Modeling Spatial Distributions Of Tidal Marsh Blue Carbon Using Morphometric Parameters From Lidar, Bonnie Turek

Masters Theses

Tidal marshes serve as important “blue carbon” ecosystems that accrete large amounts of carbon with limited area. While much attention has been paid to the spatial variability of sedimentation within salt marshes, less work has been done to characterize spatial variability in marsh carbon density. Driven by tidal inundation, surface topography, and sediment supply, soil properties in marshes vary spatially with several parameters, including marsh platform elevation and proximity to the marsh edge and tidal creek network. We used lidar to extract these morphometric parameters from tidal marshes to map soil organic carbon (SOC) at the meter scale. Fixed volume …

Geomorphology Of Tidal Wetlands: Impacts Of Extreme And Annual Flood Events To Salt Marsh And Mangrove Systems, Frances R. Griswold

Doctoral Dissertations

Tidal wetlands are vital for buffering coastal settings from the threats of accelerated sea level rise and storms. Understanding the factors that are most influential for the maintenance and recovery of tidal wetlands after extreme events compounded by future accelerated sea level rise is of the utmost importance, yet this knowledge is not well established. Two tidal wetland schemas investigated in this dissertation are mangrove systems in Vieques, Puerto Rico (including robust lagoonal-mangrove forest systems and fringing mangrove forests), and salt marshes in New England. While the climatic forcings, vegetation type, and locations are vastly different for these two tidal …

Identifying New Invasives In The Face Of Climate Change: A Focus On Sleeper Populations, Ayodelé C. O'Uhuru

Masters Theses

Sleeper populations are established populations of a non-native species whose population growth is limited by one or more abiotic or biotic conditions, such as climate change. While the northeastern US is predicted to be a hotspot for future invasions, identifying potential sleeper populations before they become invasive can inform proactive, climate-smart invasive species management. I focused on 169 introduced species that are established in one or more northeastern states. I used the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) framework to systematically identify and review the peer-reviewed literature for these candidate species to quantify their negative ecological and socioeconomic impacts. …

The Global Impact Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet In A Warming World: Using Numerical Modeling And Critical Physical Geography To Assess Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, And Climate Justice

Doctoral Dissertations

Anthropogenic climate change is causing disruptions in the Earth system with negative ramifications for life on our planet. Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations lead to accumulated heat content and the cryosphere is one of the earliest places to show changes in response to rising temperatures. The melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will have myriad effects on global climate due to interconnections and feedbacks between the ice sheet, ocean, and atmosphere. In this dissertation I use numerical modeling and critical geography to assess future climate conditions that occur in response to changes in Antarctic Ice Sheet melt as well as …

Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability During Warm Periods: Integrating Numerical Modeling With Geologic Data, Anna Ruth W. Halberstadt

Doctoral Dissertations

Sea level rise is one of the major social and environmental challenges that threatens modern civilization, yet the response of polar ice sheets to future warming is deeply uncertain. Mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet is projected to dominate global sea level rise in the near future, but how much, and when, remains a key unknown. The challenges associated with projecting Antarctica’s future sea level contribution are derived from a knowledge gap of physical ice sheet processes in a world warmer than today, and a lack of understanding of climatic thresholds that drive potentially irreversible retreat. Future and even …

X-Band Phased-Array Weather-Radar Polarimetry Testbed, William Heberling Iv

Doctoral Dissertations

Phased-array weather radar have potential to replace reflector dish radar in major weather radar networks such as NEXRAD, providing faster update times and greater scan flexibility. However, the use of electronic scanning introduces polarization errors on weather radar measurables, requiring polarimetric bias calibration. The sources of polarimetric bias have been described theoretically, but experimental verification is still limited. Additionally, no standard method of calibration for polarimetric bias exists for phased-arrays. Therefore, the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) presents a fully operational X-Band phased-array weather radar polarimetric testbed. The testbed evaluates the calibration of a planar dual-polarization X-band phased-array radar through …

A Cost-Effective Method To Passively Sample Communities At The Forest Canopy-Aerosphere Interface, Michael Cunningham-Minnick, H. Patrick Roberts, Brian Kane Ph.D., Joan Milam, David I. King Ph.D.

Data and Datasets

HOBO logger data of hourly measurements at canopy-aerosphere interface from June to August above temperate forest on campus of University of Massachusetts. Weather station data (precipitation and wind speeds) from nearby weather station extracted from Mesowest.com and needed for manuscript figures. Code (R language) to recreate foundation of figures in manuscript.

Model Data For 'The Paris Agreement And Climate Justice: Inequitable Impacts Of Sea Level Rise Associated With Temperature Targets', Shaina Sadai, Natalya Gomez, Robert Deconto

Data and Datasets

This is the data repository associated with the manuscript "The Paris Agreement and climate justice: inequitable impacts of sea level rise associated with temperature targets". The data contained here is related to the sea level rise fingerprints generated for the study. These include the projected sea level rise fingerprint data at years 2100, 2200, and 2300 under emissions scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. For RCP4.5 data are from ice sheet simulations which include marine ice sheet instability. For RCP8.5 data is presented for two scenarios- one which includes only marine ice sheet instability and one that includes both marine ice sheet …

Data For "Relic Groundwater And Mega Drought Confound Interpretations Of Water Sustainability And Lithium Extraction In Arid Lands", Brendan J. Moran, David F. Boutt, Sarah V. Mcknight, Jordan Jenckes, Lee Ann Munk, Daniel Corkran, Alexander Kirshen

Data and Datasets

This repository contains raw data from this publication including hydrogeochemistry, model calculations, groundwater levels, and remotely sensed data compiled and extracted using Google Earth Engine.

Coastal Groundwater Catchments Of The Gulf Of Alaska, Aeon Russo

Masters Theses

High latitude mountain environments are experiencing disproportionately adverse effects in a currently changing climate. The Gulf of Alaska (GoA) region is an exemplar of this. Dramatic shifts are occurring in the region’s freshwater reservoirs as glaciers retreat more with each passing year. Research in the region places much focus on observing and predicting climate driven shifts in glacier mass balance, surface discharge, and associated nutrient fluxes to the ocean. On the other hand, coastal groundwater discharge (CGD) is given very little attention. Global and near-global estimates of CGD indicate variable results spanning an order of magnitude. Focusing on regionally specific …

Tourism-Related Climate Change Perspectives: Social Media Conversations About Canada’S Rocky Mountain National Parks, Farshid Mirzaalian, Elizabeth Halpenny

TTRA Canada 2021 Conference

This study employed quantitative social media big data analysis in conjunction with qualitative analysis of postings to better comprehend online lay discourse of climatic change issues in a nature-based tourism destination, Jasper National Park, Canada. Such mixed methodological approaches to big data enable tourism researchers to not only study unstructured social media big data for future-proofing purposes but to address some methodological concerns often raised about solely using corpus linguistic or thematic analyzes. This study unearthed divergent themes regarding tourists’ perceptions of climate change upon visiting JNP, with the most significant discourses on climate grief, education and interpretation, pro- environmental …

Spatial-Temporal Patterns Of Ambient Fine Particulate Matter (Pm 2.5) And Black Carbon (Bc) Pollution In Accra, Abosede S. Alli, Sierra N. Clark, Allison Hughes, James Nimo, Josephine Bedford-Moses, Solomon Baah, Jiayuan Wang, Jose Vallarino, Ernest Agyemang, Benjamin Barratt

Environmental Health Sciences Faculty Publication Series

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is rapidly urbanizing, and ambient air pollution has emerged as a major environmental health concern in growing cities. Yet, effective air quality management is hindered by limited data. We deployed robust, low-cost and low-power devices in a large-scale measurement campaign and characterized within-city variations in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) pollution in Accra, Ghana. Between April 2019 and June 2020, we measured weekly gravimetric (filter-based) and minute-by-minute PM2.5 concentrations at 146 unique locations, comprising of 10 fixed (similar to 1 year) and 136 rotating (7 day) sites covering a range of land-use and source …

Understanding The Combined Impacts Of Weeds And Climate Change On Crops, Montserrat Vilà, Evelyn M. Beaury, Dana M. Blumenthal, Bethany A. Bradley, Regan Early, Brittany B. Laginhas, Alejandro Trillo, Jeffery S. Dukes, Cascade J. B. Sorte, Inés Ibáñez

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Crops worldwide are simultaneously affected by weeds, which reduce yield, and by climate change, which can negatively or positively affect both crop and weed species. While the individual effects of environmental change and of weeds on crop yield have been assessed, the combined effects have not been broadly characterized. To explore the simultaneous impacts of weeds with changes in climate-related environmental conditions on future food production, we conducted a meta-analysis of 171 observations measuring the individual and combined effects of weeds and elevated CO2, drought or warming on 23 crop species. The combined effect of weeds and environmental change tended …

The Role Of Agulhas Leakage In Pliocene Climate Change, Neil Patel

Doctoral Dissertations

The late Pliocene (2.6-3.3 Myr) was an epoch of gradual cooling, with expanding Antarctic ice sheets and sea ice preceding a general Northern Hemisphere glaciation. A decline in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) in the late Pliocene may have decreased Southern Hemisphere oceanic heat transport into the Northern Hemisphere; pre-conditioning it for glaciation. A common explanation for a weakening of the AMOC in paleoclimate is freshwater forcing into the North Atlantic. In this thesis, I posit that a northward shift in the Southern Hemisphere westerlies in the late Pliocene, due to an expanded Antarctic ice sheet, weakens …

Numerical Climate Model Simulations Investigating The Role Of Arctic Sea Ice Export Events In Modulating Deglacial Climate, Anthony J. Joyce

Doctoral Dissertations

Periods of abrupt climate cooling during the last deglaciation (20,000-8,000 yrs ago) are often attributed to glacial outburst floods slowing the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Yet, despite over 40 years of research, conclusive evidence that such events significantly impact climate remains elusive. This study uses a climate model to investigate an alternative freshwater forcing mechanism in which the episodic break-up and mobilization of thick perennial Arctic sea ice might have disrupted large-scale climate. The results presented here show the first evidence that (1) the Arctic Ocean stored enormous volumes of freshwater during colder periods as thick masses of sea …

Hydrologic Structure And Function Of Vernal Pools In South Deerfield, Massachusetts, Charlotte Axthelm

Masters Theses

Vernal pools are small, ephemeral wetlands lacking an inlet or outlet. These wetlands, also known as seasonal pools, are found in a wide range of biomes, and their characteristics vary based on location. While the vegetation of western U.S. pools, and amphibians of eastern U.S. pools have been extensively studied, many aspects of vernal pools have not been fully characterized. In particular, although the general seasonal wetting and drying cycle is understood qualitatively, few studies have attempted to quantify the hydrological regime of vernal pools in New England. As water level variation drives many, if not all, of the characteristics …

A Study On Homogeneous Sheared Stably Stratified Turbulence, Gavin Portwood

Doctoral Dissertations

Homogeneous sheared and stably stratified turbulence is considered as a fundamental flow relevant to the study of geophysical turbulence and, generally, anisotropic turbulence. Numerical experiments are performed via high resolution direct numerical simulation (DNS) in a geophysically-relevant parameter space previously inaccessible to simulation. Turbulent dynamics relevant to the modeling of geophysical hydrodynamics are investigated as a function of mean flow and fluid parameters. An active tuning scheme is implemented to induce temporally stationary turbulent kinetic energy in order to evaluate turbulence that is statistically independent of initial conditions and spatio-temporally homogeneous. Subject to this constraint, the parametric dependence of the …

Wildfires In The Northeastern United States: Evaluating Fire Occurrence And Risk In The Past, Present, And Future, Daniel R. Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

Climate change is one of the most complex and challenging issues facing the world today. A changing climate will affect humankind in many ways and alter our physical environment, presenting ethical challenges in how we respond. The impact of climate change will likely be exacerbated in heavily populated regions of the planet, such as the Northeastern United States (NEUS). The NEUS is comprised of complex, sprawling urban centers and rural regions, both of which are vital to the economic and cultural character of the region. Furthermore, both urban and rural areas in the NEUS contain communities that have been historically …

Introduction To Oceanography – Honors (Geol 103h), Isla Casteneda

Sustainability Education Resources

A general education course designed to acquaint you with the fascinating features of the nearly 71% of our home planet covered by water. These are broad themes that reflect the spirit and value of the general education curriculum that is a part of your UMass experience. As citizens of our small world, we would argue that everyone should take a course like this! With jet service to almost anywhere in the world, financial markets electronically and politically linked for “real time” transactions 24-7, and global populations striving to live as well as we do here in the U.S., it's important …

Mid-Pliocene To Early Pleistocene Sea Surface And Land Temperature History Of Nw Australia Based On Organic Geochemical Proxies From Site U1463, Rebecca Smith

Masters Theses

Ocean gateways facilitate water circulation between ocean basins, and therefore directly impact thermohaline circulation and global climate. In order to better predict the effects of future climate change, it is critical to constrain past changes in ocean gateway behavior, and corresponding changes in thermohaline circulation, particularly during analogue periods for modern climate change. The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) is a primary ocean gateway and vital component of the global conveyor that transports water from the Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean, however due to a lack of long and continuous sedimentary records from locations under its influence, changes in ITF behavior …

Eccentricity Modulation Of Precessional Variation In The Earth’S Climate Response To Astronomical Forcing: A Solution To The 41-Kyr Mystery, Rajarshi Roychowdhury

Doctoral Dissertations

The 41,000-year variability of Earth’s glacial cycles during the late Pliocene-early Pleistocene is usually attributed to variations in Earth’s obliquity (axial tilt). However, a satisfactory explanation for the lack of precessional variation in marine d¹⁸O records, a proxy for ocean temperature and ice-volume, remains contested. Here, a physically based climate model is used to show that the climatic effect of precession is muted in global isotope records due to two different mechanisms, with each dominating as a function of eccentricity. At low eccentricities (e0.019), the time-integrated summer insolation and number of positive degree-days impacting ice sheets varies at …

Air Pressure, Clouds, And Weather, Laura Shofield

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

1) What are basis characteristics of the atmosphere?

2) What is the horizontal and vertical movement of air in a “High” and “Low?”

3) How do clouds form and what can they tell us?

4) How are temperature, pressure and clouds related?

5) Applying concepts to real-time data

Arctic And North Atlantic Paleo-Environmental Reconstructions From Lake Sediments, Gregory A. De Wet

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Juvenile River Herring In Freshwater Lakes: Sampling Approaches For Evaluating Growth And Survival, Matthew T. Devine

Masters Theses

River herring, collectively alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) and blueback herring (A. aestivalis), have experienced substantial population declines over the past five decades due in large part to overfishing, combined with other sources of mortality, and disrupted access to critical freshwater spawning habitats. Anadromous river herring populations are currently assessed by counting adults in rivers during upstream spawning migrations, but no field-based assessment methods exist for estimating juvenile densities in freshwater nursery habitats. Counts of 4-year-old migrating adults are variable and prevent understanding about how mortality acts on different life stages prior to returning to spawn (e.g., juveniles …

Urban Multi-Scale Environmental Predictor - An Extensive Tool For Climate Services In Urban Areas, Fredrik Lindberg, Sue Grimmond, Andrew Gabey, Bei Huang, Christoph W. Kent, Ting Sun, Natalie E. Theeuwes, Leena Järvi, Helen Ward, Izzy Capel-Timms, Yy Chang, Per Jonsson, Niklas Krave, Dongwei Liu, D Meyer, K Frans G. Olofson, Jian-Guo Tan, Dag Wästberg, Lingbo Xue, Zhe Zhang

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

The city based climate service tool UMEP (Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor) is a coupled modelling system that combines models essential for urban climate processes and is developed as an extensive QGIS plugin. An application is presented to illustrate its potential, specifically of the identification of heat waves and cold waves in cities. The tool has broad utility for applications related to outdoor thermal comfort, urban energy consumption, climate change mitigation etc. It includes tools to: enable users to input atmospheric and surface data from multiple sources, prepare meteorological data for use in urban areas, undertake simulations and consider scenarios, and …

Exploring The Relationship Between Climate And Forest Conditions In Forest Classee De La Mondah (Gabon) Using Remote Sensing Data, Mariano Mboumba

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

This study aims to examine the relationship between temperature and precipitation as climatic factors and the vegetation characteristics in Forêt Classée de la Mondah (Gabon). A pixel based spatial analysis procedure with QGIS was used to extract vegetation characteristics from MODIS on Terra, NDVI band, data from February 2000 to December 2015, while temperature and precipitation were monitored from January 1980 to December 2015 to highlight climate fluctuations in the study area. Two regression analyses were conducted : one between temperature and NDVI and the other one between precipitation and NDVI. Results showed that temperature and precipitation did not vary …

Ecological Consequences Of Lost Anadromous Forage Fish In Freshwater Ecosystems, Steven R. Mattocks

Masters Theses

Beginning in the early 1600s, dam construction in New England obstructed anadromous fish access to spawning grounds during migration. As a result, anadromous forage fish populations have declined, which has impacted freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. To determine the impacts of dams on anadromous forage fish and freshwater ecosystems, I used historical and current data to estimate population changes in alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) from 1600-1900. A significant reduction in spawning habitat occurred in New England as a result of 1,642 dams constructed between 1600 and 1900, resulting in 14.8% and 16.6% lake and stream habitat remaining by 1900, …

Ocean Gateways And Glaciation: Planktic Foraminiferal Records From The Southern Ocean, Equatorial Pacific, And Caribbean, Andrew J. Fraass

Doctoral Dissertations

Ocean gateway changes, once the best mechanism for driving abrupt climatic change, have fallen from favor. They have been largely replaced within the literature by changes in CO₂ concentration and orbital forcing. This dissertation looks at three intervals of relative stability (Oligocene), prolonged change (Plio-Pleistocene), or transient events (Oligocene/Miocene boundary) in order to better understand the oceanographic circumstances which govern ‘events’ in the paleoceanographic record. Chapter 1 discusses the chronostratigraphy of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Site U1396 (Expedition 340) in the Caribbean Sea. A combination of paleomagnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, astrochronology, and correlation to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) allows a …

A Paleobathymetric Model And Evolution Of The Brazilian Marginal Basins During The Late Maastrichtian To Eocene Based On Benthic Foraminiferal Biofacies, Renata Moura De Mello

Doctoral Dissertations

Benthic foraminiferal biofacies were delimited for the Maastichtian to upper Eocene of five Brazilian marginal basins (Sergipe-Alagoas, Mucuri, Campos, Santos and Pelotas) and two DSDP Sites 356 and 20C of the western South Altantic. Five biofacies, denoted with letters A to E, were defined using Q-mode cluster analysis and correspondence analysis for all of the 11 sites. The benthic foraminiferal biofacies were used to establish a paleobathymetric and paleoenvironmental model for the Brazilian marginal basins. The model tracks the evolution of the margin as it built seaward and transitioned from abyssal (2000-3000 m) to bathyal (m) and neritic (m) depositional …

Using Digital Elevation Models Derived From Airborne Lidar And Other Remote Sensing Data To Model Channel Networks And Estimate Fluvial Geomorphological Metrics, Noah Slovin

Masters Theses

Recent advances in remote-sensing technologies and analysis methods, specifically airborne-LiDAR elevation data and corresponding geographical information system (GIS) tools, present new opportunities for automated and rapid fluvial geomorphic (FGM) assessments that can cover entire watersheds. In this thesis, semi-automated GIS tools are used to extract channel centerlines and bankfull width values from digital elevation models (DEM) for five New England watersheds. For each study site, four centerlines are mapped. LiDAR and NED lines are delineated using ArcGIS spatial analyst tools with high-resolution (1-m to 2-m) LiDAR DEMs or USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) DEMs, respectively. Resampled LiDAR decreases LiDAR DEM …