The dates for the aircraft research program within the IFP have been settled. Those dates are February 15 through March 26, 1999.
The JOSS satellite ground station has been shipped to the Maldives and the system is being installed near the Maldives Meteorology Service Office. Testing is being carried out for data collection of geostationary (METEOSAT-5) and polar orbiter (NOAA 12, 14, 115) data.
If you would like to check on Meteosat5 images of the study area, go to the www.eumetsat.de website. At that site, select "sample products", then "imagery products", then "Indoex mission at 63E". This will give you the past 5 days worth of vis, ir and water products for every 3 hours.
A new US-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation (BSF) Project for 3 years was approved last month for the study of "Middle-East dust sources and transport; modeling, reanalysis and TOMS data". The Principal Investigators are: P. Alpert and J.H. Joseph (Tel-Aviv Univ.), T.N. Krishnamurti (FSU), A. daSilva (NASA), J. Herman(NASA). Senior researchers are Drs. E. Ganor. S. Krichak & M. Tzidulko. It is the intention of this project to use some of the INDOEX case-studies in the project and to enlarge the mesoscale nested domain to incorporate part of the INDOEX domain.
Jurgen Lobert has completed his maintenance trip to KCO. The storage room conversion to lab space was accomplished which increased the lab space by about 60% in preparation for the IFP experiments.
Please remember to access the JOSS INDOEX web pages for the latest in logistics information contained in the information bulletins at that site. A number of them have been updated within the last few days. Access the bulletins via the WWW at www.joss.ucar.edu/indoex/bulletins. If you have questions about any of the information, please contact the individual listed at the end of the particular bulletin you are interested in.
A group of JOSS staff are currently in the Maldives working to finalize arrangements for Ops Center space, network communications, facilities and lodging for the IFP period. We'll communicate news on those arrangements as soon as the details are known. Two representatives from the US C130 aircraft crew are also making a site visit to the Maldives and Mauritius to resolve a number of issues related to that platform.
Bruce Gandrud
INDOEX Project Office
(619) 822-2660 telephone
(619) 822-1632 fax
gandrud@ucar.edu
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