| Editorial | | The Board and staff of NEON, Inc. would like to wish you happy holidays! Remember: on January 10 2011, we kick off the first monthly NEON overview webinar for our member institutions (subsequent one is on February 14 2011). You also have until the end of this week to submit an application to participate in Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill. Also, check out a number of opportunities for early career scientists below. |
Year-end Letter to Institutional Member Representatives and Officials
| A letter from Jim MacMahon (Chair, NEON, Inc. Board of Directors) and David Schimel (CEO, NEON, Inc.) was recently sent to member representatives and other institutional officials to thank everyone for their support for NEON. The first paragraph of the letter is reproduced here:
Dear NEON, Inc. Institutional Member Representatives and Constituents,
The Board of Directors and staff of NEON, Inc. would like to thank you for your continued support through another challenging year. The Observatory has come far since the inception of the planning process in late 2004 with a number of notable achievements in 2010. The successful passage of the project through a demanding NSF Final Design Review resulted in the approval of NEON by the National Science Board. This paved the way for the project's inclusion in the President's budget request to Congress to initiate Observatory construction in FY2011. To prepare for construction, the Observatory initiated prototyping activities to further help inform protocol development in specific focal areas like organismal sampling and airborne observations. In parallel with these activities, construction permits for sites were secured, engineering blueprints for sites were refined, and we completed civil construction of our first production-grade prototype site located near Sterling, CO. Observatory staff are currently designing a strategy to release prototyping activity data for community use while we await funds to construct the Observatory's cyberinfrastructure.
The entire letter can be read here.
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NEON, Inc. Signs MOU with NOAA NCDC, NOAA ATDD
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In December 2010, NEON, Inc. signed an MOU with NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (ATDD) to establish a framework for discussion and possible future cooperation on mutual environmental observing activities in the United States.
Since 2001, NCDC has worked to field the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) at 114 locations in the Conterminous U.S., and is now working at expanding that activity with an additional 29 stations in Alaska by the year 2016; and also currently has 2 stations in the state of Hawaii in order to observe unique high elevation and high precipitation climate regimes. While USCRN is intended to obtain a national climate signal, beginning in 2009, NCDC began work in deploying a modernized Regional U.S. Historical Climatology Network (RUSHCN) which will sustain the Nation's climate record of surface atmospheric measurements essential to monitor and assess regional climate variation and change. ATDD is a partner with NCDC regarding the research testbeds, development of new technology, on-going operations and maintenance of USCRN and RUSHCN; and their research is focused on air quality, climate, and boundary layer meteorology directed toward issues of national and global importance.
Providing the necessary breadth of observations requires a diverse and integrated set of observation systems working in tandem to begin addressing the goal of measuring the Essential Climate Variables necessary to characterize long-term climate trends. In that pursuit of environmental knowledge and good science to capitalize on synergistic opportunities on behalf of the scientific community, the MOU enables opportunities to collaborate on mutual projects and activities, such as working to co-locate stations where possible, sharing techniques, data, algorithms, and expertise.
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| First NEON Monthly Overview Webinar on January 10 2011 |
Starting January 10, 2011 and every second Monday of each month, we will be offering monthly NEON overview webinars for individuals from member institutions. Others are welcomed, but priority will be given to those associated with member institutions. The webinars will run approximately 60 minutes comprising a short presentation followed by a Q&A. Advanced registration is required.
Date: 1/10/2011 (subsequent one is on 2/14/2011)
Time: 3pm Eastern / 12noon Pacific / 10am Hawaii
Format: 40 mins presentation + 20 mins Q&A
Registration: http://goo.gl/GKzC9
Platform: WebEx (available for Windows and MacOS platforms, as well as on some smart phones)
Due to technical constraints, participation is limited to the first 24 registrants. Multiple attendees at a given physical location (i.e. a single internet session) may register just once as a group. For member institutions who wish to arrange for a webinar at some other time for a group of participants, please contact Brian Wee. |
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AGU Posters Presented by NEON Staff Available
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NEON was well represented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) winter meeting in San Francisco (December 13 - 17 2010). Close to a dozen NEON, Inc. staff presented posters and talks, and together with other staff, interacted with visitors to the NEON exhibit booth. NEON posters presented at the conference are now available for download at the NEON, Inc. website under "Documents - Presentations":
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Opportunities for Early Career Scientists
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- NESCent Joint Synthesis Center Postdoctoral Symposium. NESCent will hold the first annual Joint Synthesis Center Postdoctoral Symposium from April 17th-20th for postdoctoral fellows among the synthesis centers. The symposium will last three days and will include a combination of brief presentations by the postdocs on their research, professional development, and breakouts on topics chosen by the fellows. This will be an excellent opportunity to interact with postdocs from the other NSF Biosynthesis centers. For details see http://goo.gl/fk4ld.
- AGU Congressional Science Fellowship. AGU Congressional Science Fellowships provide a look into what it takes to help shape science policy. AGU sponsors two fellows to spend one year working as staff members in U.S. Congressional offices. Responsibilities may include writing legislation, preparing congressional hearings, meeting with lobbyists and constituents, and more. AGU is now accepting applications for the 2011-2012 term. For details see http://goo.gl/Uva1M.
- IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program. Each summer, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), located in Schloss Laxenburg near Vienna, Austria, hosts a selected group of graduate students, primarily doctoral, from around the world in its Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). These students work closely with an IIASA senior scientist mentor on a project proposed by the student, related to his or her graduate research. There are a number of program areas of relevance to the type of science NEON is designed to enable. For details see http://goo.gl/Io8Cq.
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AGU Now Publisher of JAMES
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The American Geophysical Union is now the new publisher of the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES). JAMES is a peer-reviewed, open-access, all-electronic journal that advances the science of Earth systems modeling by offering high-quality scientific research articles. JAMES was founded by the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes, a U.S. National Science Foundation-sponsored Science and Technology Center, and the journal began publishing peer-reviewed articles in the summer of 2009. Additional information is available at http://www.agu.org/journals/ms. (Adapted from: http://goo.gl/Kk73J)
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USGCRP National Climate Assessment Conducts Four Major Methodology Workshops
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In November and December 2010, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) National Climate Assessment (NCA) held four major "methodology" workshops that engaged over 300 participants from government, academia, NGOs (including NEON, Inc.), and private industry, a public briefing session about the Federal Advisory Committee, three meetings of the Interagency NCA Task Force and multiple briefing sessions for both government and public audiences.
Reports and white papers from these workshops ("Regional and Sectoral", "Ecological Indicators", "Scenario Development", and "Modeling and Downscaling") are currently being developed. The highlights from each workshop are available from the NCA's December issue of their monthly newsletter (NCA News Issue 1, Volume 4). The newsletter also mentions the ongoing development of the USGCRP Strategic Plan which will dictate the direction of the program from 2011 - 2020 with upcoming opportunities for public input. To sign up for the newsletter, please send an email to engagement@usgcrp.gov. (Adapted from: http://goo.gl/aQNhS) |
Solicitations of Potential Interest to the NEON Community
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Please click the respective links to check the original source of information. The abbreviated text below may not reflect amendments to the original announcements, and may not reflect the original intent of the solicitation. The "New" icons indicate recent new announcements (includes announcements for regular solicitations), and not necessarily new programs. These are primarily, though not limited to, NSF solicitations. Not all new announcements are included in the list below.  EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Track-2 - Excerpt: The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is a program designed to fulfill NSF's mandate to promote scientific progress nationwide. The EPSCoR program is directed at those jurisdictions that have historically received lesser amounts of NSF R&D funding. Twenty-seven states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the U. S. Virgin Islands are currently eligible to participate. Through this program, NSF establishes partnerships with government, higher education, and industry that are designed to effect lasting improvements in a state's or region's research infrastructure, R&D capacity and hence, its national R&D competitiveness.
- Critical Dates: March 14, 2011
- Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)
- Excerpt: New information, communication, and computational technologies have had profound impacts on the practice of science (in this solicitation, the term science includes the natural, mathematical, computing, and social sciences), engineering, and education. This includes the means by which citizens of all ages use science and engineering to enhance professional and private lives. The CI-TEAM program supports projects that integrate science and engineering research and education activities that range from local activities to global-scale efforts, as appropriate, to promote, leverage and utilize cyberinfrastructure systems, tools and services.
- Critical Dates: March 16, 2011
- Dimensions of Biodiversity
- Excerpt: By 2020, the Dimensions of Biodiversity program is expected to have transformed our understanding of the scope and role of life on Earth. Investigators are encouraged to propose projects that are free from the constraints imposed by traditional boundaries among areas of biodiversity research. In its initial phase, the program will focus on genetic, taxonomic, and functional dimensions of biodiversity. Successful proposals should address and integrate these three dimensions to understand interactions and feedbacks among them. While this focus complements several core NSF programs, it differs by requiring that multiple dimensions of biodiversity be addressed and integrated, in innovative or novel ways, to understand the roles of biodiversity in critical ecological and evolutionary processes.
- Critical Dates: March 28, 2011
- Major Research Instrumentation program: Instrument Acquisition or Development
- Excerpt: The Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) serves to increase access to shared scientific and engineering instruments for research and research training in our Nation's institutions of higher education, museums, science centers, and not-for-profit organizations. This program especially seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of research and research training in science and engineering, by providing shared instrumentation that fosters the integration of research and education in research-intensive learning environments.
- Critical Dates: January 27, 2011
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Key Dates in 2011
| 1/10: Monthly NEON Overview Webinar
2/2 - 2/4: NEON, Inc. Board Meeting in Boulder, CO
2/14: Monthly NEON Overview Webinar
2/16 - 2/17: Capitol Hill Communications Training
5/18 - 5/20: NEON, Inc. Board Meeting
8/7 - 8/12: ESA Annual Meeting
9/22 - 9/25: OBFS Annual Meeting
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