Engineering Commons^™

Forecasting Nigeria's Electricity Demand And Energy Efficiency Potential Under Climate Uncertainty, Olawale Olabisi

Doctoral Dissertations

The increasing population and socio-economic growth of Nigeria, coupled with the current, unmet electricity demand, requires the need for power supply facilities expansion. Of all Nigeria’s electricity consumption by sector, the residential sector is the largest and growing at a very fast rate. To meet this growing demand, an accurate estimation of the demand into the future that will guide policy makers to adequately plan for the expansion of electricity supply and distribution, and energy efficiency standards and labeling must be made. To achieve this, a residential electricity demand forecast model that can correctly predict future demand and guide the …

Utility Scale Building Energy Modeling And Climate Impacts, Brett C. Bass

Doctoral Dissertations

Energy consumption is steadily increasing year over year in the United States (US). Climate change and anthropogenically forced shifts in weather have a significant impact on energy use as well as the resilience of the built environment and the electric grid. With buildings accounting for about 40% of total energy use in the US, building energy modeling (BEM) at a large scale is critical. This work advances that effort in a number of ways. First, current BEM approaches, their ability to scale to large geographical areas, and global climate models are reviewed. Next, a methodology for large-scale BEM is illustrated, …

Assessment Of Biomass Burning And Mineral Dust Impacts On Air Quality And Regional Climate, Xinyi Dong

Doctoral Dissertations

East Asia is frequently influenced by dust storms and biomass burning. This study conducts a comprehensive investigation of its kind based on data analysis with surface measurements, satellite products, and model simulations. The objective of this study is to improve the understanding of the impacts of biomass burning and dust on air quality and regional climate. The study period covers March and April from 2006 to 2010. Biomass burning from Peninsular Southeast Asia (PSEA) has significant annual variations by up to 60% within the study period. The impact of biomass burning on air quality is mainly confined within the upper …

Hydrologic Reconstructions Using Dendroclimatology, Climate Signals, And Pacific Ocean Sea Surface Temperature Variability, Sallyrose Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

The Colorado River provides water to over 25 million people. Given the importance of this water supply, it is critical to understand the hydrologic variables in the Colorado River Basin. In this dissertation, I reconstructed hydrologic conditions (soil moisture, snowpack) in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) and examined different factors that influence water supply in the region (climate oscillations, oceanic-atmospheric variability).

Firstly, I reconstructed soil moisture in the UCRB. Principal components analysis (PCA) and k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) techniques were used to regionalize the gridded data. Correlated tree-ring chronologies (TRCs) were used as predictor variables in stepwise linear regression (SLR) …

Hydrology, Soil Erosion And Climate Interactions On Low Compaction Steep-Sloped Reclaimed Sites In The Southern Appalachian Coal Fields, Tennessee, Siavash Hoomehr

Doctoral Dissertations

The use of loose spoil on steep slopes for surface coal mining reclamation sites has been promoted by the US Department of Interior, Office of Surface Mining for the establishment of native forest. Although low-compaction spoils improve tree survival and growth, the erodibility and hydrology of steep slopes may change due to this practice. The purpose of this study was to quantify the erodibility (K factor), and the Curve Number (CN) value for low compaction, steep-sloped (> 20%) reclaimed mine lands in the Appalachian region, USA. This study also investigated the performance of the SEDCAD model in estimating erosion and …

The Effects Of Varying Physical Parameterizations And Initial Conditions On Tracer Transport In The National Aeronautics And Space Administration’S Goddard Earth Observation System Model, Version 5, Melissa Ree Allen

Masters Theses

The evolution of General Circulation Models (GCM) for climate study has led to more accurate predictions for atmospheric transport, yet precision in predictions remains in need of improvement. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Earth Observation System model, Version 5 (GEOS-5) represents a state of the art climate model capable of simulating a wide variety of atmospheric processes informed continuously by satellite observations. This thesis examines some of the physical parameterizations employed by GEOS-5 and their effect on the transport of two greenhouse gasses: ozone and carbon dioxide.

Wind River Range Snowpack Reconstruction Using Dendochronology And Sea Surface Temperatures, Sallyrose Anderson

Masters Theses

Multiple reconstructions of April 1st snow water equivalent (SWE) are generated for the Wind River Range (WRR), located in west-central Wyoming, to determine the most accurate predictors. Predictors included climate signal data (Southern Oscillation Index), traditional predictors (tree-ring chronologies), and non-spatially biased Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Incorporation of Pacific Ocean SSTs as a whole provides a more comprehensive representation of oceanic-atmospheric variability. Rotated principal component analysis (PCA) was used to regionalize April 1st snowpack data (1961 – 1999) from snow telemetry stations (SNOTEL stations). Tree-ring chronologies that were stable across the period of overlapping records (1961 – 1999) …