April 2012 - Changes to our web page will be coming in May. For more information click here.

Welcome aboard Carolyn Ownby. Carolyn will be working on the climate modeling program as a GIS programmer.

March 2012 - Dr. Wei Gao attended the 2011 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA, December 4-7, 2011. He participated in the Biogeodynamics and Earth System Sciences session, and presented Regional Climatic Effects of Crop Growth Modeled by the Coupled CWRF-CROP System.

Dr. Paul Evangelista, Co-PI, represented ColoradoView at the AmericaView Winter Business Meeting held in Arlington, VA, March 5-6. ColoradoView is administered by the UV-B Monitoring and Research Program; Dr. Wei Gao is the Principal Investigator.

January 2012 - Dr. Wei Gao was invited to attend the scientific meeting of Data-Intensive Science and Discovery held by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Beijing on Oct. 30, 2011. Dr. Gao gave a plenary talk on Scientific Data and Earth Science. Meeting details are available here.

December 2011 - PostDoc position available. The USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University seeks a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow. The successful applicant will join a team of scientists, engineers, and programmers and conduct research related to the interaction of aerosols and gases with UV and visible solar radiation.

September 2011 - Dr. Wei Gao attended the SPIE annual meeting in San Diego, CA, August 20-24, 2011, and chaired the Conference on Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability VIII. Dr. Gao also presented scientific progress on ultra-violet ground and space-based measurements, and agriculture modeling on behalf of the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program, and attended the Board of Editors meeting.

August 2011 - Dr. Wei Gao attended a Project Directors/Principal Investigators meeting in Washington DC, July 19-21, 2011, a USDA-EPA joint meeting on Ecological Impacts from the Interactions of Climate Change, Land Use Change, and Invasive Species. Dr. Wei Gao, Dr. Shuyan Liu, and Dr. Xin-Zhong Liang provided research progress on .Integrated Bioclimatic-Dynamic Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural and Invasive Plant Distributions in the United States,. funded by USDA NRI.

June 2011 - Dr. Wei Gao visited China with a CSU Delegation led by Presidene Tony Frank where Colorado State University and East China Normal University, Shanghai, to establish a Joint Research Institute for New Energy and the Environment. The Joint Institute will capitalize on strengths of the two institutions to develop new energy solutions and help deal with the impact of energy on climate, air quality, land use and water resources. Details and photos can be found here.

Mr. Hongzhao Tang, PhD student under Dr. Gao, is visiting with Dr. Allen Huang at the Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, collaborating on aerosol data and numeric models research during July and August.

March 2011 - Dr. Wei Gao attended the January 22-27, 2011 SPIE Photonics West Meeting. He presented ultraviolet ground and space-based measurements, numerical modeling/simulation and radiation effects research on behalf of the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program. Also he attended committee meetings and additional SPIE meetings during the conference.

February 2011 - Dr. Wei Gao, was invited to participate and present at the workshop entitled, "Mitigation, Adaptation, and Integration for Climate Change Science and Agriculture," hosted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, November 9-11, 2010, San Diego, California.

Congratulations to our director, Dr. Wei Gao who received the prestigious 2010 Most Publications award at the annual NREL awards banquet.

Dr. Wei Gao attended the January 22-27, 2011 SPIE Photonics West Meeting. He presented ultraviolet ground and space-based measurements, numerical modeling/simulation and radiation effects research on behalf of the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program. As a SPIE Symposia Committee Member, he attended committee meetings and additional SPIE meetings during the conference.

January 2011 - The USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program is taking applications for a full-time solar UV radiation scientist. The position will be responsible for providing scientific expertise regarding the quality of the UV atmospheric radiation data. It will be filled at the RA-III or RS-I level depending on the applicants qualifications. Deadline is January 17, 2011.

Congratulations to our director, Dr. Wei Gao who received the prestigious 2010 Most Publications award at the annual NREL awards banquet.

Dr. Wei Gao, was invited to participate and present at the workshop entitled, "Mitigation, Adaptation, and Integration for Climate Change Science and Agriculture," hosted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, November 9-11, 2010, San Diego, California.

December 2010 - The USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program is taking applications for a full-time solar UV radiation scientist. The position will be responsible for providing scientific expertise regarding the quality of the UV atmospheric radiation data. It will be filled at the RA-III or RS-I level depending on the applicants qualifications. Deadline is January 17, 2011.

Dr. Gao attended the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Workshop, October 28-30, 2010, Long Beach, CA. Dr. Gao also attended the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, 2010 International Annual Meetings, October 31-November 3, 2010, Long Beach, CA.

Dr. Wei Gao, was invited to participate and present at the workshop entitled, "Mitigation, Adaptation, and Integration for Climate Change Science and Agriculture," hosted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, November 9-11, 2010, San Diego, California.

November 2010 - Dr. James Graham and Roger Tree represented ColoradoView at the AmericaView Fall Technical Meeting held in Madison, Wisconsin, October 10 - 13. ColoradoView is administered by the UV-B Monitoring and Research Program; Dr. Wei Gao is the Principal Investigator.

September 2010 - Welcome Mr. Hongzhao Tang and Ms. Huifang Zhang. Mr. Hongzhao Tang is a Graduate Assistant through CSU's Graduate Degree Program in Ecology pursuing his Ph.D. under the guidance of his major professor, Dr. Wei Gao. Ms. Huifang Zhang will work with Dr. John Moore, NREL and Dr. Wei Gao on research related to the long-term study on forest and grass productivity changes in China from 1980 to 2009.

Dr. Wei Gao attended and chaired the International Conference on Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability during the Aug 1-5, 2010 at SPIE Annual meeting, San Diego, California. The UVMRP scientists presented 7 oral and poster presentations at this conference. Dr. Gao also attended the SPIE Symposia Committee and Publication Committee meetings.

August 2010 - A new research paper, Skin cancer incidence is highly associated with ultraviolet-B radiation history., Q Ni-Bin Chang, Rui Feng, Zhiqiang Gao, Wei Gao, was accepted by the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.

April 2010 - Dr. Wei Gao and associate Roger Tree attended the AmericaView Winter Business meeting in Washington, D.C. March 1st and 2nd. In addition to AmericaView business, sessions were held to convey information to StateView members regarding remote sensing education, research, and data products.

March 2010 - Welcome Dr. Jun Wang, a visiting scientist from the College of Resources and Environmental Science, East China Normal University. His research includes work in the scientific areas of water resources and management, eco-system modeling, and regional climate modeling.

February 2010 - Our book, UV Radiation in Global Climate Change: Measurements, Modeling and Effects on Ecosystems, Gao, W., D. Schmoldt, and J. R. Slusser, Springer-Verlag and Tsinghua University Press, has been published. It is available in both English and Chinese.

UVMRP engineers are assisting NASA-Goddard scientists with the modification of two NASA-owned UV-MFRSR instruments by replacing existing filters with wavelength filters specific to the NASA-owned Cimel instruments, as used in their AeRoNet program. This modification facilitates NASA studies of atmospheric properties. Their original instrument was modified in 2005 with only a single channel changed; a temporary quartz dome was added in 2007. For their second instrument - to be used in conjunction with scientists at Hampton University - three channels were changed and a quartz dome (in a modified horizon ring assembly) was installed over the diffuser. This second instrument is currently being characterized at NOAA's Central UV Calibration Facility prior to being put into service at Hampton University. Also undergoing modification at this time by UVMRP is a NASA-owned vis-MFRSR, which is having one channel replaced with a Cimel filter as well as having a quartz dome added. This instrument will then be characterized at NOAA's Central UV Calibration Facility prior to being put into service at Hampton University later this spring.

January 2010 - A new web site has been implemented for ColoradoView so please explore. Any comments and suggestions can be submitted by using the Contact Us button located at the bottom of the ColoradoView webpage.

Congratulations to both Wei Gao, our director, and Rita Deike, our office manager. Dr Gao received the prestigious Most Publications award at the annual NREL awards banquet. Rita received the Outstanding Support Staff award.

Possible data outages will begin January 2010. For detailed information click here.

December 2009 - At December's AGU meeting a preliminary research result of Implementation of DSSAT CERES-Maize Model into CWRF and Preliminary Standalone Evaluation, was presented by Min Xu, Xin-Zhong Liang of University of Illinois, and Wei Gao, Colorado State University.

Roger Tree traveled to Mauna Loa, Hawaii to perform routine maintenance of UV-B instrumentation and install additional components to augment the program's calibration process and deploy the audit instrument array. Roger also met with Dr. Alana Steffen, of the Cancer Center of Hawaii, in Honolulu regarding the deployment and use of our monitoring instruments loaned for her cancer research.

On December 10, Warner College of Natural Resources dean Joyce Berry and NREL director John Moore visited the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program and had a meeting with program staff. They were updated on the program's progress.

November 2009 - The UVMRP is currently looking for a Research Scientist II with a closing date of December 1, 2009.

Possible data outages will begin January 2010. For detailed information click here.

UVMRP and ColoradoView director, Dr. Wei Gao, and technician Roger Tree travelled to the USGS EROS Data Center outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota to attend the AmericaView Fall Technical Meeting. They presented a poster describing the UVMRP. One year after achieving associate member status, the UVMRP received limited funding to oversee ColoradoView as Full Member of the AmericaView consortium. The bill authorizing USGS funding of the AmericaView program (HR2489) passed the House in a landslide. AmericaView seems well positioned for the future, and ColoradoView is underway.

October 2009 - The UVMRP is currently looking for a Research Scientist II with a closing date of December 1, 2009.

Dr. Wei Gao, committee member, attended the 6th International Symposium on Digital Earth(ISDE6), Digital Earth in Action, in Beijing, China, and co-chaired two sessions. On behalf of the UVMRP, he presented and discussed the study of integrated climate-crop modeling system research. The ISDE6 participants are world-class scientists, engineers and educators who reviewed the progress of Digital Earth during the last decade and discuss achievements and future development. The symposium's focus was on the technological advances and the various emerging applications linking Digital Earth, climate change, radiation modeling and ecosystems. Digital Earth is a virtual representation of our planet and a global initiative aimed at harnessing the world's data and information resources to develop a virtual 3-D model of the Earth in order to monitor, measure, and forecast natural and human activity on the planet. It has a broad domain related to earth observation, geographic information system, global positioning system, virtual reality, computer technology, network communication, geosciences and social sciences.

September 2009 - Dr. Wei Gao attended the Farming Systems Design 2009, an international symposium on Methodologies for Integrated Analysis of Farm Production Systems, in Monterey, CA. from August 23-26. He presented at a special session, on behalf of the UVMRP, U.S. Department of Agriculture UV-B Monitoring and Research Program and Integrated Crop Modeling Activity.

A new derived data product has been added to our web page, under Data Access, Derived Products. The UVMRP UV irradiance estimator provides values of the daily sum and daily maximum values of spectral irradiance at 300, 305, 311, 317, 325, 332 and 368 nm and erythemal and Caldwell biologically weighted. The estimate is produced from the Tropospheric UV model (TUV) using data assimilated from NASA TOMS/OMI and MODIS satellites and NCEP NARR surface datasets.

August 2009 - Dr. Daniel L. Schmoldt, National Program Leader from USDA CSREES, Washington D.C, will be visiting our program and Colorado State University the week of August 17. Welcome Dan.

Dr. Wei Gao chaired the International conferences on Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability VI, and on Ultraviolet and Visible Ground- and Space-based Measurements, Trace Gases, Aerosols and Effects VI during Aug 2-6, 2009 at SPIE annual meeting , San Diego, California, USA. He also attended the SPIE Symposia Committee and Publication Committee meetings.

Dr. Wei Gao co-chaired the First International Undergraduate Conference on Climate, Water, Weather and Society with Dr. Michael Glantz of University of Colorado, and Dr. Joseph Tribbia of National Center for Atmospheric Research during July 20-24, 2009 in East China Normal University , Shanghai, China. Students from universities around the world and representatives from different research institutes, industry associations, and United Nations relative organizations attended the meeting. This conference aimed to help undergraduates to understand their role in civil society in dealing with global, regional, and local climate change, variability and extremes. The key question is how to cope with variability, extremes, and change in climate, water, weather, and societal interactions. View picture

ColoradoView recently attained status as a full member of the AmericaView consortium of states, and is excited to join the mission of individually, and collectively, promoting remote sensing and GIS. Colorado is a hot-bed of geospatial science and technology, and boasts many world class academic, governmental, and private entities. As director of the ColoradoView, UVMRP will draw upon this expertise to incrementally build a vibrant and useful resource for all Coloradoans involved with remote sensing and GIS. Our first goal is to leverage expertise and resources provided by AmericaView to develop a web portal that will facilitate the dissemination and exchange of Colorado-specific remote sensing and GIS data, information, and educational materials.

July 2009 - Mª Ángeles Obregón Muñoz visited from Badajoz, Spain. She is a Ph.D student interested in aerosols and their effect to the UV and total solar radiation and works with the Atmósfera, Clima y Radiación en Extremadura research group at the University of Extremadura. Mª collaborated with us for most of the summer.

Dr. Bente Foereid from Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedford, England visited us the first week of July. Dr. Foereid research interests are in carbon and nutrient turnover in plant and soils, modeling and feedback to climate change. She also attended the International Symposium on Soil Organic Matter Dynamics July 6-9 in Colorado Springs, Co.

June 2009 - Dr. Wei Gao attended the workshop, The Plight of Ecosystems in a Changing Climate: Impacts on Services, Interactions, and Responses Workshop organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture from May 27 - 28 in Seattle, WA. As project PI he presented the progress report on Integrated Bioclimatic-Dynamic Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural and Invasive Plant Distributions in the United States funded by USDA NRI. The overall objective of this project is to understand how global climate changes affect the U.S. agricultural and invasive plant species distributions focusing on crop production; and to account for both adaptation of alternative crops and invasion of non-native species to enable decision makers to design effective management and control strategies for a sustainable future agro ecosystem. Dr. Xin-Zhong Liang, University of Illinois and Dr. Thomas Stohlgren, USGS, NREL are co-PIs on this project.

May 2009 - Our director, Dr. Wei Gao, received the 2009 Lifetime Distinguished International Service Award in recognition of his significant campus-wide impact on CSU's international efforts. Dr. Gao played a central role in establishing the joint research programs and faculty/student exchanges in the areas of clean energy, global environmental sustainability, geosciences, engineering, education and business between Colorado State University and universities and research institutes in China.

April 2009 - Bill Durham retired at the end of April after 16 years of service and commitment to maintaining the quality of our instrumentation. For many operators he has been the face and voice of the network, catching and fixing problems quickly. He is largely responsible for our program's high data collection rate. We thank Bill for his years of service, wish him a fond farewell, and happiness in retirement.

April 2009 - Dr. Ni-Bin Chang visited us from the Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering Department at the University of Central Florida. He presented a seminar Seasonal Change Detection of Riparian Zones with Remote Sensing Images and Genetic Programming in a Semi-arid Watershed.

March 2009 - UVMRP has created a web page for ColoradoView which is part of the AmericaView National Consortium for Remote Sensing Education, Research and Applications. Roger Tree attended the AmericaView Winter Business Meeting March 9 -10 in Baltimore, Maryland. He also made a visit to NASA-Goddard for a demonstration of two new spectrometer based solar irradiance monitors.

March 2009 - Dr. Min Xu, a climate modeller from Illinois State Water Survey, Champaign, Illinois visited us to install a climate model program for our use and for our data users.

February 2009 - Dr. Wei Gao attended a special session, A04: Dynamics and Climate, at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) December 2008 annual meeting and presented, U.S. Department of Agriculture UV-Monitoring and Research Program and Integrated Crop Modeling Activity.

February 2009 - SPIE's Journal of Applied Remote Sensing (JARS) is now included in Thomson Reuters databases including the Science Citation Index Expanded, SPIE has announced. Read full article.

February 2009 - A google map of each site is now available under Monitoring Network, Sites Information.

January 2009 - Dr. Wei Gao attended a special session, A04: Dynamics and Climate, at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) December 2008 annual meeting and presented, U.S. Department of Agriculture UV-Monitoring and Research Program and Integrated Crop Modeling Activity.

January 2009 - Xin-Zhong Liang from the Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Natural Resources, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is visiting us the week of January 5. Welcome.

William K. Smith (Dr. Wei Gao, advisor) graduated summer 2008 with a Master's Degree in Ecology awarded by the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at Colorado State University. The title of his thesis was Ultraviolet-B Radiation: Impacts on Litter Decomposition Under Different Precipitation Regimes and Biotics. He is currently in the process of submitting two publications from his thesis.

Chelsea Corr (Dr. James Slusser, co-advisor) graduated with a Master's Degree in Atmospheric Science awarded by the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. The title of her thesis was Retrieval of aerosol single scattering albedo at UV wavelengths for two urban field campaigns. She is currently in the process of preparing and submitting a publication from her thesis work. She is attending the University of New Hampshire, is enrolled in the Natural Resources and Earth System Sciences program for a PhD in Earth and Environmental Science. Her work will focus on pollution transport and evolution in the Arctic.