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By NASA
Explore This SectionEarth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries NewsScience in the News Calendars In Memoriam MoreArchives 3 min read
In Memoriam: Jeff Dozier [1944–2024]
Jeff Dozier [1944–2024]Photo credit: Dozier’s family obituary Jeff Dozier, an environmental scientist, snow hydrologist, researcher, academic – and former Earth Observing System Project Scientist – died on November 17, 2024. Jeff’s research focused on snow hydrology and biogeochemistry in mountain environments and addressed the role of stored and melting snow in the hydrologic cycle as well as the economic and social impact on water resources. In these efforts, he embraced remote sensing with satellites to measure snow properties and energy balance. He was a Project Scientist with the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System, contributing to the design and management of very large information systems that would impact spatial modeling and environmental informatics.
Jeff served as the second EOS Project Scientist from 1990–1992. During that time, he worked with the NASA science community to – in his own words – “accomplish the goals of EOS, the most important of which is to develop the capability to predict or assess plausible environmental changes – both natural and human-induced – that will occur in the future. Meeting this challenge for the next decade to century requires the integration of knowledge from the traditional disciplines and information from many different sources into a coherent view of the Earth system. EOS is the largest project in the history of NASA and arguably the most important national and international scientific mission of the next two decades.”
Jeff’s work alongside Michael Matson, was featured in a 2019 NASA Earth Science news article: “NASA Tracks Wildfires From Above to Aid Firefighters Below.” While working at NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service building in Camp Springs, MD, the pair detected methane fires in the Persian Gulf using the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument on the NOAA-6 satellite – marking the first time that such a small fire had been seen from space. Jeff went on to develop a mathematical method to distinguish small fires from other sources of heat, which become the foundation for nearly all subsequent satellite fire-detection algorithms.
At the time of his death, Jeff was Principal Investigator of a NASA-funded project with the objective of testing whether data from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission could be used to help refine the estimate for the snowpack melting rate. In the 2024 Earth Science news article, “NASA’s EMIT Will Explore Diverse Science Questions on Extended Mission,” Jeff indicated that EMIT’s ability to ‘see’ well into the infrared (IR) spectrum of light is key to his group’s efforts because ice is “pretty absorptive at near-IR and shortwave-IR wavelengths.” The results from this research will help inform water management decisions in states, such as California, where meltwater makes up the majority of the agricultural water supply.
Jeff earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree from California State University, Hayward (now California State University, East Bay) and a Master’s of Science degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He spent his career teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he was named the founding Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB in 1994. As the Dean, he recruited renowned faculty and developed one of the top environmental programs in the country. After his role as Dean, Jeff returned as a professor at Bren, educating the next generation of Earth scientists.
Jeff Dozier [1944–2024]Photo credit: Dozier’s family obituaryView the full article
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By NASA
Explore This SectionEarth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries NewsScience in the News Calendars In Memoriam MoreArchives 3 min read
In Memoriam: Berrien Moore III [1941–2024]
Berrien Moore III [1941–2024]Photo credit: Moore’s obituary on the University of Oklahoma’s (OU) website Berrien Moore III, Dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma (OU), director of the National Weather Center in Norman, OK, and Vice President for Weather and Climate Programs, died on December 17, 2024. Berrien earned an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina in 1963 and a doctorate degree from the University of Virginia in 1969. After graduating, he taught mathematics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and became tenured in 1976.
In 1987, Berrien became director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (ISEOS) at UNH. NASA chose ISEOS to be one of the 24 founding members of the “Working Prototype Federation” of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) in 1998. Still active more than 25 years later, ESIP is now a thriving nonprofit entity funded by cooperative agreements with NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey, which brings together interdisciplinary collaborations (among over 170 partners) to share technical knowledge and engage with data users.
Berrien left UNH in 2008, to serve as the founding Executive Director of Climate Central, a think-tank based in Princeton, NJ, which is dedicated to providing objective and understandable information about climate change
Berrien moved to OU in 2010. Given his diverse academic, research, and career experience in global carbon cycle, biogeochemistry, remote sensing, environmental and space policy, and mathematics, Berrien was a natural choice to become the architect and principal investigator for the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCARB), a proposed NASA Earth Venture Mission that would have monitored plant health and vegetation stress throughout the Americas from geostationary orbit, probing natural sources, sinks, and exchange processes that control carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane in the atmosphere. While the mission was ultimately cancelled, the lessons learned are being applied to similar current and future Earth observing endeavors, e,g, NASA’s ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission.
Berrien served on and chaired numerous government-affiliated scientific committees throughout his career. From 1995–1998 he served on the National Research Council’s Committee on Global Change Research, which produced the landmark report, “Global Environment Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade.” In 2011, he was an author on the National Research Council’s (NRC) decadal survey, “Earth Science and Applications from Space: A Community Assessment and Strategies for the Future.”
Berrien participated on international scientific committees as well. From 1998–2002, he was the chair of the Science Committee of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). He was also a lead author within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report, which was released in 2001.
Berrien served in several roles specific to NASA, including as a committee member and later chair of the organization’s Space and Earth Science Advisory Committee. He served as Chair of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Payload Advisory Committee, member and Chair of NASA’s Earth Science and Applications Committee, and member of the NASA Advisory Council. He was also active at NOAA, having chaired the agency’s Research Review Team and served on the Research and Development Portfolio Review Team for NOAA’s Science Advisory Board.
Berrien received NASA’s highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Medal, for outstanding service and the NOAA Administrator’s Recognition Award. He also received the 2007 Dryden Lectureship in Research Medal from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and was honored for his contributions to the IPCC when the organization received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
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By NASA
Earth Observer Earth and Climate Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles News In Memoriams Science in the News More Meeting Summaries Archives 7 min read
In Memoriam: Dr. Richard S. Stolarski [1941–2024]
Photo. Dr. Richard (Rich) Stolarski in February, 1989 at the NASA Arctic Airborne Stratospheric Experiment (AASE-I) in Stavanger, Norway. Rich is seen here describing model results from the GSFC chemistry model. Photo credit: Paul Newman/NASA Renowned ozone scientist Dr. Richard “Rich” Stolarski died on February 22, 2024, at age 82 from the complications of prostate cancer. Rich was born at Fort Lewis, WA on November 22, 1941. After short stays in Kansas and Hawaii, Rich’s family settled in Tacoma, WA. He attended Stadium High School for three years and Wilson High School for his final year. He received his Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics from the University of Puget Sound in 1963 and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida three years later in 1966 under Professor Alex Green. Rich was a University of Michigan post-doctoral fellow from 1967 – 1974 under Professor Andrew Nagy, where he met his colleague and friend Dr. Ralph Cicerone.
Rich joined NASA in 1974 at the Manned Space Center (now the Johnson Space Center) as a research physicist in the Environmental Effects Projects Office. He moved to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in 1976 to join the fledgling Stratospheric Physics and Chemistry Branch. Rich was branch head (1979 – 1985) and a research scientist (1985 – 2010). He was the Program Scientist for the Atmospheric Effects of the Stratospheric Aircraft program at NASA headquarters from 1992 to 1995. From 2010 until his passing, Rich was a NASA Goddard Emeritus scientist and a Research Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
Rich’s atmospheric science career began during a period of great ferment. A proposed fleet of supersonic transport aircraft (SSTs) was being researched in the early 1970s, and scientists had proposed that nitrogen emissions from SST engines could deplete the Earth’s ozone layer. In 1974, Rich and Ralph Cicerone published their groundbreaking paper showing that reactive chlorine compounds derived from emissions by the NASA space shuttle could also deplete the ozone layer. Mario Molina and Sherry Rowland independently proposed that reactive chlorine could destroy ozone, and further hypothesized that human-produced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) would be a source of reactive chlorine compounds. Molina and Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work, and Stolarski and Cicerone were cited in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science’s press release for their contributions. Rich was awarded the United Nations Environmental Program’s Ozone Award in 1997, where “Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Richard S. Stolarski were the first to indicate the important role of chlorine monoxide in stratospheric ozone depletion.”
The severe ozone decline over Antarctica discovered by British Antarctic Survey scientists in the 1980s was simultaneously shocking, disturbing, and exciting. In parallel, Dr. P. K. Bhartia and others were examining extremely low ozone values measured by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aboard NASA’s Nimbus–7 satellite. Rich and colleagues found that TOMS showed that this severe Antarctic ozone decline was continental in scale, publishing the first paper on satellite observations of this ozone depletion. This rapid ozone decline combined with the continental scale led to the coining of the name “Antarctic Ozone Hole” to describe the phenomenon. The ozone hole’s appearance did not directly lead to the finalizing of the “Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer” (now signed by every nation on Earth), but it likely influenced negotiations for the treaty and supported later strengthening of the protocol with amendments in 1990 and 1992. Subsequent work showing that chlorine-containing substances were causing the ozone hole led to a complete banning of CFCs in 2010. Rich’s work on the Antarctic ozone hole was cited in his 2007 NASA Goddard Scientific Research Award as “… one of the most important papers in atmospheric science in the second half of the twentieth century.” Rich also received NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal for his ozone hole research and was named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1996.
Rich continued his ozone layer research, contributing to the development of trend-quality data sets. In 1991 he published a seminal paper on ozone trends that showed the unambiguous decline of the ozone layer. In this paper he carefully removed “natural” ozone variations to reveal a steady downward ozone trend. Rich was recognized in 1991 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Ozone Protection Award for being “… a leader in the verification of ozone depletion from observational data.”
Assessments of ozone depletion are written reports from scientists that provide the foundation for the international Montreal Protocol and Vienna Convention. While many “national” reports were written following Rich’s 1974 paper, there was no international consensus. In December 1980, Rich led an international-based scientific summary of the stratosphere and an assessment of human impact on the ozone layer. This was followed by the 1985 three-volume international report (Atmospheric Ozone: 1985) in which Rich helped write the introduction as well as provide model contributions, reviews, and edits of the report. Ozone 1985 was the scientific basis for the landmark Montreal Protocol. Rich contributed to assessments in 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014 in several roles. Rich attended many of the Les Diableret meetings where the primary executive summaries for Montreal Protocol policy makers were written. Rich’s calm influence and careful science statements at those meetings helped produce clear and consistent messages for the nations of the world in their Montreal Protocol deliberations.
Rich’s modeling contributions began with one dimensional models (height) in the 1970s, evolving to height – latitude models in the 1980s, and fully three-dimensional models late in his career. He was expert at identifying the processes that controlled the simulated ozone distribution and its response to natural and human-produced perturbations. Late in his career at NASA, Rich took on the challenge of leading NASA Goddard’s chemistry–climate modeling project. Rich applied his strengths to this project, making sure that it focused on the scientific questions of the day and examining how ozone changes impact the temperature and dynamics of the stratosphere and troposphere. In 2009, Rich was awarded the NASA Robert H. Goddard Award of Merit, in part for having “… pioneered a new initiative in the model of the coupling of chemistry and climate, utilizing the GMAO climate model, and involving a large number of Goddard and outside scientists.”
In the 1990s the World Climate Research Program’s (WCRP) Stratospheric Processes effort was emerging, drawing together scientists from many nations to discuss our evolving understanding of the ozone layer. As an important contributor to conferences and summer schools organized by this WCRP effort, Rich could be found in the center of a crowd of early career scientists, discussing ozone, science, and life, thus fostering the next generation of leaders. He was elected a member of the International Ozone Commission (IO3C) in 1996, became the IO3C vice-president in 2008, and was elected as an “Honorary IO3C Member” in 2016.
Papers, citations, and awards are performance measures that rarely fully capture the totality of a scientist’s contribution and clearly fail to capture the essence of a life. Rich had an extremely distinguished science career with 155 publications in refereed science journals and 63 additional publications in other reports and science documents. Rich was a quick thinker with a curiosity and a love of learning that never faded. He was particularly adept at the use of models and analysis to identify the processes that control the ozone distribution, the interplay between chemical reactions and transport, and applying his knowledge to understand the stratospheric response to anthropogenic changes in composition and climate. He was a selfless contributor and an excellent collaborator. He was a friend and mentor to many, and through his mentorship his legacy will continue.
In addition to his scientific family, Rich is survived by his beloved wife of 59 years, Shirley Stolarski; daughter Susan Stolarski Datta and her husband Joy of Charleston, SC; son Steven Stolarski and his wife Vanessa of Purcellville, VA; three grandchildren, Kellen Datta, and Zachary and Maxwell Stolarski; brother Bob Stolarski and his wife Jean of Dewey, AZ; and brother-in-law Bob Jewett and his wife Janet of Loveland, CO.
Acknowledgments: The Earth Observer staff wishes to thank Paul A. Newman [GSFC] and Anne Douglass [GSFC, emeritus] for writing this In Memoriam.
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By European Space Agency
Spacemanic, a Slovak and Czech startup company, won this year’s Prix Bulles Cardin award of €20 000 on 17 May for its ocean WaterCube.
This device, which is based on space hardware, has sensors which measure pollution levels in sea water allowing the identification of pollution hotspots. With this data, action can be taken to safeguard habitats and species critical for the long-term sustainability of marine ecosystems and fisheries.
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