shielding the pentagon · groundbreaking system to protect the pentagon and its occupants, who...

UCAR Staff Notes

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/[5/2/2013 11:34:42 AM]

Shielding the Pentagon

NCAR is working on agroundbreaking system of forecastmodels, lidars, and other tools totrack airborne toxins as part of thenation’s antiterrorism efforts.More>

Streamlining the NCAR Science StoreTo remain open, the store must become self-sustaining by next fiscal year.More>

Wilmot “Bill” HessThe former NCAR director died last month at his home in Berkeley,California. More>

Cooling us offWhen MMM’s John Latham first wrote about the idea of tinkering withmarine clouds to offset global warming, he faced some scorn. More>

Short Takes

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UCAR Staff Notes


An overview of projects throughout the organization. More>

Spring Fling View the highlights More>

Mentoring Latina studentsSome 79 Latina middle and high school students came here on April 15 forthe Latina Building Bridges in Education conference. More>

This composite photo, created by Staff Notes Monthly photographer Carlye Calvin withthe help of Photoshop, shows the NSF C-130 aircraft flying over Colorado’s FrontRange as part of the Airborne Carbon in the Mountains Experiment (ACME). Theexperiment, which is taking place from May to July, will measure how much carbondioxide mountain forests remove from the air as spring turns into summer.

Scientists from NCAR and several outside organizations are using a dense network ofinstruments on Niwot Ridge near Nederland, in addition to the C-130, to gain anaccurate picture of carbon exchanges in rolling hills and mountain ranges. “Today weusually look for carbon in all the wrong places,” explains CGD’s Dave Schimel,“focusing on where it’s easy to measure rather than where fluxes are largest.” Althoughmost current studies are in flat areas, Dave and his colleagues have estimated that 25-50% of U.S. carbon uptake occurs in mountainous terrain.

Accurate assessments could help lead to an improved understanding of carbon dioxide

UCAR Staff Notes


in Western mountain forests, which are a potentially important sink for the greenhousegas. To measure the carbon, the C-130 will fly as low as 1,000 feet above the groundin places along the Front Range near Boulder.

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UCAR Staff Notes: Shielding the Pentagon

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/pentagon.html[5/2/2013 11:35:04 AM]

May 2004


NCAR is working on a groundbreaking system of forecast models, lidars, and other tools totrack airborne toxins as part of the nation’s antiterrorism efforts.

Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. defense officials have been eyeing newtechnologies to defend potential terrorism targets. Now they have tapped NCAR to help develop agroundbreaking system to protect the Pentagon and its occupants, who often number more than25,000, from airborne toxins.

Watching the winds.

Instruments used in the Pentagon Shield project measure the relativestrength of surface winds around the Pentagon, as shown in this graphic.The information is added to a plume model to help determine the path of atoxic release.

The project, known as “Pentagon Shield,” involves combining data from four models continually inreal time, thereby providing officials with remarkably detailed information about the local atmosphereand any signs of a toxic release.

“Knowing how to properly respond to an attack or atoxic industrial incident requires the best modelingtools and sensors available today, and these must allwork in a coordinated fashion in real time,” saysRAP’s Scott Swerdlin, the project leader. “This is byfar the most challenging project we’ve ever faced.”

Under NCAR’s guidance, researchers from severalorganizations performed a field test at the Pentagonfrom April 15 to May 15 that involved an array of







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Scott Swerdlin

lidars and other sophisticated instruments, as well asgas releases to simulate how chemical or biologicalagents would flow in and around the building. Resultsfrom the test should help in developing an operationalsystem.

Pentagon Shield is the latest in a series of antiterrorismprojects at RAP. All have a common theme: to provideinformation about winds, temperature, humidity, andother weather conditions so security officials canpredict the path of a toxic plume and quickly evacuatepeople. Two years ago, for example, RAP used itsfour-dimensional forecasting system (4DWX) toprovide security support at the Winter Olympics in SaltLake City, and it’s currently designing systems toprovide information to emergency crews in urban areasin the event of the release of an airborne toxin. (See the November 2003 issue of Staff NotesMonthly.)

To predict weather features that could affect toxic plumes, RAP draws on years of experience indeveloping systems that detect wind shear and turbulence at airports, as well as on NCAR’ssophisticated modeling capabilities.

The Pentagon system, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), isespecially complex. It involves mapping atmospheric conditions on scales ranging from an entireregion (the mid-Atlantic) to a single building (the Pentagon). The system combines computer weatherforecasting models and high-tech sensors, including a lidar developed at ATD.

Understanding air circulation around the Pentagon is a unique challenge, Scott says. The aircirculations are very complex because of the building’s size and unusual geometry. Temperatureinversions, especially at night, could allow an airborne hazard to spread below rooftop height, whichadds to the complexity of a monitoring system.

To tackle the problem, NCAR and its partners in the private sector and academia built a nest ofconcentric computer models—each with a different strength—that predict weather conditions from theentire region inward to the Pentagon itself. Information is routed among them every 15 minutes.

“The weather modeling system tested here is one of the most complex ever constructed,” says RAP’sTom Warner, lead scientist on the project.

The project involves a number of scientists and engineers in RAP, including Dan Breed, JeffCopeland, Rod Frehlich, David Hahn, Jason Knievel, Yubao Liu, Bob Sharman, Rong Sheu, and AlYates. CU scientist and MMM visitor Jeff Weil, who specializes in transport and dispersion modeling,is also playing a major role in the program. In ATD, Shane Mayor and Scott Spuler designed anexperimental aerosol lidar that is being evaluated for use in the system.

Other organizations involved in Pentagon Shield include Coherent Technologies, CU–Boulder, theNaval Surface Weapons Center, NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, the U.S. Army’s Dugway ProvingGround, and several other private firms and government labs.

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Key components

Most modern weather forecasts target areas the size of a county, not a single building. To develop aunique, fine-scale weather monitoring and forecasting system needed to protect the Pentagon, NCARand its partners relied on a breakthrough blend of high-tech instruments and weather forecastingmodels. These include:

A multiscale weather forecast model. Every 15 minutes, this software pulls information from a high-resolution regional weather analysis and generates a set of wind forecasts with increasingly finer detailat smaller scales. The forecasts draw on data from Doppler radars and lidars, and numerous surfaceand upper-air meteorological observations. At its finest scale, the system charts air flow every sevenfeet (two meters) immediately around the Pentagon. (See below.)

Lidars (laser-based radars). With a beam much shorter than that of a conventional radar, a lidar isideal for mapping tiny particles at relatively short distances in clear air. Coherent Technologies isproviding a Doppler lidar for monitoring winds, while ATD is testing a new lidar with fine spatial andtemporal resolution that is designed to quickly detect even small-scale suspicious plumes. Unlike manyother lidars, ATD’s Raman-shifted Eye-safe Aerosol Lidar (REAL) is safe for use in urban areasbecause it doesn’t pose any hazards to the vision of people in the area.

Other sensors. Local weather sensors and stations have been designed by other organizations to spotairborne toxins as they pass a single point. Such sensors can relay an alert.

To test the system, researchers used a 30-foot-long instrumented balloon tethered above the Pentagon.Deployed by CU, the setup included sensors studded along the balloon’s tethering wire. As theballoon rose and fell, the sensors sampled air flow, temperature, and turbulence.

The test also involved periodic releases of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). This inert, invisible, nontoxic gashelped scientists verify the accuracy of the computer models and sensors that track dispersal ofairborne material. One component of the test consisted of measuring the amount of gas that enteredthe building under various heating and air conditioning situations.

NCAR and CU provided the overall experimental design and wrote a comprehensive test plan. NOAAcoordinated the gas releases with forecasting assistance from the Dugway Proving Ground.

“It was a very challenging exercise,” Scott says. “We called on a lot of experienced players andadvanced weather forecasting systems in order to precisely time the releases. None of us had everworked in an environment with such a high level of physical security, which presented considerablechallenges.”

Scott says the development of Pentagon Shield may help NCAR create systems to protect other areasthat could be targeted by terrorists. “Our intent is to protect high-value targets all over the world,” heexplains.

Defense efforts aside, such systems may generate scientific side benefits by expanding ourunderstanding of extremely fine-scale processes in the atmosphere. Typical weather models have aresolution of several kilometers, which is about 1,000 times coarser than the finest-scale model inPentagon Shield.

“The experience gained from the use of atmospheric models that show weather processes on scales ofmetropolitan areas, neighborhoods, and street canyons or individual buildings will significantlycontribute to our scientific understanding of urban weather and how to predict it,” Tom says.

As they implement Pentagon Shield, Scott and his colleagues are gaining a deeper appreciation ofmicroclimates in urban settings and the way winds move along buildings and down streets. As Scottsays, “In the event of a toxic release in a dense urban setting, one side of the street versus the other—20 feet—can make a large difference between what parts of the city end up getting contaminated andwho gets exposed to potentially lethalairborne agents.” •David Hosansky



The systems

The model used for Pentagon Shield comprises a number of systems. Theyinclude:

A high-resolution data assimilation system, known as RT-FDDA, thatwas developed by RAP’s Yubao Liu. It runs with the PennState/NCAR MM5 Mesoscale Model and provides regional weatherforecasts. It also has an interior grid centered over the Washingtonmetropolitan area that runs at very high resolution.

The Variational Doppler Radar Assimiliation System, or VDRAS.Developed by Jenny Sun and Andrew Crook (both MMM/RAP), itprovides detailed and frequently updated information on wind, rain,and other real-time weather developments.

A Doppler lidar variant of VDRAS called the Variational LidarAssimilation System, or VLAS. Also developed by Jenny andAndrew, this provides similar information as VDRAS, but at veryhigh resolution, suitable for estimating winds at the neighborhoodscale.

A building-scale, computational fluid dynamics model to track thewinds and movement of particles and chemicals around the Pentagon.Although this system is being developed by another organization,NCAR is testing its own version, developed by MMM’s PiotrSmolarkiewicz. It’s called EuLag.

On the Web:

More about RAP's homeland security projects

More about ATD's REAL lidar

Also in this issue...

Streamlining the NCAR Science Store

Wilmot “Bill” Hess

Cooling us off

Short Takes

Spring Fling

Mentoring Latina students



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UCAR Staff Notes:Streamlining the NCAR Science Store

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/store.html[5/2/2013 11:36:00 AM]

Heidi Lewis (right) assists Unidata’sJoanne Graham at the FL2 satelliteScience Store.

May 2004


To remain open, the store must become self-sustaining by next fiscal year

RAP’s Inger Gallo has long relied on the NCAR Science Store as a place to buy the perfect item,ranging from rolled-up blankets for RAP visitors to a weather book for her father. “Since itsbeginning, the science store has been a real asset, both professionally and personally,” she says.

Unidata’s Jeff Weber agrees. “I find the store agreat place to acquire weather- and science-related gifts for friends and family,” he says. “Ienjoy sharing weather and science information,and the store makes this an easy and enjoyableexperience.”

Such praise has come often from both staffersand Mesa Lab visitors ever since the NCARScience Store first opened its doors in June2000. But the store, whose start-up costs weresupported by UCAR’s general fund, now facesan uncertain future with the organization facingtight budgets. The President’s Council hasdecided that the store needs to become self-sustaining by next fiscal year or it will beclosed.

Accordingly, store supervisor Heidi Lewis (EO)is looking at both cutting costs and increasingsales. Her plan is to sharply reduce losses thisyear and make the store profitable in as short atime as possible. “We’re determined to keep thestore open, since it provides such greatopportunities to get NCAR’s message tostudents and the public,” Heidi explains.

Heidi’s key strategies to bolster the bottom lineinclude:

• Setting store hours to correspond with the greatest number of visitors, which wastracked through sales data. The store is now open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondaythrough Friday, and will be open on weekends during the summer and the Decemberholiday season. (Previously the store was open until 5 p.m., and on weekends year

















round.) Some staffers have had to be laid off.

• Strengthening the visibility of the store’s Web site (see On the Web). The goal is togenerate more sales through the Internet, which has less overhead.

• Recruiting volunteers from staff and the public who would like to help with thescience store and related educational activities.

• Working closely with administrators and program managers to develop special productsfor scientific projects and meetings. UCAR, NCAR, and UOP conference organizershave ordered items that were designed through the science store such as NSDL pens,COMET hats, and even GLOBE highlighters and yo-yos.

• Putting a greater emphasis on setting up satellite stores for conferences held at theCenter Green auditorium or the Foothills Lab. Attendees at such conferences are eligiblefor the 10% discount that is always provided to UCAR and NCAR staffers. The storealso manages a booth at major community events, such as the Boulder Creek Festival.

• Reminding staff about the many items sold by the science store, ranging from clothingand books to educational toys, videos, and even jewelry. Approximately one-third of thestore’s sales are to employees, so their support is important. Heidi points out that itemscan be black bagged to other campuses and gift-wrapped at no charge.

This graphic shows NCAR Science Store sales trends, such as slowerbusiness on weekends. Using this type of data, EO has determined how tosave costs and cut back store hours without significantly sacrificing sales.

“A significant asset”

EO assistant director Susan Foster says it’s important for the store to remain open because of themany benefits it provides to the organization.

“We consider the science store to be a vital component of our education and outreach mission,” shesays. “As with gift stores in museums, the educational products carried by our store offer an addedvalue by enabling visitors to extend what they have learned while viewing exhibits and taking a tour.”

Store staffers play an important role by greeting visitors to the ML, answering questions about the



exhibits and the institution, and managing the audio tour equipment.

“I’ve observed them on multiple occasions being ambassadors of UCAR to the public and doing itwonderfully,” says COMET’s Wendy Abshire. “They do a lot of intangible good for the organization.Just providing a warm personal face in the lobby when people walk through the doors is so important.I think it would be a terrible shame if the store went away.”

UCAR President Rick Anthes agrees. “Obviously, theseare difficult budget times,” he says. “But we’re all hoping the store can weather this period andcontinue to enhance our exhibit area.”

The science store also promotes and sells NCAR scientists’ books. ESIG’s Mickey Glantz says he’sreceived calls from people who’ve purchased his books through the store and learned that NCAR hasa social science component.

For more information about the store or if you or someone you know would like to volunteer, contactHeidi Lewis (ext. 1181), or Annette Lampert (ext. 2592). Or you can call the store directly at 720-304-8670. •David Hosansky

On the Web:

The store’s Web site




Cooling us off

Short Takes

Spring Fling




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UCAR Staff Notes

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/hess.html[5/2/2013 11:36:23 AM]

Bill Hess.

May 2004

Wilmot “Bill” Hess, former NCAR director

Former NCAR director Wilmot “Bill” Hess died last month at his home in Berkeley California. Hewas 77.

Bill enjoyed a rich scientific career at several of thenation’s leading institutions. He received his Ph.D. innuclear physics from the University of California atBerkeley in 1954, then went to work for the LawrenceBerkeley and Lawrence Livermore national laboratoriesand the Goddard Space Center. He became director ofscience and applications at the Manned Space Center inHouston for Apollo 11 and then served as director ofNOAA’s Environmental Research Laboratories inBoulder.

In 1980, Bill succeeded Francis Bretherton as NCARdirector. His six-year tenure was an important time forthe organization, as researchers took advantage ofincreasingly sophisticated remote sensing and modelingtechnologies, and NCAR bought its first Craysupercomputer.

Bill left in 1986 to become associate director for highenergy and nuclear physics at the Department of Energy.He retired to Berkeley 10 years later.

In a 1986 interview, Bill said, “One of the things I thinkis critical for an organization like NCAR is long-termstability.”

Rick Anthes, who succeeded Bill as NCAR director andis now the president of UCAR, praises Bill as animportant figure in NCAR’s history. “Bill was an incredibly energetic and optimistic leader who ranthe NCAR Directors’ Committee with enthusiasm and diplomacy,” Rick recalls. “He understood thatNCAR served many constituencies, and he fostered a well-balanced program of science and facilities.He also was very strong on the need to increase diversity at NCAR.”

Bill is survived by his wife of 53 years, Winifred “Westher” Lowdermilk Hess, as well as twochildren and four grandchildren. •David Hosansky
















UCAR Staff Notes

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Short Takes

Spring Fling














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UCAR Staff Notes: John Latham ponders a plan to counter global warming

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/latham.html[5/2/2013 11:36:40 AM]

John Latham

May 2004

Cooling us off:

John Latham ponders a plan to counter global warming

When MMM’s John Latham first wrote about the idea oftinkering with marine clouds to offset global warming in1990, he faced some scorn. Two irate readers berated John’snote on the topic in Nature magazine, contending that societyshould cut back on carbon dioxide emissions instead offurther interfering with the environment.

But with carbon dioxide levels continuing to rise in theatmosphere, John’s research is getting a bit more attention, asare other still-unproven plans that seek to counter globalwarming.

“I was quite prepared, and still am, for this idea to be viewedas crazy,” John concedes.

John’s idea, which has not been fully tested, is to increasethe number of water droplets in about 10% of the world’smarine stratocumulus clouds. This could be accomplished bybolstering the number of tiny saltwater droplets that act ascloud condensation nuclei, meaning they would serve ascenters for the production of additional droplets.

Such a process would make the clouds whiter, increasingtheir albedo, or ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. If the clouds’ reflectivity could beboosted by a few percent (which could be amply achieved by doubling the droplet numbers), thiswould compensate for a doubling of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and, at least in theory,produce a cooling that would compensate for global warming.

The plan could also have the benefit of blocking additional sunlight by increasing the lifetimes of theclouds. The reason is the added droplets would be small and descend slowly. As a result, it wouldtake longer for them to combine into drizzle or raindrops and fall back to Earth, dissipating the clouds.

















One theorectical approach to whitening marine stratocumulous clouds would befor giant turbines to send microscopic droplets into the air, as demonstrated bythis prototype instrument. (Photo courtesy Stephen Salter).

John hopes to get funding to test the idea within the next couple of years. Such tests could involve aplane seeding marine stratocumulus clouds with particles and then collecting data on the resultingwhitening of the clouds.

If the plan proved valid and policy makers ever wanted to implement it, John says they would have toovercome formidable technological challenges. When bubbles on the ocean surface burst naturally,they release hundreds or thousands of microscopic droplets, many of which rise to form droplets inlow-lying marine clouds. How could such droplets be produced artificially?

John has a few ideas, but one of his collaborators, a Scottish inventor at the University of Edinburghnamed Stephen Salter, is working on a particularly innovative solution. It involves designing turbineswith a height of about 70 meters (220 feet) that would generate a saltwater spray. John says hundredsof such turbines, powered by wind or wave energy, could whiten the required coverage of clouds.

The amount of water involved would be surprisingly minor: only about 10 cubic meters of ocean waterthroughout the world would have to be sprayed every second. Because the required saltwater particlesare so small—about one micron in diameter—some 1021 particles can fit it into a single cubic meterof water. (If you’re wondering how big a number 1021 is, it’s more than the estimated number ofgrains of sand on all the world’s beaches.)

Even if the technological challenges could be overcome, scientists would need to make sure such asystem wouldn’t create unintended consequences. For example, John wonders how creating cool areasover an otherwise warm world would affect global wind and precipitation patterns.

Despite qualms about further interfering with nature, some experts appear open to at least exploringplans to cool Earth. A recent symposium in England on engineering strategies to counter globalwarming included presentations on floating tiny aluminum balloons in the stratosphere to reflectsunlight, burying carbon dioxide in the ground or beneath the ocean, encouraging the growth ofplankton to absorb carbon dioxide, and several other schemes.

As far-fetched as these may sound, scientists are beginning to wonder if society will need to take somesort of action to offset higher greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere—especially since public leaders



are failing to curb emissions.

“People came to the conference with a very skeptical view,” says John, one of the presenters at theconference, “and they came away thinking these ideas need to be explored.” •David Hosansky





Short Takes

Spring Fling














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UCAR Staff Notes: Short Takes

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/shorttakes.html[5/2/2013 11:37:00 AM]

May 2004

An overview of projects throughout the organization

After the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) finished setting up a nationalnetwork of Doppler radars in the mid-1990s, weather forecasters at the National Weather Servicefound themselves with an abundance of local radar data at NWS offices. The research community wasnot so lucky, though. It took weeks for their requests to sample some of the data to come through, andthe archive’s reliability was spotty at best.

Now, thanks to data distribution software designed by Unidata, scientists can access the same dataavailable to forecasters in a matter of minutes. In April, NOAA announced that a set of four high-capacity sites will redistribute real-time data from more than 120 radars. Three of the sites willoffer the data to universities without restrictions and to the private sector on a cost-recovery basis.They’ll use Unidata’s Local Data Manager software to route the data to users via Internet2.

“This is a significant milestone for us and the culmination of many years of collaboration,” saysUnidata director Mohan Ramamurthy. “It’s a great example of what can be achieved by creativepartnership among academic, government, and private sector groups.” Further details >

A research team that includes NCAR staffers has been awarded a $2 million grant to develop acomputer-generated system that will predict wildfire behavior and progression. The four-yearproject, called the Data Dynamic Simulation for Disaster Management and funded by NSF, willcombine computing, satellite and sensor monitoring, mathematical theory, and meteorology. It willpredict the direction of a fire and warn firefighters of sudden changes, such as wind shifts or an abruptincrease in intensity.

The project will include placing sensors around a wildfire that will continuously collect informationabout temperature, wind, ground moisture, and other factors. This information will be transmitted to asupercomputer, which will send maps and forecasts of fire locations to the front lines in real time,allowing a fire manager to see minute-by-minute predictions or anticipate where fire growth will occuralong the fire line.

“There are many technological challenges involved in simulating phenomena that change very rapidly,and in quickly transmitting data from remote locations into a model running many possible scenarioson a supercomputer far away,” explains RAP’s Janice Coen. The team includes researchers at CU–Denver, the University of Kentucky, Texas A&M University, and the Rochester Institute ofTechnology. More information on NCAR’s wildfire work >

The buildup of ice on airplanes in flight is a major wintertime hazard for small and commuter planes.NCAR scientists recently tested a new radar system designed to pinpoint water droplets in cloudsthat cause icing, and it may ultimately enable pilots to avoid dangerous areas.















http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/article.php?sid=64

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The system, known as S-Polka, combines two existing radars that use different wavelengths: apowerful polarized radar, known as S-Pol, that operates at a frequency of 3,000 Mhz, and a polarizedKa-band radar that operates at 35,000 MHz. By studying the differences between the images that arereflected back to each radar, scientists hope to find tiny water droplets that are difficult to distinguishusing either radar alone.

RAP’s Jothiram Vivekanandan and Marcia Politovich, along with other scientists and engineers,deployed the new radar system in March at NCAR’s Marshall field use. Researchers now are focusingon creating algorithms (mathematical procedures) that will identify and measure droplets within theradar images accurately. If all goes well, the instrument will undergo final tests in a couple of yearsand be considered for implementation at airports.

A Web site for data sets and preliminary results is currently under construction.

This graphic shows preliminary findings from the S-Polka system. Bycomparing the differences between the images from each radar,researchers can detect an area that may harbor water droplets (the shadedarea at the bottom right of the “Z difference” image). (Courtesy JothiramVivekanandan.)





Cooling us off

Spring Fling



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UCAR Staff Notes

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0406/springfling.html[5/2/2013 11:37:27 AM]

May 2004

Spring fling goes primordial: Cave dwellers emerge for party

You know it's Spring Fling when you see your co-workers wandering around dressed in leopard-printtunics carrying femur bones. On May 7, staffers shed their roles as scientists, administrators,engineers, programmers, and more to show their primitive sides show in response to this year's"Dinosaur" party theme.

The event at Center Green drew hundreds of staffers and family members for a lip sync contest, livecomedy, food, music, and a chalk-drawing contest for kids.

This marked the third year that Dan Ziskin of the Employee Activities Committee (EAC) hosted theannual event. "This year I wanted to do something nice and sassy for you," he announced before thelip sync contest. "So I hired a comedian."

Nancy Norton, a local comedian with Vox Feminista, indeed made partygoers laugh between lip syncacts. "I've never been around atmospheric researchers before, but I do like the atmosphere here," shesaid. View video clip.

Six groups entered the lip sync contest. The Past Judges, who were exactly what they sounded like,opened with cavemen and women dancing around a fire and throwing candy to the crowd. The currentjudges gave their predecessors a participation award. View video clip.















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UCAR Staff Notes


COMET then won an accuracy and technical merit award by demonstrating the best way to teachbasic arithmetic for different learning styles. By holding up signs with numbers at appropriatemoments, they choreographed their performance to "Figure 8" from the 1970s Schoolhouse Rockeducational series that used to air during Saturday morning cartoons. View video clip.

Next came CGD, which decided to soothe anxiety about the upcoming reorganization by affirming thatNCAR divisions won't go extinct like dinosaurs. To the music of "Consider Yourself" from theBroadway musical Oliver!, the lip syncers eagerly welcomed representatives of different divisions intothe new, all-encompassing Sun, Weather, and Climate Lab, where everyone would up satisfied. Judgesgave the group a humor award. View video clip.

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UCAR Staff Notes


CGD was followed by Stealth COMET, which won an award for artistic merit by performing "WhiteCollar Holler," a song by Stan Rogers that compares programming computers to building a railroad.View video clip.

Next came F&A, live from Rock Vegas, performing to the Flintstones theme song and winning thecostumes and set category. View video clip.

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UCAR Staff Notes


And finally, EO topped off the contest by bringing Stone Age realities (floods, meteor showers,dancing green dinosaurs) to life, choreographed to the playfully edited lyrics of artists ranging fromBob Dylan to Wierd Al. EO took the cake-or fish, that is-when the judges gave the group a singing"Billy Bass" fish as grand prize for the contest. View video clip.

During salad, lasagna, and chocolate brownies, the band Chicago Skinny entertained the crowd on thelawn outside Center Green while kids drew on the sidewalk and partygoers perused NCAR ScienceStore items.

"I was thrilled by how smoothly the Spring Fling came together," says Dan Ziskin. "Congratulationsto the organization for being such good party people." Led by Dan, EAC organized the event withextra help from Gail Rutledge. Eron Brennan managed sound and the Food Services team served upan excellent buffet. • Nicole Gordon





Cooling us off

Short Takes




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UCAR Staff Notes: Mentoring Latina students

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/latina.html[5/2/2013 11:42:54 AM]

May 2004


Two Centaurus High School students, Dayan Garcia-Zea (sitting at left) and Keisha Jiron, learn aboutNCAR from Yvonne Mondragon (standing at left) and Nita Razo in the Communications office.

The students came here on April 15 for the Latinas Building Bridges in Education conference. Some79 Latina middle and high school students signed up for the annual event, where they were paired withmentors who gave them insights into the working world. The conference, sponsored by the BoulderCounty Latina Women’s League, seeks to encourage students to set their sights on college.

“It’s an important opportunity to show the girls what they can accomplish,” says SCD’s DorothyBustamante, who helped organize the conference with ACD’s Teresa Rivas. The two women are co-presidents of the Boulder County Latina Women’s League.



















UCAR Staff Notes: Mentoring Latina students

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0405/latina.html[5/2/2013 11:42:54 AM]

Cooling us off

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Spring Fling













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