November 2007 -- William Durham, senior site technician, represented our project at the 50th anniversary celebration of Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory, which included a commemoration of their 50 years of carbon dioxide measurements and NOAA's 200th anniversary. In addition, Bill added two additional UV-B sensors to our array at the high-altitude Mauna Loa Observatory site, which will enhance our ability to monitor the calibration and stability of these aging instruments. Also, a write-up about the Program is included in the commemorative book about the MLO facility's 50 year history, written by Forrest Mims.
October 25, 2007 -- Dr. Wei Gao was a contributor to the recently published 600 page tome Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) Environment for Development, launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The GEO-4 report is a culmination of a complex global consultative process which involved some 400 individual scientists and policy makers, and more than 50 GEO Collaborating Centres and other partner institutions around the world. [The] GEO-4 provides a comprehensive, reliable and scientifically credible, policy-relevant, up-to-date assessment of, and outlook for, the state of the global environment.
October 12, 2007 -- Dr. James Gibson, original Director and co-PI of the UVMRP, passed away on 10 October 2007, at age 77, after a multi-year fight with prostate cancer. Jim had been part of the group that USDA had assembled in 1991 and 1992 to explore the need for this program. Dr. Gibson was also a prior Director of NREL, and Interim PI of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) which was originally headquartered at NREL. He retired in March 1999.
October 2007 -- Dr. Jim Slusser was selected by the Department of Physics at Western Michigan University to receive a College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Achievement Award. There he presented a talk entitled, Solar UV-B Radiation: Measurements, Models and Effects, to the undergraduate physics club and his mentors from where he received his masters in Physics in 1980.
September 2007 -- Dr. Wei Gao, presented recent advances in U.S. hyper spectral infrared remote sensing. September 2007, At the 16th China National Remote Sensing Symposium, Beijing, China.
September 2007 -- Dr. Jim Slusser, senior research scientist, UVMRP, traveled to Italy, Switzerland and France for several collaborations related to his research in various aspects of UV radiation. He was co-chair of the SPIE Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere Conference in Florence. At Davos he presented a poster about the UVMRP's ten years of UV data to the Solar UV Radiation Research Conference. In Paris, he consulted with Drs. Alain Sarkissian on a joint paper and Slimane Bekki of Service dAeronomie, on Global Warming.August 2007 -- Maosi Chen comes to the UVMRP as a Graduate Assistant through CSU's GDPE (Graduate Degree Program in Ecology) pursuing his Ph.D. under the guidance of his major professor, Dr. Wei Gao.
August 2007 -- Bill Smith, a graduate student in Ecology whose major advisor is Dr. Wei Gao, was a recipient of NREL's 2007 Francis Clark Soil Biology Scholarship. The grant helps fund his Master of Science research on the effects of Ultraviolet-B radiation on the microbial community of plant litter, being conducted at the Agricultural Research Center in Fort Collins. His thesis focuses on determining the quantitative effect of Ultraviolet-B radiation on decomposition rates when combined with water stress. The Francis Clark Soil Biology Scholarship provides support to students in the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory whose emphasis is research in soil biology topics.
July 2007 -- Dr. Wei Gao was appointed as Director of the UV-B Program effective July 1, 2007. In addition, Dr. Gao will coordinate the Center of Remote Sensing and Modeling for Agricultural Sustainability within the UV-B Program.
July 2007 -- Maosi Chen comes to the UVMRP as a Graduate Assistant through CSU's GDPE (Graduate Degree Program in Ecology) pursuing his Ph.D. under the guidance of his major professor, Dr. Wei Gao.
June 15, 2007 -- Scientists Study Sun's Radiation To Track Pollution Sources. Science Daily. Colorado State University scientists are studying the reduction of solar ultraviolet radiation by atmospheric particles to learn how the various sources of pollution - biomass burning, auto exhaust and oil refining - affect the atmospheric chemistry and air quality of Mexico City.
June 2007 -- Significant improvement in most UV-MFRSR lamp calibrated data after 2001 was implemented on July 2, 2007. Lamp-calibrated irradiance values for the 311, 317, 325, 332, 368 channels have increased, on average, 8.8%, 22.1%, 12.1%, 11.2%, and 4.0% respectively. The 300 and 305 channels are essentially unchanged as well as the Langley calibrated data. For more detailed information click here.
June 2007 -- We have a new web page. The synthetic spectra product has been enhanced/fixed, along with a new category called Data Gaps under the Data Plots menu item. It will show all the gaps in the data for the location selected. Also numerous problems/bugs were fixed.
May 2007 -- Dr. Wei Gao and Dr. John Moore (Director, NREL) traveled to Beijing, China to participate in the Eco Summit 2007. The Summit focused on a theme of Ecological Complexity and Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for 21st-Century's Ecology. During the summit, Drs. Moore and Gao met with Dr. Wang Hao, Head of the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, to discuss future research collaborations between the two organizations.
March 2007 -- We have compiled a list of our data users and web usage. Please click here for the pdf.
March 2007 -- A new Agricultural Impact research section has been added to our web page. Please click on the UV-B Ag Impact button in the lower right hand corner to view this new section.
February 2007 -- We now have available our 2006 data collection statistics. For our climatological sites, the median for our visible instruments was 99.27% collection rate. The median for our UVRSR instrument was 98.62% collection rate. For a further breakdown see the pdf 2006 Data Collection Statistics.