Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Potentially Massive And Global Non-Pyrogenic Production Of Condensed "Black" Carbon Through Biomass Oxidation, Aleksandar I. Goranov, Hongmei Chen, Jianshu Duan, Satish C. B. Myneni, Patrick G. Hatcher

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

With the increased occurrences of wildfires worldwide, there has been an increase in scientific interest surrounding the chemistry of fire-derived "black" carbon (BC). Traditionally, wildfire research has assumed that condensed aromatic carbon (ConAC) is exclusively produced via combustion, and thus, ConAC is equated to BC. However, the lack of correlations between ConAC in soils or rivers and wildfire history suggests that ConAC may be produced non-pyrogenically. Here, we show quantitative evidence that this occurs during the oxidation of biomass with environmentally ubiquitous hydroxyl radicals. Pine wood boards exposed to iron nails and natural weather conditions for 12 years yielded a …

Adapting To Extreme Heat: Social, Atmospheric, And Infrastructure Impacts Of Air Conditioning In Megacities - The Case Of New York City, Harold Gamarro

Dissertations and Theses

Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense in most large cities. Built-up surfaces also limit cooling mechanisms, leading to warmer conditions in cities, a phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island (UHI). This presents major challenges to reduce adverse health effects of hot weather, particularly in vulnerable populations like the elderly and low-income communities. Here we explore the overall impacts of increasing air conditioning (AC) system adoption in residences as an adaptive measure to reduce human health risks under heat waves, with New York City (NYC) as a case study. This study uses AC adoption data from the 2017 …

Assessing Agricultural Risk Management Using Historic Crop Insurance Loss Data Over The Ogallala Aquifer, Julian Reyes, Emile Elias, Erin M.K. Haacker, Amy Kremen, Lauren Parker, Caitlin Rottler

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Much of the agricultural production in the Ogallala Aquifer region relies on groundwater for irrigation. In addition to declining water levels, weather and climate-driven events affect crop yields and revenues. Crop insurance serves as a risk management tool to mitigate these perils. Here, we seek to understand what long-term crop insurance loss data can tell us about agricultural risk management in the Ogallala. We assess patterns and trends in crop insurance loss data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency. Indemnities, or insurance payments, totaled $22 billion from 1989–2017 for the 161 counties that overlie the Ogallala Aquifer. …

Statistical And Machine Learning Methods Evaluated For Incorporating Soil And Weather Into Corn Nitrogen Recommendations, Curtis J. Ransom, Newell R. Kitchen, James J. Camberato, Paul R. Carter, Richard B. Ferguson, Fabián G. Fernández, David W. Franzen, Carrie A. M. Laboski, D. Brenton Myers, Emerson D. Nafziger, John E. Sawyer, John F. Shanahan

John E. Sawyer

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer recommendation tools could be improved for estimating corn (Zea mays L.) N needs by incorporating site-specific soil and weather information. However, an evaluation of analytical methods is needed to determine the success of incorporating this information. The objectives of this research were to evaluate statistical and machine learning (ML) algorithms for utilizing soil and weather information for improving corn N recommendation tools. Eight algorithms [stepwise, ridge regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso), elastic net regression, principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares regression (PLSR), decision tree, and random forest] were evaluated using a dataset …

An Observational Study Of Winter Weather-Related Traffic Crashes In Nebraska, Jacob Petr

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The responsibilities of meteorologists have evolved over time from simply providing a forecast to needing to also understand how those predictions will impact society and then communicating those risks in a clear, concise, and consistent manner. Increased motor vehicle crash numbers due to adverse weather conditions represent one such impact worthy of further study. Snowfall, in particular, significantly increases the overall risk of a crash, which can result in extensive property damage, severe injuries, and even loss of life.This project seeks to supplement traffic crash information in Nebraska by assessing how snowfall impacts crashes across the state. Crash data were …

The Role Of Boundary-Parallel Vertical Wind Shear In Convection Initiation, Alexander J. Krull

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Convection initiation (CI) remains a forecasting challenge for meteorologists. CI frequently occurs within the vicinity of some airmass boundary or density current. Airmass boundaries are favored areas of convergence, thus associated forced ascent facilitates CI. Features such as misocyclones often develop along the leading edge of airmass boundaries, favoring updraft formation and prompting alterations to the horizontal and vertical flow near the boundary. Airmass boundary characteristics and CI potential have been found to be sensitive to the environmental vertical wind shear. This affects propagation speed, convergence, and thus forced ascent along the leading edge. Previous studies have focused primarily on …

Radar Quantification, Temporal Analysis And Influence Of Atmospheric Conditions On A Roost Of American Robins (Turdus Migratorius) In Oklahoma, Matthew S. Van Den Broeke

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Radar observations present a way to monitor large, mobile populations across long temporal scales, and are especially valuable when individual scatterers are challenging to count visually. The focus of this study is a large and relatively homogeneous wintertime roost of American Robins (Turdus migratorius) in central Oklahoma. Radar observations are used to estimate the roost population through winter 2010–2011, and the population time series is related to weather variables and radar beam propagation. Radar-estimated roost population gradually increased to an estimated peak of 1.5–2 million individuals from November 2010 to January 2011, and then decreased in a more …

Florida Science: The Science That Makes Florida Different, Terence W. Cavanaugh

Secondary Level Resources

This book was created to assist students with their understanding of how science occurs in Florida. When teaching science or any subject it’s important to remember to begin with the concrete and then move to the abstract. I have found that it has helped my students when I begin by teaching science concepts in a concrete manner and expand from there. For example, when I taught about topographic maps, the students were much more successful in their learning when I started with local topographic maps that included the school and the surrounding area than with places that had mountains or …

The Influence Of Arctic Amplification On Mid-Latitude Summer Circulation, Dim Coumou, Giorgia Di Capua, Steve Vavrus, Lei Wang, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Accelerated warming in the Arctic, as compared to the rest of the globe, might have profound impacts on mid-latitude weather. Most studies analyzing Arctic links to mid-latitude weather focused on winter, yet recent summers have seen strong reductions in sea-ice extent and snow cover, a weakened equator-to-pole thermal gradient and associated weakening of the mid-latitude circulation. We review the scientific evidence behind three leading hypotheses on the influence of Arctic changes on mid-latitude summer weather: Weakened storm tracks, shifted jet streams, and amplified quasi-stationary waves. We show that interactions between Arctic teleconnections and other remote and regional feedback processes could …

Rainfall Accumulation In Clarksville, Tennessee 2015093 To 2015121, Jessica Mae Bender

Graduate Student Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this project was to collect rainfall samples and record the data in such a way that tested a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that the area in Clarksville, Tennessee where the samples are collected will collect up to eight inches of rain for the thirteen week time span.

Tornadoes: Are They Becoming More Frequent And Severe?, Matthew E. Westburg

Natural Sciences Student Research Presentations

Inconsistent record keeping, changes with tornado reporting systems such as the Fujita Scale and Doppler radar, increased public awareness, the use of technology to report tornadoes, and the shifting populations have all played a role in increasing the number of reported tornadoes in Illinois and in the United States. The role that global warming has played in the increased number of tornadoes and their severity since 1950, is still unclear. Several more years of tornado data collecting is needed for us to have a more definitive answer as to whether tornadoes are increasing in frequency and severity and the role …

Ordway Weather And Water Data 2011, Macalester College

Ordway Weather Data

Contains daily readings for the year indicated. The values include: PAR umol/s/m2, avg wind dir degree, avg windspeed mph, Avg Max Windspeed mph, Avg airtemp C, Avg RH %, Avg BP mmHg, Avg DailyRain in, Avg Rain Duration sec, Avg RainIntensity in/h, Avg Water Temp F, Avg sp cond mS/cm, avg pH, Avg Turb NTU+, Avg ODOSat %, Avg ODO mg/L, Water station PAR umol/s/m2, Avg Water Level m. File format: CSV.

Effects Of Lightning And Other Meteorological Factors On Fire Activity In The North American Boreal Forest: Implications For Fire Weather Forecasting, David Peterson, Jun Wang, Charles Ichoku, Lorraine Remer

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest are statistically analyzed during the fire seasons of 2000–2006 through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-km gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), and the lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hPa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry …

Ordway Weather And Water Data 2010, Macalester College

Ordway Weather Data

Contains daily readings for the year indicated. The values include: PAR umol/s/m2, avg wind dir degree, avg windspeed mph, Avg Max Windspeed mph, Avg airtemp C, Avg RH %, Avg BP mmHg, Avg DailyRain in, Avg Rain Duration sec, Avg RainIntensity in/h, Avg Water Temp F, Avg sp cond mS/cm, avg pH, Avg Turb NTU+, Avg ODOSat %, Avg ODO mg/L, Water station PAR umol/s/m2, Avg Water Level m. File format: CSV.

Impacts Of Meteorological Factors On Modis-Observed Fire Activity In The North American Boreal Forest: The Role Of Lightning, David A. Peterson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The meteorological impact on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest during the fire seasons of 2000 – 2006 is statistically analyzed through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-km gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), the instantaneous lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN), and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hpa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry days are found …

Crop Updates 2009 - Farming Systems, Derk Bakker, Grey Poulish, Steve Lacy, Svetlana Micic, Peter Mangano, Tony Dore, Alan Lord, Vivien Vanstone, Helen Hunter, Sean Kelly, W. K. Anderson, Gary Lang, David Mccarthy, Ruhi Ferdowsian, Ian Rose, Andrew Van Burgel, David Ferris, Rob Grima, Natalie Hogg, John Davis, Jarrad Martin, Pippa Michael, Robert Belford, Kawsar P. Salam, Roy Murray-Prior, David Bowran, Moin U. Salam, Tim Scanlon, Len Wade, Megan Ryan, Megan Abrahams, Chad Reynolds, Caroline Peek, Dennis Van Gool, Kari-Lee Falconer, Daniel Gardiner, Geoff Anderson, Siva Sivapalan, Tim Mcclelland, James Hunt, Zvi Hochman, Bill Long, Dean Holzworth, Anthony Whitbread, Stephen Van Rees, Peter Devoil, Yvette Oliver, Michael Robertson, Peter Stone

Crop Updates

This session covers nineteen papers from different authors:

Decision support technology

1. The use of high resolution imagery in broad acre cropping, Derk Bakker and Grey Poulish, Department of Agriculture and Food

2. Spraywise decisions – online spray applicatiors planning tool, Steve Lacy, Nufarm Australia Ltd

3. Testing for redlegged earthmite resistance in Western Australia, Svetlana Micic, Peter Mangano, Tony Dore and Alan Lord, Department of Agriculture and Food

4. Screening cereal, canola and pasture cultivars for Root Lesion Nematode (Pratylenchus neglectus), Vivien Vanstone, Helen Hunter and Sean Kelly,Department of Agriculture and Food

Farming Systems Research

5. …

Ordway Weather And Water Data 2009, Macalester College

Ordway Weather Data

Contains daily readings for the year indicated. The values include: PAR umol/s/m2, avg wind dir degree, avg windspeed mph, Avg Max Windspeed mph, Avg airtemp C, Avg RH %, Avg BP mmHg, Avg DailyRain in, Avg Rain Duration sec, Avg RainIntensity in/h, Avg Water Temp F, Avg sp cond mS/cm, avg pH, Avg Turb NTU+, Avg ODOSat %, Avg ODO mg/L, Water station PAR umol/s/m2, Avg Water Level m. File format: CSV.

Crop Updates 2007 - Farming Systems, David Jeffries, A. Loi, B. J. Nutt, C. K. Revell, Yvette Oliver, Michael Robertson, Bill Bowden, Kit Leake, Ashley Bonser, Ian Maling, Bindi Isbister, Garren Knell, Alison Slade, David Stephens, Michael Meuleners, David Beard, Nicolyn Short, Rob Grima, Ingrid Richardson, Ruhi Ferdowsian, Geoff Bee, David Evans, Bob Gilkes, Senthold Asseng, Jim Dixon, Felicity Byrne, Mike Ewing, Dennis Van Gool, Louise Barton, Ralf Kiese, David Gatter, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, Renee Buck, Christoph Hinz, Daniel Murphy, Cameron Weeks, Meredith Fairbanks, John Peirce, Brad Rayner, Sandy White, Paul Damon, Qifa Ma, Zed Rengel, Ed Barrett-Lennard, Meir Altman, Tracey M. Gianatti, Lindsay Bell, Ben Webb, Caroline Peek, Paul Sanford, Paul Blackwell, Glen Riethmuller, Darshan Sharma, Mike Collins, Frank D'Emden, David Hall, G. P. Manango, D. L. Steverson, Vanessa Stewart, Julie Roche, Peter Rutherford, Imma Farré, Ian Foster, Stephen Charles, Frances Hoyle, N. Milton, M. Osman, L. K. Abbott, W. R. Cookson, S. Darmawanto, Rob Sands, David Mccarthy, Paul Carmody, J. Russell, J. Eyres, G. Fosbery, A. Roe, Phil Nichols, Andrew Bathgate, Anne Wilkins

Crop Updates

This session covers forty papers from different authors:

1. Quality Assurance and industry stewardship, David Jeffries, Better Farm IQ Manager, Cooperative Bulk Handling

2. Sothis: Trifolium dasyurum (Eastern Star clover), A. Loi, B.J. Nutt and C.K. Revell, Department of Agriculture and Food

3. Poor performing patches of the paddock – to ameliorate or live with low yield? Yvette Oliver¹, Michael Robertson¹, Bill Bowden², Kit Leake³and Ashley Bonser³, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems¹, Department of Food and Agriculture², Kellerberrin Farmer³

4. What evidence is there that …

Crop Updates 2006 - Cadoux And Calingiri, Raj Malik, Kelly Winfield, David Stephens, Michael Meuleners, Kari-Lee Falconer, Bill Bowden, Narelle Simpson, Anne Wilkins, Nathan Hancock, Peter Newman, Glenn Adam, Andrew Blake, Caroline Peak, Stephen Davies, Chris Gazey, Bob Gilkes, Dan Evans, Tania Liaghati

Crop Updates

This session covers nine papers from different authors

1. Performance of oaten hay varieties in Western Australian environments, Raj Malik and Kellie Winfield, Department of Agriculture

2. Performance of dwarf potential milling varieties in Western Australian environments, Raj Malik and Kellie Winfield, Department of Agriculture

3. 2006 Seasonal outlook, David Stephens, Michael Meuleners and Kari-Lee Falconer, Department of Agriculture

4. Matching nitrogen supply to crop demand in high rainfall cropping, Bill Bowden, Narelle Simpson Department of Agriculture

5. An overview of the potential for a Biofuels Industry in Western Australia, Anne Wilkins and Nathan Hancock, Department of Agriculture

6. IWM performs over 5 years …

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The Climate Of Hays, Kansas, From 1867 To 1999: Variability, Trends, And Influences, John Heinrichs

Fort Hays Studies Series

Data for a number of possible regional and global climate influences were compared with Hays climate data to characterize the relationships. The analysis of possible influences on Hays climate provided a rich and complex pattern of relationships.

An Evaluation Of Weather And Disease As Causes Of Decline In Two Populations Of Boreal Toads, Rick D. Scherer, Erin Muths, Barry R. Noon, Paul Stephen Corn

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Two populations of boreal toads (Bufo boreas) experienced drastic declines in abundance in the late 1990s. Evidence supported the hypothesis of disease (the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) as the cause of these declines. but other hypotheses had not been evaluated. We used an 11-year capture-recapture data set to evaluate weather and disease as causes of these declines. We developed sets of mathematical models that reflected hypothesized relationships between several weather variables and annual survival rates of adult males in these populations. In addition, models that reflected the possibility that the declines were caused by an introduced fungus …

Radar Meteorology, Jerry Thomason

Honors Theses

Radar, an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging, has been a great aide to the growth of the knowledge of science, especially for uses in weather research.

The discovery of the nature of radar is thought to have been made by Dr. A. H. Taylor and Leo C. Young of the Naval Research Laboratory when they found that radio waves would bounce back from steel. The military perfected radar for its benefits and gradually improved its technique of usage during the years of World War II. The British had its own version of radar and it is believed that its …