On the Use of QuikSCAT Scatterometer Measurements of Surface Winds for Marine Weather Prediction

The value of Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) measurements of 10-m ocean vector winds for marine weather prediction is investigated from two Northern Hemisphere case studies. The first of these focuses on an intense cyclone with hurricane-force winds that occurred over the extratropical western North Pacific on 10 January 2005. The second is a 17 February 2005 example that is typical of sea surface temperature influence on low-level winds in moderate wind conditions in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream in the western North Atlantic. In both cases, the analyses of 10-m winds from the NCEP and ECMWF global numerical weather prediction models considerably underestimated the spatial variability of the wind field on scales smaller than 1000 km compared with the structure determined from QuikSCAT observations. The NCEP and ECMWF models both assimilate QuikSCAT observations. While the accuracies of the 10-m wind analyses from these models measurably improved after implementation of the QuikSCAT data assimilation, the information content in the QuikSCAT data is underutilized by the numerical models. QuikSCAT data are available in near–real time in the NOAA/NCEP Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (N-AWIPS) and are used extensively in manual analyses of surface winds. The high resolution of the QuikSCAT data is routinely utilized by forecasters at the NOAA/NCEP Ocean Prediction Center, Tropical Prediction Center, and other NOAA weather forecast offices to improve the accuracies of wind warnings in marine forecasts

Predictors of Alcohol Use after Bariatric Surgery

Patients undergoing bariatric surgery are at risk for devloping an alcohol use disorder (AUD). The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-surgical psychosocial risk factors for post-surgical alcohol consumption and hazardous drinking. Participants (N = 567) who underwent bariatric surgery between 2014 and 2017 reported their post-surgical alcohol use. Information was collected from the pre-surgical evaluation including history of alcohol use, psychiatric symptoms, and maladaptive eating behaviors (i.e., binge eating, purging, and emotional eating). Younger age and pre-surgical alcohol use predicted post-surgical alcohol use and hazardous drinking. In addition, higher levels of depressive symptoms and maladaptive eating patterns predicted post-surgical binge drinking. Clinicians conducting pre-surgical psychosocial evaluations should be aware of the multiple risk factors related to post-surgical problematic alcohol use. Future research should evaluate whether preventive interventions for high-risk patients decrease risk for post-surgical alcohol misuse

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Using frontogenesis to identify sting jets in extratropical cyclones

Sting jets, or surface windmaxima at the end of bent-back fronts in Shapiro–Keyser cyclones, are one cause of strong winds in extratropical cyclones. Although previous studies identified the release of conditional symmetric instability as a cause of sting jets, the mechanism to initiate its release remains unidentified. To identify this mechanism, a case studywas selected of an intense cyclone over the NorthAtlanticOcean during 7–8December 2005 that possessed a sting jet detected from the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT). A couplet of Petterssen frontogenesis and frontolysis occurred along the bent-back front. The direct circulation associated with the frontogenesis led to ascent within the cyclonically turning portion of the warm conveyor belt, con-tributing to the comma-cloud head. When the bent-back front became frontolytic, an indirect circulation as-sociated with the frontolysis, in conjunction with alongfront cold advection, led to descent within and on the warm side of the front, bringing higher-momentum air down toward the boundary layer. Sensible heat fluxes from the ocean surface and cold-air advection destabilized the boundary layer, resulting in near-neutral static stability facilitating downward mixing. Thus, descent associated with the frontolysis reaching a near-neutral boundary layer provides a physical mechanism for sting jets, is consistent with previous studies, and synthesizes existing knowledge. Specifically, this couplet of frontogenesis and frontolysis could explainwhy sting jets occur at the end of the bent-back front and emerge from the cloud head, why sting jets are mesoscale phenomena, and why they only occurwithin Shapiro–Keyser cyclones.A larger dataset of cases is necessary to test this hypothesis. 1

spacetelescope/drizzlepac: Drizzlepac v3.6.2 release candidate 1

<h2>High-level Summary</h2> <p>Follow on to Release Candidate 0.</p> <h2>What's Changed</h2> <ul> <li>Update code to update WPFC2 chip gaps by @stsci-hack in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1551</li> <li>HlA-1059: Reference catalog weights corrected by @s-goldman in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1616</li> <li>HLA-1052: Updated WFPC2 drizzle parameters for HAP by @s-goldman in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1617</li> <li>Fixed bug in calculation of the measurements for each detected source by @mdlpstsci in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1614</li> <li>HLA-1048: Redesign of readthedocs documentation by @s-goldman in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1620</li> <li>Drizzlepac: Ensure the "best" WCS solution is found when using a set by @mdlpstsci in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1638</li> <li>Correctly fix the wcs preferential order REL > IMG, GAIA*3 > GAIA[2|1] by @mdlpstsci in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1645</li> <li>drop support for Python 3.8 by @zacharyburnett in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1541</li> <li>Removed version restriction on Matplotlib by @mdlpstsci in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1649</li> <li>Allow group specifications as integers or tuples by @mcara in https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/pull/1612</li> </ul> <p><strong>Full Changelog</strong>: https://github.com/spacetelescope/drizzlepac/compare/3.6.1...3.6.2rc1</p&gt

spacetelescope/drizzlepac: Drizzlepac v3.6.2 release candidate 2

<h2>High-level Summary</h2> <p>Follow on to Release Candidate 0.</p> <h2>What's Changed</h2> <ul> <li>Pin Astrocut to avoid urllib3 version conflict by @mdlpstsci in https://github.com/spacetelescop/drizzlepac/pull/1689</li> </ul&gt