CU News
News from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
JOB PROSPECTS LOOKING UP FOR SPRING GRADS, SAYS CU-BOULDER CAREER SERVICES DIRECTOR
Jan 26th
Job postings and career fair visits by recruiters seeking to hire University of Colorado Boulder graduates in the spring are coming in fast this year, suggesting an improving job market for spring graduates, according to Lisa Severy, director of CU-Boulder’s Career Services office.
“The fact that our career fair is completely sold out and our job postings are also way up tells me that the job market is picking up for this year’s graduates,” Severy said.
The most common major sought by companies looking to hire CU-Boulder graduates this spring is the “all majors” category.
“In other words, companies are looking for talented, educated and motivated leaders from any academic discipline or background,” Severy said. “The companies recruiting our graduates represent a variety of industries and range from small to large organizations.”
The spring career and internship fair for CU-Boulder students and alumni will be held Jan. 26-27 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom and room 235. The fair is open only to CU-Boulder students and alumni.
Some of the companies attending the fair include Facebook, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Apple Inc., the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Peace Corps, Rocky Mountain Youth Corps and Time Warner Cable.
Nationally, the job market for new graduates also shows signs of improving, according to the “Recruiting Trends 2010-2011” survey published by Michigan State University. The survey calls for hiring at the bachelor’s degree level to increase by 10 percent this year.
“The new college graduate market tends to bounce back first because these candidates come at a lower price point and they don’t have to be retrained like those who may be coming from a different company’s culture,” Severy said.
While the job market is showing some positive signs, Severy said students should not wait until the end of the school year to start their job searches.
“Students who will graduate this May should engage the job search process sooner rather than later,” she said. “A career fair is a good place to start, because you get a chance to talk to recruiters face to face and make an impression. At the very least it is good practice for the interviewing process.”
Companies often come to career fairs to find a pool of potential employees and screen them for campus interviews at a later date. Then, if they really like a candidate, they invite them out for an interview at the company location. While every conversation at a career fair does not lead to an interview, students who are job hunting should take advantage of the opportunity to get themselves in front of companies that are hiring.
“Meeting a company representative at a career fair, where they are there specifically to meet potential employees, is a good way to get a foot in the door,” Severy said. “I tell every student I can that they should really take advantage of these opportunities, because these companies have a real interest in CU students.”
For more information about the spring career and internship fair visit http://careerservices.colorado.edu/students/springFair.aspx.
MAJOR FACULTY EXHIBITION OPENS AT CU ART MUSEUM ON JAN. 21
Jan 20th
The CU Art Museum at the University of Colorado Boulder opens the largest faculty exhibition to date on Friday, Jan. 21, at 10 a.m.
The exhibition will feature the work of 22 faculty artists from the department of art and art history and will be displayed through several galleries in the museum’s state-of-the-art facilities in the CU-Boulder Visual Arts Complex.
Works will be presented in an array of media, including video and sound installation, painting, photography, ceramics, digital arts, printmaking, sculpture, and mixed-media/site-specific installation.
“This exhibition allows the campus and broader community an opportunity to experience and enjoy the dynamic artistic accomplishments of a faculty that comprises one of the largest art programs in the West,” said Lisa Tamiris Becker, director of the CU Art Museum. “It highlights the breadth and range of conceptual and aesthetic approaches practiced in our art and art history department.”
The exhibition also marks the return of a valued tradition on campus. The last major faculty show was held in 2007.
Located in the cultural heart of the campus, the CU Art Museum is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays until 7 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. Parking is available in the nearby Euclid Avenue parking garage. Learn more about this exhibit and other concurrent exhibits at http://cuartmuseum.colorado.edu.
Selected images from the exhibit are available by entering the keywords “faculty art” at http://photography.colorado.edu/res/sites/news/.
CU-Boulder hosts thousands of lectures, exhibits, performances and sporting events each year. For a full listing of campus events visit http://www.colorado.edu/events.
-CU MEDIA RELEASE
Scientists Boulder IMPROVED MEASUREMENTS OF SUN TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Jan 15th
In a new study of laboratory and satellite data, researchers report a lower value of that energy, known as total solar irradiance, than previously measured and demonstrate that the satellite instrument that made the measurement—which has a new optical design and was calibrated in a new way—has significantly improved the accuracy and consistency of such measurements.
The new findings give confidence, the researchers say, that other, newer satellites expected to launch starting early this year will measure total solar irradiance with adequate repeatability – and with little enough uncertainty – to help resolve the long-standing question of how significant a contributor solar fluctuations are to the rising average global temperature of the planet.
“Improved accuracies and stabilities in the long-term total solar irradiance record mean improved estimates of the sun’s influence on Earth’s climate,” said Greg Kopp
of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) of the University of Colorado Boulder.
Kopp, who led the study, and Judith Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington, D.C., published their findings today in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The new work will help advance scientists’ ability to understand the contribution of natural versus anthropogenic causes of climate change, the scientists said. That’s because the research improves the accuracy of the continuous, 32-year record of total solar irradiance, or TSI. Energy from the sun is the primary energy input driving Earth’s climate, which scientific consensus indicates has been warming since the Industrial Revolution.
Lean specializes in the effects of the sun on climate and space weather. She said, “Scientists estimating Earth’s climate sensitivities need accurate and stable solar irradiance records to know exactly how much warming to attribute to changes in the sun’s output, versus anthropogenic or other natural forcings.”
The new, lower TSI value was measured by the LASP-built Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) instrument on the NASA Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) spacecraft. Tests at a new calibration facility at LASP verify the lower TSI value. The ground-based calibration facility enables scientists to validate their instruments under on-orbit conditions against a reference standard calibrated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Before the development of the calibration facility, solar irradiance instruments would frequently return different measurements from each other, depending on their calibration. To maintain a long-term record of the sun’s output through time, scientists had to rely on overlapping measurements that allowed them to intercalibrate among instruments.
Kopp said, “The calibration facility indicates that the TIM is producing the most accurate total solar irradiance results to date, providing a baseline value that allows us to make the entire 32-year record more accurate. This baseline value will also help ensure that we can maintain this important climate data record for years into the future, reducing the risks from a potential gap in spacecraft measurements.”
Lean said, “We are eager to see how this lower irradiance value affects global climate models, which use various parameters to reproduce current climate: incoming solar radiation is a decisive factor. An improved and extended solar data record will make it easier for us to understand how fluctuations in the sun’s energy output over time affect temperatures, and how Earth’s climate responds to radiative forcing.”
Lean’s model, which is now adjusted to the new lower absolute TSI values, reproduces with high fidelity the TSI variations that TIM observes and indicates that solar irradiance levels during the recent prolonged solar minimum period were likely comparable to levels in past solar minima. Using this model, Lean estimates that solar variability produces about 0.1o Celsius (0.18o Fahrenheit) global warming during the 11-year solar cycle, but is likely not the main cause of global warming in the past three decades.
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Notes for Journalists
Journalists and public information officers (PIOs) of educational and scientific institutions who have registered with AGU can download a PDF copy of this paper in press by clicking on this link:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL045777/abstract;jsessionid=7AE633544C9A94E3832D9F67B4F39D70.d02t02
Or, you may order a copy of the final paper by emailing your request to Peter Weiss at pweiss@agu.org. Please provide your name, the name of your publication, and your phone number.
Neither the paper nor this press release are under embargo.
Title:
“A new, lower value of total solar irradiance: Evidence and climate significance”
Authors:
Greg Kopp: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder,
Colorado, USA;
Judith L. Lean: Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D. C., USA.