Iowa\u27s First Ruffed Grouse Hunting Season in 45 Years

A 16-day hunting season on ruffed grouse, the first in 45 years, was held in northeastern Iowa in 1968. Season dates were November 2 to 17, inclusive, with a daily bag limit of two and a possession limit of four birds. The 1150 hunters who took part in this season bagged 720 grouse, or 0.6 birds per hunter for the entire season. It took an average of 11.8 gun hours of hunting to bag one ruffed grouse. Birds were flushed at the rate of a bird per 1.9 hours of hunting. An average of 5.4 shots was fired per bird bagged. The sex ratio of 42 birds checked was 50:50. A ratio of 1.5 immatures per adult was found in this sample, with 60 per cent of the take thus being juvenile birds. Color phases of those birds were in the ratio of 50 red: 20 intermediate: 30 gray. Half of all grouse hunting was done in Allamakee County, with 35% in Winneshiek, 15% in Clayton and insignificant amounts in other counties. The estimated take of 720 birds represents a 6% rate of harvest of the estimated fall population of 12,000 ruffed grouse

Recent Wild Turkey Introductions into Iowa

Efforts by the Iowa Conservation Commission to reintroduce wild turkeys into their former range in Iowa have been expanded considerably in recent years. Since the initial release of Rio Grande wild turkeys in the Yellow River State Forest in northeastern Iowa in 1960-61, additional releases have been made at five other sites. Merriam\u27s wild turkeys were liberated in the eastern part of Stephens State Forest in south central Iowa and in Monona County in western Iowa in early 1966. Eastern wild turkeys were stocked in Shimek State Forest in southeastern Iowa in 1965-66, in the western part of Stephens State Forest in early 1968, and along the Upper Iowa River, Allamakee County, in 1969. Results to date indicate that the Eastern subspecies is best suited to Iowa conditions, as evidenced by their good survival, production, and increase in numbers. The Rio Grande and Merriam\u27s are not increasing their numbers to any significant degree, however

The Fate of Saharan Dust Across the Atlantic and Implications for a Central American Dust Barrier

Saharan dust was observed over the Caribbean basin during the summer 2007 NASA Tropical Composition, Cloud, and Climate Coupling (TC4) field experiment. Airborne Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) and satellite observations from MODIS suggest a barrier to dust transport across Central America into the eastern Pacific. We use the NASA GEOS-5 atmospheric transport model with online aerosol tracers to perform simulations of the TC4 time period in order to understand the nature of this barrier. Our simulations are driven by the Modem Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological analyses. We evaluate our baseline simulated dust distributions using MODIS and CALIOP satellite and ground-based AERONET sun photometer observations. GEOS-5 reproduces the observed location, magnitude, and timing of major dust events, but our baseline simulation does not develop as strong a barrier to dust transport across Central America as observations suggest. Analysis of the dust transport dynamics and lost processes suggest that while both mechanisms play a role in defining the dust transport barrier, loss processes by wet removal of dust are about twice as important as transport. Sensitivity analyses with our model showed that the dust barrier would not exist without convective scavenging over the Caribbean. The best agreement between our model and the observations was obtained when dust wet removal was parameterized to be more aggressive, treating the dust as we do hydrophilic aerosols

Current Status of the Woodcock in Iowa

Iowa is at the western edge of the continental range of woodcock. Because of their scarcity in the state, little interest has been shown in them. They are a prized game bird in many states in the eastern half of the country. In 1961, Iowa began participating in the annual U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spring woodcock census, which has increased efforts to learn more about this species in the state. The spring singing-ground census of courting males revealed that a low population of breeding woodcock exists in suitable habitat, primarily limited to the eastern one-third of the state. Thirty verified records of nesting woodcock in Iowa, most from brood sightings, were recorded during the 1960\u27s and 1970\u27s. These bracketed the state from the Mississippi to the Missouri rivers. Other sightings have been reported from various locations in the state during spring and fall migration. A composite of information available showed that woodcock are not abundant but are widely distributed over Iowa

Thematic Mapper image quality: Preliminary results

Based on images analyzed so far, the band to band registration accuracy of the thematic mapper is very good. For bands within the same focal plane, the mean misregistrations are well within the specification, 0.2 pixels. For bands between the cooled and uncooled focal planes, there is a consistent mean misregistration of 0.5 pixels along-scan and 0.2-0.3 pixels across-scan. It exceeds the permitted 0.3 pixels for registration of bands between focal planes. If the mean misregistrations were removed by the data processing software, an analysis of the standard deviation of the misregistration indicates all band combinations would meet the registration specifications except for those including the thermal band. Analysis of the periodic noise in one image indicates a noise component in band 1 with a spatial frequency equivalent to 3.2 pixels in the along-scan direction

Recent Status of Ruffed Grouse in Iowa

The ruffed grouse is a native Iowa game bird, formerly present in forested areas over much of the state. Intensive land use that replaced forested areas with croplands or grazed them heavily with livestock resulted in the disappearance of the species from all but northeastern Iowa by about 1930. Ruffed grouse are presently found in suitable forested habitat in all of Allamakee and Clayton Counties, most of Winneshiek County and in portions of Fayette, Dubuque, Delaware and Howard Counties immediately adjacent to occupied range in the three counties first listed. Spring roadside drumming counts have given an index of 1.6 drums per stop during the past 8 years on several routes within the primary Iowa grouse range, indicating a good population does exist in the area. An average spring population for recent years of about 4,000 birds is estimated, with a fall population of about 12,000. Initial attempts have been made to re-introduce ruffed grouse into Shimek State Forest in southeastern Iowa, with further efforts scheduled for Stephens State Forest in south central Iowa

The Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document for the GLAS Atmospheric Data Products

The purpose of this document is to present a detailed description of the algorithm theoretical basis for each of the GLAS data products. This will be the final version of this document. The algorithms were initially designed and written based on the authors prior experience with high altitude lidar data on systems such as the Cloud and Aerosol Lidar System (CALS) and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), both of which fly on the NASA ER-2 high altitude aircraft. These lidar systems have been employed in many field experiments around the world and algorithms have been developed to analyze these data for a number of atmospheric parameters. CALS data have been analyzed for cloud top height, thin cloud optical depth, cirrus cloud emittance (Spinhirne and Hart, 1990) and boundary layer depth (Palm and Spinhirne, 1987, 1998). The successor to CALS, the CPL, has also been extensively deployed in field missions since 2000 including the validation of GLAS and CALIPSO. The CALS and early CPL data sets also served as the basis for the construction of simulated GLAS data sets which were then used to develop and test the GLAS analysis algorithms

The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS): a New Lidar for Aerosol and Cloud Profiling from the International Space Station

Spaceborne lidar profiling of aerosol and cloud layers has been successfully implemented during a number of prior missions, including LITE, ICESat, and CALIPSO. Each successive mission has added increased capability and further expanded the role of these unique measurements in wide variety of applications ranging from climate, to air quality, to special event monitoring (ie, volcanic plumes). Many researchers have come to rely on the availability of profile data from CALIPSO, especially data coincident with measurements from other A-Train sensors. The CALIOP lidar on CALIPSO continues to operate well as it enters its fifth year of operations. However, active instruments have more limited lifetimes than their passive counterparts, and we are faced with a potential gap in lidar profiling from space if the CALIOP lidar fails before a new mission is operational. The ATLID lidar on EarthCARE is not expected to launch until 2015 or later, and the lidar component of NASA's proposed Aerosols, Clouds, and Ecosystems (ACE) mission would not be until after 2020. Here we present a new aerosol and cloud lidar that was recently selected to provide profiling data from the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2013. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) is a three wavelength (1064, 532, 355 nm) elastic backscatter lidar with HSRL capability at 532 nm. Depolarization measurements will be made at all wavelengths. The primary objective of CATS is to continue the CALIPSO aerosol and cloud profile data record, ideally with overlap between both missions and EarthCARE. In addition, the near real time data capability of the ISS will enable CATS to support operational applications such as air quality and special event monitoring. The HSRL channel will provide a demonstration of technology and a data testbed for direct extinction retrievals in support of ACE mission development. An overview of the instrument and mission will be provided, along with a summary of the science objectives and simulated data

The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS): A New Lidar for Aerosol and Cloud Profiling from the International Space Station

Spaceborne lidar profiling of aerosol and cloud layers has been successfully implemented during a number of prior missions, including LITE, ICESat, and CALIPSO. Each successive mission has added increased capability and further expanded the role of these unique measurements in wide variety of applications ranging from climate, to air quality, to special event monitoring (ie, volcanic plumes). Many researchers have come to rely on the availability of profile data from CALIPSO, especially data coincident with measurements from other A-Train sensors. The CALIOP lidar on CALIPSO continues to operate well as it enters its fifth year of operations. However, active instruments have more limited lifetimes than their passive counterparts, and we are faced with a potential gap in lidar profiling from space if the CALIOP lidar fails before a new mission is operational. The ATLID lidar on EarthCARE is not expected to launch until 2015 or later, and the lidar component of NASA's proposed Aerosols, Clouds, and Ecosystems (ACE) mission would not be until after 2020. Here we present a new aerosol and cloud lidar that was recently selected to provide profiling data from the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2013. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) is a three wavelength (1064,532,355 nm) elastic backscatter lidar with HSRL capability at 532 nm. Depolarization measurements will be made at all wavelengths. The primary objective of CATS is to continue the CALIPSO aerosol and cloud profile data record, ideally with overlap between both missions and EarthCARE. In addition, the near real time (NRT) data capability ofthe ISS will enable CATS to support operational applications such as aerosol and air quality forecasting and special event monitoring. The HSRL channel will provide a demonstration of technology and a data testbed for direct extinction retrievals in support of ACE mission development. An overview of the instrument and mission will be provided, along with a summary of the science objectives and simulated data. Input from the ICAP community is desired to help plan our NRT mission goals and interactions with ICAP forecasters

The Fate of Saharan Dust Across the Atlantic: An Integrated Modeling and Observational Study of the TC4 Field Campaign

During the NASA TC-4 field campaign in July 2007, several Saharan dust events were observed over the Caribbean basin. A-Train observations suggest that these Saharan dust events are confined the Caribbean and rarely transported across Central America to the Pacific Ocean. We investigate the nature of this barrier to dust transport using the NASA GEOS-5 atmospheric general circulation model. Our simulations with GEOS-5 are driven by the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological analyses, and include online simulation of aerosol distributions using a version of the Goddard Chemistry, Aerosol, Radiation, and Transport (GOCART) model. Simulated dust distributions are evaluated using A-Train observations from MODIS and CALIOP, as well as MISR and ground-based AERONET sun photometers, and show good agreement with the observations in terms of the timing and magnitude of dust events. A component analysis of the dust transport and removal pathways is used to evaluate the relative roles of these processes in establishing the observed dust transport barrier. From this analysis, we show that while both atmospheric dynamics and wet removal contribute towards the Caribbean dust barrier, northward dust transport is the more dominant term. Additional simulations are performed to ascertain the sensitivity of our results to uncertain loss processes (i.e., wet removal) in our model