MEMORANDUM FOR:         Mark DeMaria, Supervisory Meteorologist
                                                NOAA/NESDIS/RAMMT

                                                FROM: Bard Zajac, Research Associate
                                                NOAA/NESDIS/RAMMT

                                                SUBJECT: Trip Report
                                                AGU Fall 2000 Meeting
                                                San Francisco, CA
                                                December 15-19, 2000

Bard Zajac attended the American Geophysical Union Fall 2000 Meeting held in San Francisco from December 15-19. Zajac presented a poster entitled "Cloud-to-ground lightning activity in the north-central United States from 1995-99" for the Lightning and Thunderstorm Electrification session. The poster examined signals that appear to be due to dominant lightning production by vigorous, and possibly severe, storms. The session on "Biospheric Results from Terra" provided insight into the MISR instrument and satellite geolocation. The Multi-angle SpectroRadiometer (MISR) views the sunlit earth at nine widely-spaced angles, allowing cloud-track winds and cloud stereo heights to be calculated. Information on these products can be found at:
http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp_ATBD/REVIEW/MISR/ATBD-MISR-07/atbd-misr-07.pdf
The Terra satellite was designed for accurate geolocation. For example, data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) can be navigated without aid to within 150 m (1 sigma) at nadir, and to within 50 m using a global network of ground control points (Wolfe et al. 2000).