions the panel discussed their respective educational paths the value of their degrees and the pursuit of their highly successful careers hosted by texas a&ms college of geosciences the panel included: dr dawn wright 86 chief scientist at esri carolyn wilson special projects manager at the southeastern universities research association dr russell callender 92 director of washington sea grant ron bisio senior vice president of geospatial at trimble inc jill urban-karr 86 executive director of the consulting services/landfolio solutions team for the land administration solutions group of trimble navigation ltd moderated the event when discussing their best advice for current students wright emphasized the importance of internships it is the singular transformative experience she said i didnt realize that i was stepping into the best internship absolutely possible after getting my masters degree at texas a&m and then going to work as a marine technician for odp what was then the ocean drilling program (today known as iodp) i took a sea grant knauss marine policy fellowship that changed my entire life and my career callendar said on the importance of experiences and internships and dont give up if you dont get the internship you want that first year or first summer keep trying and be persistent and keep your portfolio current wright said the entire panel agreed that if they had chance to redo their undergraduate career today they would prioritize learning coding bisio also discussed the importance of getting experience abroad get outside the country and see how professionals use our tools in other parts of the world bisio said callendar discussed the importance of networking and also taking risks be willing to take risks in your career he said ive been a risk-taker in both my personal and professional life for many years i was a rock-climber and mountaineer for many years and i also took a lot of risks in jobs the panel also agreed on the importance of asking questions and pursuing scientific curiosity articulating questions and having the courage to ask them is an essential habit wright said curiosity is key wilson said watch the entire panel discussion by leslie lee 09
remembering curtis samford 83my heart is with the samford family said geosciences dean dr debbie thomasfeb 25 2021traci and curtis samford (image courtesy of the samford family)curtis samford 83 a member of the texas a&m geosciences advisory council and longtime supporter of texas a&m university died feb 14 it is just impossible to find the words to express my sorrow for the loss of our dear friend and my heart is with the samford family said dean of the college of geosciences dr debbie thomas curtis was an inspiring human being and i forever will be grateful for his friendship and guidance samford earned his bachelors degree in geophysics from texas a&m in 1984 he went on to work for several oil and gas companies including betz shell oil alcoa pcc and served as the president and chief executive officer of afglobal since 2015 samford began serving on the geosciences deans advisory council in 2017 advising the college on the changing needs of industry for well-trained geoscientists in 2020 he and his wife traci established the traci '11 and curtis samford '83 geosciences career center which will be a newly renovated physical space in the eller o&m building and will serve as a satellite of the texas a&m career center the center will help generations of geosciences students begin and succeed in rewarding careers samford is survived by his wife traci and his sons cody and ty the samford family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations may be sent to the texas a&m foundation traci 11 and curtis 83 samford geosciences career center to honor his memory read samfords obituary here by leslie lee 09
curtis samford 83 a member of the texas a&m geosciences advisory council and longtime supporter of texas a&m university died feb 14 it is just impossible to find the words to express my sorrow for the loss of our dear friend and my heart is with the samford family said dean of the college of geosciences dr debbie thomas curtis was an inspiring human being and i forever will be grateful for his friendship and guidance samford earned his bachelors degree in geophysics from texas a&m in 1984 he went on to work for several oil and gas companies including betz shell oil alcoa pcc and served as the president and chief executive officer of afglobal since 2015 samford began serving on the geosciences deans advisory council in 2017 advising the college on the changing needs of industry for well-trained geoscientists in 2020 he and his wife traci established the traci '11 and curtis samford '83 geosciences career center which will be a newly renovated physical space in the eller o&m building and will serve as a satellite of the texas a&m career center the center will help generations of geosciences students begin and succeed in rewarding careers samford is survived by his wife traci and his sons cody and ty the samford family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations may be sent to the texas a&m foundation traci 11 and curtis 83 samford geosciences career center to honor his memory read samfords obituary here by leslie lee 09
victoria ford a phd candidate in texas a&m university's department of geography recently collaborated with three professors within the college of geosciences to research what the future of sea ice thickness in the arctic will be along with co-authors dr oliver frauenfeld associate professor of geography dr chris nowotarski associate professor of atmospheric sciences and dr rodrigo bombardi assistant professor of geography published the research titled effective sea ice area based on a thickness threshold in climate dynamics the researchers found that the atmosphere above areas where arctic ice thickness is less than 040 ­– 050 meters can be exposed to much higher temperatures than areas that have much thicker ice and that these thin ice regions can account for a large portion of the total sea ice area thus the further accelerating decline of arctic sea ice can cause a cascading effect that will ultimately lead to more major environmental issues occurring all over the earth why is sea ice important sea ice is a highly insulative surface between the ocean and atmosphere and acts as a thermal buffer ford noted that where sea ice is present the ocean and atmosphere are disconnected from one another and the exchange of heat and moisture between the warm ocean and comparatively colder atmosphere is limited with a thinner sea ice cover this thermal energy exchange between the arctic ocean and atmosphere through the sea ice layer is expected to increase warming trends observed in the arctic which already experiences 2-3 times the global average temperature increase ford stated the health of the sea ice cover is one of the most critical climatic indicators for a warming climate as the sea ice cover continues to thin out other environmental issues have begun to surface in the arctic a continually thinning ice cover has several important impacts beyond the physical air-sea-ice coupled system ford stated with increasing amounts of newly ice-free area the ocean and atmosphere become more intrinsically coupled allowing for enhanced heat and moisture exchange and ultimately leading to an increase in high-latitude precipitation the sea ice loss not only affects indigenous communities in the arctic but also wildlife and their habitats loss of sea ice and related changes to the high latitude climate already threatens the safety and food and water security of the indigenous communities in the surrounding arctic countries she added as is well documented in the media ice loss also translates to habitat loss for key megafauna species in the arctic primarily polar bears
sea ice thickness across the arctic ocean from the piomas-20c reanalysis for (a) autumn (october 1999) (b) winter (january 2000) (d) spring (april 2000) and (e) the 2007 record sea ice minimum (september 2007) sea ice area below the sea ice thickness threshold is hatched and areas where sea ice thickness coincides with sea ice concentration below 015 are shaded light grey (c) annual and (f) seasonal contributions to the percent of total sea ice area below the sea ice thickness threshold (image courtesy of victoria ford)
perseverance rover looks for ancient life on mars with help from aggiestwo scientists in texas a&ms department of geology and geophysics are part of the perseverance teamfeb 22 2021a nasa illustration of the perseverance rover firing up its descent stage engines as it nears the martian surface (image by nasa)nasas perseverance rover successfully descended onto the jezero crater on mars surface feb 18 and for approximately the next 687 days will search for signs of ancient microbial life on mars two scientists in texas a&m universitys college of geosciences are part of this mission dr marion nachon associate research scientist in the department of geology and geophysics is one of only 13 participating scientists selected by nasa for this mission the participating scientists will conduct research using data collected by perseverance and support the missions science operations nachons research will couple datasets from perseverances planetary instrument for x-ray lithochemistry (pixl) and supercam instruments and rover cameras to characterize mars geological record at the millimetric/micrometric scale it is a great honor to be one of the 13 participating scientists selected said nachon who also conducted research supporting the mars 2020 mission in iceland in 2019 dr michael tice also an associate research scientist in geology and geophysics is a co-investigator on the mars 2020 pixl team pixl has a tool called an x-ray spectrometer that can identify chemical elements at a tiny scale and it also has a camera that takes close-up pictures of rock and soil textures it is one of the many technologically advanced tools on perseverance that will look for signs of past microbial life on mars perseverance will advance nasas quest to explore the past habitability of mars the rover also has a drill to collect core samples of martian rock and soil and store them for a future mission that would return them to earth for detailed analysis nasa missions before perseverance have found that liquid water existed on mars in the ancient past by leslie lee '09
a nasa illustration of the perseverance rover firing up its descent stage engines as it nears the martian surface (image by nasa)
nasas perseverance rover successfully descended onto the jezero crater on mars surface feb 18 and for approximately the next 687 days will search for signs of ancient microbial life on mars two scientists in texas a&m universitys college of geosciences are part of this mission dr marion nachon associate research scientist in the department of geology and geophysics is one of only 13 participating scientists selected by nasa for this mission the participating scientists will conduct research using data collected by perseverance and support the missions science operations nachons research will couple datasets from perseverances planetary instrument for x-ray lithochemistry (pixl) and supercam instruments and rover cameras to characterize mars geological record at the millimetric/micrometric scale it is a great honor to be one of the 13 participating scientists selected said nachon who also conducted research supporting the mars 2020 mission in iceland in 2019 dr michael tice also an associate research scientist in geology and geophysics is a co-investigator on the mars 2020 pixl team pixl has a tool called an x-ray spectrometer that can identify chemical elements at a tiny scale and it also has a camera that takes close-up pictures of rock and soil textures it is one of the many technologically advanced tools on perseverance that will look for signs of past microbial life on mars perseverance will advance nasas quest to explore the past habitability of mars the rover also has a drill to collect core samples of martian rock and soil and store them for a future mission that would return them to earth for detailed analysis nasa missions before perseverance have found that liquid water existed on mars in the ancient past by leslie lee '09
gulf of mexico experiencing record low water temperaturesafter days of freezing weather texas a&m-operated buoys near galveston and corpus christi are reporting the lowest temperatures recorded since their installationfeb 22 2021the tabs buoy system is able to supply vital information such as wave speed and direction wind speed and direction wave climate and water temperature at various locations in the gulf of mexico image credit: texas a&m university college of geosciencesa system of buoys in the gulf of mexico operated by texas a&m university scientists has reported the lowest water temperatures ever recorded since they were installed in 1995 dr steven dimarco a professor of oceanography at texas a&m who heads the texas automated buoy system (tabs) said that buoys located near galveston recorded a temperature of 525 degrees while another near corpus christi reported a temperature of 50 degrees he said the average daily water temperatures for the galveston and corpus christi areas this time of year are about 585 degrees these are the lowest readings weve seen since the system went into operation in 1995 dimarco said and it appears that some of these temperatures are continuing to get even lower because the cold air has persisted for several days dimarco added that the tabs system has recorded wave heights of 13 feet in some parts of the texas coast compared to a normal reading of three to five feet this time of year the tabs system is supported by the texas general land office and is the only buoy system of its kind in the united states and one of the few in the world it supplies critical data allowing modelers to accurately predict the movement of oil spills and provides other current data that helps protect the 367-mile texas coastline the data collected by the system are freely available and open to the public the buoy system is operated by researchers in the geochemical and environmental research group (gerg) in texas a&ms college of geosciences buoys range in size from seven feet to more than 20 feet in length each of them floating on the waters surface and anchored to the ocean floor dimarco said the frigid temperatures hitting texas are harmful to several types of marine life especially sea turtles volunteers have rescued more than 3 000 sea turtles along the texas coast and moved them to warming centers but experts believe many have already died by keith randall texas a&m university division of marketing & communications
the tabs buoy system is able to supply vital information such as wave speed and direction wind speed and direction wave climate and water temperature at various locations in the gulf of mexico image credit: texas a&m university college of geosciences
a system of buoys in the gulf of mexico operated by texas a&m university scientists has reported the lowest water temperatures ever recorded since they were installed in 1995 dr steven dimarco a professor of oceanography at texas a&m who heads the texas automated buoy system (tabs) said that buoys located near galveston recorded a temperature of 525 degrees while another near corpus christi reported a temperature of 50 degrees he said the average daily water temperatures for the galveston and corpus christi areas this time of year are about 585 degrees these are the lowest readings weve seen since the system went into operation in 1995 dimarco said and it appears that some of these temperatures are continuing to get even lower because the cold air has persisted for several days dimarco added that the tabs system has recorded wave heights of 13 feet in some parts of the texas coast compared to a normal reading of three to five feet this time of year the tabs system is supported by the texas general land office and is the only buoy system of its kind in the united states and one of the few in the world it supplies critical data allowing modelers to accurately predict the movement of oil spills and provides other current data that helps protect the 367-mile texas coastline the data collected by the system are freely available and open to the public the buoy system is operated by researchers in the geochemical and environmental research group (gerg) in texas a&ms college of geosciences buoys range in size from seven feet to more than 20 feet in length each of them floating on the waters surface and anchored to the ocean floor dimarco said the frigid temperatures hitting texas are harmful to several types of marine life especially sea turtles volunteers have rescued more than 3 000 sea turtles along the texas coast and moved them to warming centers but experts believe many have already died by keith randall texas a&m university division of marketing & communications
sea-surface temperature field from september 21 2018 as represented in (top) hr and (bottom) lr simulations right panels show a blow-up of the western north atlantic region with a simulated hurricane-induced cold wake visible east of the bahamas in the hr panel (top right) weather extremes such as hurricanes are not captured by lr because of the coarse model resolution image credit: dr ping chang
the oceanography and meteorology building on the texas a&m campus photo courtesy texas a&m marketing & communications mia montgomery '20 in the broadcast meteorology class in february 2020 (screengrab from texas a&m video)
erol and barbara morey (photos courtesy of the moreys)erol was instrumental in creating maps like this one of khartoum sudan in 1990
a multi-disciplinary texas a&m project will digitize veterans legacies and enable virtual visits to their headstones (photo courtesy of texas a&m liberal arts)
smoke from forest fires in wetter climates such as oregon (above) tends to be brighter and have more of a cooling effect on the climate than smoke emitted from dry bushfires scientists say (photo: istock)smoke from bushfires in places such as australia (above) tends to be darker and have more of a warming effect on the climate (photo: istock)
a new study on biomass-burning aerosols has shown that that smoke from wildfires has more of a cooling effect on the climate system than most climate models assume dr xiaohong liu professor in the department of atmospheric sciences at texas a&m served as corresponding author of the research which was recently published in nature communications when wildfires burn forests and grasslands biomass-burning aerosols are produced forming smoke clouds the composition size and mixing state of biomass-burning aerosols determine the optical properties of the smoke plumes in the atmosphere and those properties determine how much the smoke clouds absorb and scatter the solar radiation the researchers compared climate models predictions to large amounts of wildfire data collected in field sites around the world as well in laboratory experiments and they found major differences we collected field data from across the globe and we found that the models make a lot of assumptions about the physical and optical properties of the biomass-burning aerosols and those assumptions were not accurate liu said climate models such as those examined in this study are used to create important climate change reports such as the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) assessment that is published about every seven years he explained in this study we evaluate the climate models used in the ipcc assessment and we found out that these models assume biomass-burning smoke is more light-absorbing than our data actually shows liu said our study shows that biomass-burning has a more net-cooling effect than previously thought the study was led by dr hunter brown who recently received his phd from the university of wyoming and was advised by liu during his time as a professor at the university of wyoming from 2013-2019 brown recently joined lius team at texas a&m as a postdoctoral researcher to continue his research on biomass-burning aerosols we found that many of the most advanced climate models simulate biomass-burning aerosols or smoke that is darker or more light absorbing than what we see in observations brown said this has implications for the climate predictions made by these models observations and models used in the study covered a wide temporal range africa south america and southeastern asia in addition to boreal fire regions were chosen because these are the largest contributors to biomass-burning smoke emissions in the world brown said these biomass-burning aerosols are extremely complicated liu said the complexity involves the aerosols physical and chemical properties which are determined by the fires burning conditions and the fuel types such as dry grasslands or forests the smoke is very complicated north american forest fire smoke is very different than australian bush fire smoke because of the different types of fuel and burning conditions he said they can produce darker or brighter smoke and the chemical evolution of the smoke in the atmosphere can be very complicated
smoke from the mullen fire seen from laramie wyoming in october 2020 different radiative and microphysical properties of the particulates that make up smoke from fires such as this play a role in their impact on regional and global climate liu said (photo by dr hunter brown)
liu directed this research which involved both modelers and observationalists around the world the national center for atmospheric research (ncar)-wyoming supercomputing center was used for all of the data processing and the model sensitivity simulations now we have a better understanding of the properties of these biomass-burning aerosols so that now then we can improve the models and improve predictions liu said the team incorporated its findings into the ncar climate model and found that the modifications improved the models accuracy in predicting wildfires effects on climate read the full study by leslie lee 09