December
15, 2009 | Staff celebrated the holidays and each
other's accomplishments at the 2009 UCAR Awards Ceremony and Holiday Party,
held at Center Green on December 11.

Sizzle String Band.

Sizzle String Band warmed the crowd up with bluegrass tunes
played by David
Brown (CISL), Lynda McGinley (CISL), Nan Rosenbloom
(NESL/CGD), John Hernandez (CISL), Ed Snyder (CISL), and John Pereira
(FM&S).

Next
came the UCARolers. In addition to performing traditional carols, the group sang a tribute to outgoing NCAR director Eric Barron
("Florida's So Delightful") and a tune directed to NESL director Greg Holland
about the recent reorganization from ESSL to NESL. 

The UCARolers.

Following
the music, UCAR president Rick Anthes, accompanied by President's Council members Eric Barron, Katy
Schmoll, and Jack Fellows, presented the 2009 Outstanding Accomplishment
Awards. Staff then dined from a buffet prepared by Event
Services that included turkey and prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, green
beans, tortellini, salad, and more.

Pictured below are this
year's Outstanding Accomplishment Award winners. A complete list of nominations in each category
can be found on the Outstanding Accomplishment Awards
page.

Jack Fox (center) with Rick Anthes, Katy Schmoll, Eric Barron, and Jack Fellows.

Distinguished
Achievement Award

Jack Fox
(EOL) for transforming the EOL Design and Fabrication Services into a
world-class premier facility to design and build equipment for atmospheric and
related research. The capabilities of this new facility are a direct result of
Jack's vision and leadership, and they enhance UCAR/NCAR's reputation
significantly. The complexity and scope of new instruments built have increased
in a manner that represents a quantum advance for our science. Having this
instrument building capability in house saves NCAR critical research funding.
In addition to projects within NCAR, such as instruments for the GV aircraft
and the SUNRISE balloon gondola, other community organizations have contracted
with NCAR/EOL to build some of their specialized equipment. A few examples are:
palette systems for the NASA WB-57, major components for many of the
sophisticated "HAIS" instruments, and a special dropsonde system for
the NASA/NOAA Global Hawk. 

Bill Skamarock.

Outstanding
Publication Award

Bill
Skamarock
(NESL/MMM) for Skamarock,
W.C., 2004: Evaluating Mesoscale NWP Models Using Kinetic Energy Spectra. Monthly Weather Review, 132, 3019-3032.

This
publication tackles the very difficult problem of assessing the ability of
numerical weather forecast models to accurately represent important weather features
that occur at smaller scales. The author proposes a new approach, utilizing the
characteristic behavior of observed kinetic energy spectra to evaluate the
ability of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models to properly represent the
behavior of weather disturbances and to quantify the effective resolution of
the numerics of these models.

The EOL team with Rick Anthes, Katy Schmoll, Eric Barron, and Jack Fellows.

Scientific
and Technical Advancement Award

John Hubbert (EOL), Mike
Dixon (RAL), Scott
Ellis (EOL), and
Greg Meymaris
(RAL) for the Real Time Ground Clutter Mitigation for Weather Radar. Ground clutter contaminates true
precipitation echoes, making it difficult to interpret radar data and,
therefore, provide accurate forecasts. The nominees have developed a real-time
radar signal processing solution to this serious problem, a fuzzy-logic
algorithm called Clutter Mitigation Decision (CMD). The CMD will help
improve the understanding of the atmosphere, increase societal resilience to
weather, and help provide world-class state-of-the-art radar data through this
successful research-to-operations enhancement.

Jielun Sun (center) with Rick Anthes, Katy Schmoll, Eric Barron, and Jack Fellows.

Mentoring Award

Jielun
Sun (NESL/MMM) for her many mentoring activities, particularly for non-U.S.
born individuals, through the Communicating Science Program and especially the
English as a Second Language component of that program. Her dedication and
efforts in this area have far exceeded her prescribed job responsibilities. She
has a talent for helping educate and support attendees, advancing their English
language capacity, especially in science communication, as well as enabling
them to gain a sense of confidence and inclusion. 

Florida’s So Delightful


Oh the weather
outside is frightful,

But Florida's so
delightful,

As the Seminoles say
hello,

We'll let him go!
Let him go! Let him go!



Well, we can't
control the weather,

And the storms all
run together

On the Colorado plateau;

Too much snow!  Too much snow!  Too much snow!



            Oh,
he sent us a little note

            to
explain and let us all know

            that
he just couldn't miss this boat

            Should
he stay or should he go.....?



Oh, the fire inside is cracking,

while Eric's busy packing.

Since it's ten degrees below -

We'll let him go, let him go, let him go!



The re-org is slowly ending,

And the labs, they're still a-mending,

So as long as it's not a typo,

We'll miss him so! Miss him so! Miss him so!



            When
we finally say Good-Bye

            How
we hate to have him resign

            But
as back to the East he flies

            We'll
sing about him one more time....



Well, we hear he's missed the students

and we hope it won't show imprudence

to wish him the best you know...

Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio!



Too much snow!  Too much snow!  Too much snow!

We'll let him go, let him go, let him go!

We'll miss him so! Miss him so! Miss him so!

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