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A new NASA mission, PolSIR — short for Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer — will study high-altitude ice clouds, such as this cloud as seen from the International Space Station in 2008.
NASA has selected a new mission to help humanity better understand Earth’s dynamic atmosphere — specifically, ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and subtropical regions.
The PolSIR instrument — short for Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer — will study such ice clouds to determine how and why they change throughout the day.
This will provide crucial information about how to accurately simulate these high-altitude clouds in global climate models.
The investigation consists of two identical CubeSats — each small satellite is just a little over a foot tall — flying in orbits separated by three to nine hours. Over time, these two instruments will observe the clouds’ daily cycle of ice content.
“Studying ice clouds is crucial for improving climate forecasts — and this will be the first time we can study ice clouds in this level of detail,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Every NASA mission is carefully chosen to better understand our home planet.”
The award is for lifecycle costs no more than $37 million, which does not include launch costs.
The radiometer is an Earth Venture instrument — lower-cost instruments with a targeted research goal, which typically catch a ride along with another mission or commercial satellite in order to minimize launch costs.
The Earth Venture class also focuses on providing frequent flight opportunities, so innovative science investigations can be flown relatively quickly, generally within five years or less. Missions like this provide key targeted research opportunities, which help us improve our understanding of what’s driving change in the entire Earth system.
“Understanding how these ice clouds respond to a changing climate — and then, in turn, contribute to further changes — remains one of the great challenges to predicting what the atmosphere will do in the future,” said Karen St. Germain, who leads NASA’s Earth Sciences Division. “The radiometers, which measure the radiant energy emitted by clouds, will significantly improve our understanding of how ice clouds change and respond throughout the day.”
The mission is led by Ralf Bennartz, principal investigator at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and by Dong Wu, deputy principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA Goddard will provide the project management team that builds the two instruments, while science operations will be conducted by the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The two spacecraft will be built by Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado.
For more information about NASA’s Earth science missions, visit https://www.nasa.gov/Earth.
The day will begin with the pancake breakfast hosted by the Lakeport Kiwanis Club and Rotary Club of Lakeport at the Silveira Community Center, located at 500 N. Main St.
From 7 to 11 a.m. they will serve a meal that includes a full pancake breakfast, including eggs, bacon, juice, and coffee.
The requested donation is $10 per person. All proceeds benefit the Lake County 4-H Club.
That will be followed by the city’s Memorial Day Parade, which begins at 11 a.m. and follows a route through downtown Lakeport.
Organizers urge everyone to arrive early for the parade as the streets will be closed along the parade route.
Be sure to bring your own seating.
For more information, contact the Lakeport Main Street Association at 707-263-8843 or
Melinda Mildred Fred, 39, entered the not guilty plea in Lake County Superior Court on Tuesday morning, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
Authorities said Fred fatally stabbed 36-year-old Christopher Aaron Burrows on May 16.
The District Attorney’s Office has charged Fred with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence.
Hinchcliff said the investigation is continuing and that they do not yet know what defense Fred will allege in the case. “We may not know until trial or closer to trial.”
He said a preliminary hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Fred will return to court at 1:30 p.m. June 13 in Department 3 for a bail review hearing.
Hinchcliff said Fred’s bail was set at $1 million at her May 18 arraignment.
At the June 13 bail review hearing, Hinchcliff expects Fred will try to get her bail reduced.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has more new dogs this week needing homes of their own.
This week the shelter has 51 adoptable dogs.
The dogs that are available for adoption include “Wendy,” a year and a half old female Doberman pinscher mix with a red and tan coat.
There also is “Koda Bear,” a 2-year-old male pit bull mix with a brown brindle coat. Staff said Koda Bear is a love bug who does well with other dogs, is playful, plays fetch, is neutered and up-to-date on vaccinations.
Another of this week’s featured dogs is “Waldo,” a 3- to 4-year-old pit bull terrier with a black and white coat. Staff said he is a sweetheart who loves to be with his people, and enjoys walking, playing fetch or just hanging out.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported this week that two new groups of wolves have been confirmed in Northern California — one in Tehama County and the other in western Lassen County.
If the department designates each as a pack, they would become the fifth and sixth confirmed wolf packs in the Golden State in 100 years.
“It brings me great joy to see California’s wolves continue to increase in number, aided by the strong state and federal protections here,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Wolves rewild the landscape and that’s good not just for the wolves but for entire ecosystems.”
In March photographs of three wolves in Tehama County were captured on a trail camera on private land.
The western Lassen County group was documented on three different occasions during the first quarter of 2023.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is surveying these areas to determine if either group had pups this year, the sex of each of the groups’ members and whether any of them are related to wolves from California’s known packs.
California has three existing families of wolves: the Lassen pack, which was confirmed in 2017 and ranges across parts of Lassen and Plumas counties; the Whaleback pack, confirmed in late 2020 and early 2021 and ranges across eastern Siskiyou County; and the Beckwourth pack, confirmed in late spring of 2021 and whose territory is in eastern Plumas County.
This week’s report also included the sad note that a yearling Whaleback pup died after being struck by a vehicle on Highway 97 in January.
Late spring to early summer is when the department can determine if any of these wolf families has denned, signaling the potential for pups to be born.
The department will be checking on the reproductive status of the three existing packs as well as that of the two newly confirmed groups.
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed that these two new groups of wolves will officially become families by having pups of their own,” said Weiss. “I’m also looking forward to the department bestowing these wolf families with pack names to reflect their presence and significance.”
The first wolf in nearly a century to make California part of his range was OR-7, a radio-collared wolf from Oregon that entered California in late 2011. OR-7 traveled across seven northeastern counties in California before returning to southwestern Oregon, where he found a mate and settled down.
The original breeding male of the Lassen pack was the offspring of OR-7’s first litter and several others of OR-7’s offspring have also come to California, including the breeding female of the Whaleback pack.
California’s only other known wolf pack in modern times, the Shasta pack, was confirmed in summer 2015 but disappeared a few months later.
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is native to California but was driven to extinction in the state by the mid-1920s.
After OR-7 dispersed from Oregon into California, the Center and allies successfully petitioned the state to fully protect wolves under California’s endangered species act.
Wolves are also federally protected in California under the federal Endangered Species Act. It is illegal to intentionally kill any wolves in the state.
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Roughly half of the people who would be affected by a proposed expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program work requirements already do what’s needed to meet those requirements. There’s also evidence suggesting that many of the rest have caregiving or health conditions that prevent them from working.
Formerly known as food stamps, SNAP helps low-income people buy groceries.
Republicans want the federal government to make SNAP benefits for adults age 50 to 55 without dependents or disabilities contingent on spending 80 hours per month on work activities, which may include employment, short-term training and community service. This proposed change is in a package that the Republican-led House of Representatives passed in April 2023 that seeks to cut spending on several social programs.
Currently, the requirements only apply to adults under 50 without dependents who aren’t disabled.
We’re basing these estimates on our analysis of nationally representative time-diary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey.
We analyzed the time that low-income Americans ages 50-55 who didn’t have a disability or child at home spent working, caring for others or dealing with their personal health and well-being from 2012 to 2021.
We found that in most years, more than half of them worked at least 20 hours per week. We estimated that, on average, those who met the work requirement actually worked about 41-51 hours per week – a full-time schedule.
We also determined that relative to their counterparts who met the work requirements, those who did not spent 10 times as much time managing their own health, five times as much time on child care, and more than five times as much time caring for an elderly or disabled adult.
Why it matters
The GOP bill is grounded in a belief that people who get SNAP benefits and aid through other assistance programs are not employed but capable of working, and that enforcing work requirements can increase employment and earnings.
This measure and several others like it are part of a package that would raise the debt limit to avert a potential U.S. default and a global economic crisis.
Our findings support widespread concerns that expanding SNAP work requirements would sever food assistance benefits for an estimated 275,000 low-income people between the ages of 50 and 55, including many with health conditions and who care for others.
That’s troubling because the cost of professional child care and elder care, as well as the care for the disabled, is very high in the U.S.
It’s reasonable to expect that the new work requirements would force many people to make hard choices between the caregiving arrangements for their loved ones and keeping their benefits. Also, since people who have poor health may not be able to work, they may find themselves unable to put food on the table if they lose SNAP benefits.
What other research is being done
SNAP is associated with many positive trends beyond getting enough to eat. These include spending less on health care, having better health and becoming more financially secure.
Further, when Americans use SNAP to buy groceries, studies have shown that it stimulates the economy where they live, supporting low-income communities.
Additional research has found that work requirements tied to aid programs don’t get more low-income people to enter the labor force. Studies also have found that these policies cause many people who are eligible for assistance to lose their benefits due to paperwork hassles and unclear guidelines.
Katherine Engel, PhD Student in Public Administration and Policy, American University School of Public Affairs and Taryn Morrissey, Professor of Public Administration and Policy, American University School of Public Affairs
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.