Thematic maps are nowadays widely used in a variety of research domains and human daily lives to depict and analyze spatial phenomena in reality. Though current Web-based GISs can already display thematic maps via internet, their content is nonetheless restricted to those maps already stored in databases. Naïve users, with limited cartographic knowledge and GIS software experience, can hardly s...

Q. By whom are you presently employed and in what capacity? A. I am employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), which has its home base in Greenbelt, Maryland. I am the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is a division of GSFC located in New York City. I am also a senior scientist in the Columbia Universi...

[1] The GISS coupled model is used to investigate the sensitivity of sea ice to each of the following parameterizations: (1) two sea ice dynamics (CF: cavitating fluid; VP: viscousplastic), (2) the specification of oceanic isopycnal mixing coefficients in the Gent and McWillams isopyncal mixing (GM), and (3) the wajsowicz viscosity diffusion (WV). The large-scale sea ice properties are highly s...

A significant number of long-term climate change simulations are to be carried out in the Integrated Framework of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Since Global Circulation Models (GCMs) require an enormous amount of computer time, the two-dimensional statistical-dynamic model developed by Stone and Yao has been chosen to be used for the initial stage of the Join...

The fast developments in the information technology reflects also on the GIS community and new opportunities give new challenges to the research and development groups. As a result of these developments, 3D data can already be processed efficiently and better methods are being explored increasingly. At the same time, the Internet has matured in many senses since it was first publicized and it i...

[1] Observations from the US Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program are used to evaluate the ability of the NASA GISS ModelE global climate model in reproducing observed interactions between aerosols and clouds. Included in the evaluation are comparisons of basic meteorology and aerosol properties, droplet activation, effective radius parameterizations, and surfa...